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All the ideas for 'Existence and Quantification', 'Reference and Definite Descriptions' and 'Reference and Generality (3rd ed)'

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23 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
5745 Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
8789 Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / a. Descriptions
7760 Russell only uses descriptions attributively, and Strawson only referentially [Donnellan, by Lycan]
5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions
5811 A definite description can have a non-referential use [Donnellan]
5812 Definite descriptions are 'attributive' if they say something about x, and 'referential' if they pick x out [Donnellan]
5814 'The x is F' only presumes that x exists; it does not actually entail the existence [Donnellan]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / d. Counting via concepts
12154 Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / b. Being and existence
16966 Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
16965 All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
16963 Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
16964 Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
4216 Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe]
18966 Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / e. Ontological commitment problems
14490 You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
16961 In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
8969 We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
16075 Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach]
12152 Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
16073 Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman]
19. Language / B. Reference / 4. Descriptive Reference / b. Reference by description
10435 A definite description 'the F' is referential if the speaker could thereby be referring to something not-F [Donnellan, by Sainsbury]
10451 Donnellan is unclear whether the referential-attributive distinction is semantic or pragmatic [Bach on Donnellan]
5813 A description can successfully refer, even if its application to the subject is not believed [Donnellan]
19. Language / B. Reference / 5. Speaker's Reference
5815 Whether a definite description is referential or attributive depends on the speaker's intention [Donnellan]