Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Menedemus, Rudolph Carnap and Michael Frede

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31 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 2. Ancient Philosophy / e. Late classical philosophy
In the third century Stoicism died out, replaced by Platonism, with Aristotelian ethics [Frede,M]
In late antiquity nearly all philosophers were monotheists [Frede,M]
1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 3. Earlier European Philosophy / b. Early medieval philosophy
Earlier views of Aristotle were dominated by 'Categories' [Frede,M]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 2. Possibility of Metaphysics
No possible evidence could decide the reality of numbers, so it is a pseudo-question [Carnap]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 7. Against Metaphysics
Metaphysics uses empty words, or just produces pseudo-statements [Carnap]
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
The early philosophers thought that reason has its own needs and desires [Frede,M]
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 1. Logical Consequence
Carnap defined consequence by contradiction, but this is unintuitive and changes with substitution [Tarski on Carnap]
5. Theory of Logic / C. Ontology of Logic / 4. Logic by Convention
Each person is free to build their own logic, just by specifying a syntax [Carnap]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / a. Early logicism
Questions about numbers are answered by analysis, and are analytic, and hence logically true [Carnap]
Logical positivists incorporated geometry into logicism, saying axioms are just definitions [Carnap, by Shapiro]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence
Internal questions about abstractions are trivial, and external ones deeply problematic [Carnap, by Szabó]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
Existence questions are 'internal' (within a framework) or 'external' (concerning the whole framework) [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
To be 'real' is to be an element of a system, so we cannot ask reality questions about the system itself [Carnap]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
A linguistic framework involves commitment to entities, so only commitment to the framework is in question [Carnap]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules [Carnap]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 9. Ship of Theseus
Insurance on the original ship would hardly be paid out if the plank version was wrecked! [Frede,M]
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
In the truth-functional account a burnt-up match was soluble because it never entered water [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Empiricists tend to reject abstract entities, and to feel sympathy with nominalism [Carnap]
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 3. Pragmatism
New linguistic claims about entities are not true or false, but just expedient, fruitful or successful [Carnap]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Carnap tried to define all scientific predicates in terms of primitive relations, using type theory [Carnap, by Button]
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
All linguistic forms in science are merely judged by their efficiency as instruments [Carnap]
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 2. Sources of Free Will
For Christians man has free will by creation in God's image (as in Genesis) [Frede,M]
The idea of free will achieved universal acceptance because of Christianity [Frede,M]
The Stoics needed free will, to allow human choices in a divinely providential cosmos [Frede,M]
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 4. Structure of Concepts / g. Conceptual atomism
All concepts can be derived from a few basics, making possible one science of everything [Carnap, by Brody]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
The intension of a sentence is the set of all possible worlds in which it is true [Carnap, by Kaplan]
19. Language / F. Communication / 6. Interpreting Language / a. Translation
All translation loses some content (but language does not create reality) [Carnap]
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
There is no will for Plato or Aristotle, because actions come directly from perception of what is good [Frede,M]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
The greatest good is not the achievement of desire, but to desire what is proper [Menedemus, by Diog. Laertius]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 4. Dualist Religion
The Gnostic demiurge (creator) is deluded, and doesn't care about us [Frede,M]