80 ideas
15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
18019 | People have dreams which involve category mistakes [Magidor] |
17998 | Category mistakes are either syntactic, semantic, or pragmatic [Magidor] |
18012 | Category mistakes as syntactic needs a huge number of fine-grained rules [Magidor] |
18013 | Embedded (in 'he said that…') category mistakes show syntax isn't the problem [Magidor] |
18011 | Category mistakes seem to be universal across languages [Magidor] |
18016 | Two good sentences should combine to make a good sentence, but that might be absurd [Magidor] |
18015 | The normal compositional view makes category mistakes meaningful [Magidor] |
18017 | If a category mistake is synonymous across two languages, that implies it is meaningful [Magidor] |
18021 | Category mistakes are meaningful, because metaphors are meaningful category mistakes [Magidor] |
18030 | A good explanation of why category mistakes sound wrong is that they are meaningless [Magidor] |
18031 | If a category mistake has unimaginable truth-conditions, then it seems to be meaningless [Magidor] |
18032 | Category mistakes are neither verifiable nor analytic, so verificationism says they are meaningless [Magidor] |
18034 | Category mistakes play no role in mental life, so conceptual role semantics makes them meaningless [Magidor] |
18037 | Maybe when you say 'two is green', the predicate somehow fails to apply? [Magidor] |
18039 | If category mistakes aren't syntax failure or meaningless, maybe they just lack a truth-value? [Magidor] |
18041 | Category mistakes suffer from pragmatic presupposition failure (which is not mere triviality) [Magidor] |
18055 | In 'two is green', 'green' has a presupposition of being coloured [Magidor] |
18056 | Category mistakes because of presuppositions still have a truth value (usually 'false') [Magidor] |
18057 | 'Numbers are coloured and the number two is green' seems to be acceptable [Magidor] |
18058 | Maybe the presuppositions of category mistakes are the abilities of things? [Magidor] |
18059 | The presuppositions in category mistakes reveal nothing about ontology [Magidor] |
15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
18040 | Intensional logic maps logical space, showing which predicates are compatible or incompatible [Magidor] |
17997 | Some suggest that the Julius Caesar problem involves category mistakes [Magidor] |
15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
18060 | We can explain the statue/clay problem by a category mistake with a false premise [Magidor] |
15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
18020 | Propositional attitudes relate agents to either propositions, or meanings, or sentence/utterances [Magidor] |
18035 | Two sentences with different meanings can, on occasion, have the same content [Magidor] |
18018 | To grasp 'two' and 'green', must you know that two is not green? [Magidor] |
18008 | Generative semantics says structure is determined by semantics as well as syntactic rules [Magidor] |
18010 | 'John is easy to please' and 'John is eager to please' have different deep structure [Magidor] |
18053 | The semantics of a sentence is its potential for changing a context [Magidor] |
17999 | Strong compositionality says meaningful expressions syntactically well-formed are meaningful [Magidor] |
18000 | Weaker compositionality says meaningful well-formed sentences get the meaning from the parts [Magidor] |
18014 | Understanding unlimited numbers of sentences suggests that meaning is compositional [Magidor] |
18001 | Are there partial propositions, lacking truth value in some possible worlds? [Magidor] |
18036 | A sentence can be meaningful, and yet lack a truth value [Magidor] |
18051 | In the pragmatic approach, presuppositions are assumed in a context, for successful assertion [Magidor] |
18043 | The infelicitiousness of trivial truth is explained by uninformativeness, or a static context-set [Magidor] |
18042 | The infelicitiousness of trivial falsity is explained by expectations, or the loss of a context-set [Magidor] |
18047 | A presupposition is what makes an utterance sound wrong if it is not assumed? [Magidor] |
18048 | A test for presupposition would be if it provoked 'hey wait a minute - I have no idea that....' [Magidor] |
18049 | The best tests for presupposition are projecting it to negation, conditional, conjunction, questions [Magidor] |
18050 | If both s and not-s entail a sentence p, then p is a presupposition [Magidor] |
18054 | Why do certain words trigger presuppositions? [Magidor] |
18028 | Gricean theories of metaphor involve conversational implicatures based on literal meanings [Magidor] |
18029 | Non-cognitivist views of metaphor says there are no metaphorical meanings, just effects of the literal [Magidor] |
18022 | Metaphors tend to involve category mistakes, by joining disjoint domains [Magidor] |
18024 | One theory says metaphors mean the same as the corresponding simile [Magidor] |
18023 | Theories of metaphor divide over whether they must have literal meanings [Magidor] |
18025 | The simile view of metaphors removes their magic, and won't explain why we use them [Magidor] |
18026 | Maybe a metaphor is just a substitute for what is intended literally, like 'icy' for 'unemotional' [Magidor] |
18027 | Metaphors as substitutes for the literal misses one predicate varying with context [Magidor] |
15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |