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All the ideas for 'Five Milestones of Empiricism', 'Scientific Thought' and 'Nominalism and Substitutional Quantifiers'

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23 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition
Contextual definition shifted the emphasis from words to whole sentences [Quine]
Bentham's contextual definitions preserved terms after their denotation became doubtful [Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
The nominalist is tied by standard semantics to first-order, denying higher-order abstracta [Marcus (Barcan)]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
Anything which refers tends to be called a 'name', even if it isn't a noun [Marcus (Barcan)]
Nominalists see proper names as a main vehicle of reference [Marcus (Barcan)]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
Nominalists should quantify existentially at first-order, and substitutionally when higher [Marcus (Barcan)]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 2. Domain of Quantification
Quantifiers are needed to refer to infinitely many objects [Marcus (Barcan)]
Substitutional semantics has no domain of objects, but place-markers for substitutions [Marcus (Barcan)]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
Maybe a substitutional semantics for quantification lends itself to nominalism [Marcus (Barcan)]
Substitutional language has no ontology, and is just a way of speaking [Marcus (Barcan)]
A true universal sentence might be substitutionally refuted, by an unnamed denumerable object [Marcus (Barcan)]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being
Is being just referent of the verb 'to be'? [Marcus (Barcan)]
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
Nominalists say predication is relations between individuals, or deny that it refers [Marcus (Barcan)]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 3. Objects in Thought
If objects are thoughts, aren't we back to psychologism? [Marcus (Barcan)]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad]
If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 2. Defining Identity
Substitutivity won't fix identity, because expressions may be substitutable, but not refer at all [Marcus (Barcan)]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
In scientific theories sentences are too brief to be independent vehicles of empirical meaning [Quine]
Empiricism improvements: words for ideas, then sentences, then systems, then no analytic, then naturalism [Quine]
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique
Holism in language blurs empirical synthetic and empty analytic sentences [Quine]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett]
We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad]