Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Existence and Quantification', 'Intro: Theories of Vagueness' and 'Structure and Nature'

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29 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
S5 collapses iterated modalities (◊□P→□P, and ◊◊P→◊P) [Keefe/Smith]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 7. Second-Order Logic
Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / a. Structuralism
I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / b. Being and existence
Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / b. Vagueness of reality
Objects such as a cloud or Mount Everest seem to have fuzzy boundaries in nature [Keefe/Smith]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / c. Vagueness as ignorance
If someone is borderline tall, no further information is likely to resolve the question [Keefe/Smith]
The simplest approach, that vagueness is just ignorance, retains classical logic and semantics [Keefe/Smith]
The epistemic view of vagueness must explain why we don't know the predicate boundary [Keefe/Smith]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / f. Supervaluation for vagueness
Supervaluationism keeps true-or-false where precision can be produced, but not otherwise [Keefe/Smith]
Vague statements lack truth value if attempts to make them precise fail [Keefe/Smith]
Some of the principles of classical logic still fail with supervaluationism [Keefe/Smith]
The semantics of supervaluation (e.g. disjunction and quantification) is not classical [Keefe/Smith]
Supervaluation misunderstands vagueness, treating it as a failure to make things precise [Keefe/Smith]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 10. Vagueness / g. Degrees of vagueness
A third truth-value at borderlines might be 'indeterminate', or a value somewhere between 0 and 1 [Keefe/Smith]
People can't be placed in a precise order according to how 'nice' they are [Keefe/Smith]
If truth-values for vagueness range from 0 to 1, there must be someone who is 'completely tall' [Keefe/Smith]
How do we decide if my coat is red to degree 0.322 or 0.321? [Keefe/Smith]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / c. Commitment of predicates
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
Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe]
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
You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine]
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine]
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
Vague predicates involve uncertain properties, uncertain objects, and paradoxes of gradual change [Keefe/Smith]
Many vague predicates are multi-dimensional; 'big' involves height and volume; heaps include arrangement [Keefe/Smith]
If there is a precise borderline area, that is not a case of vagueness [Keefe/Smith]