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Ideas of Bob Hale, by Text

[British, fl. 2001, Professor at Glasgow Univerity.]

1987 Abstract Objects
Ch.1 p.3 The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage
Ch.1 p.4 Questions about objects are questions about certain non-vacuous singular terms
Ch.1 p.13 Objections to Frege: abstracta are unknowable, non-independent, unstatable, unindividuated
Ch.2 p.18 Often the same singular term does not ensure reliable inference
Ch.2.II p.21 Plenty of clear examples have singular terms with no ontological commitment
Ch.2.II p.24 An expression is a genuine singular term if it resists elimination by paraphrase
Ch.2.II p.27 We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?'
Ch.2.II p.28 We should decide whether singular terms are genuine by their usage
Ch.2.II p.33 Realists take universals to be the referrents of both adjectives and of nouns
Ch.2.II p.39 We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion
Ch.2.III p.41 If singular terms can't be language-neutral, then we face a relativity about their objects
Ch.3 Intro p.46 It is doubtful if one entity, a universal, can be picked out by both predicates and abstract nouns
Ch.3.1 p.49 Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal
Ch.3.1 p.49 If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract
Ch.3.I p.46 The abstract/concrete distinction is based on what is perceivable, causal and located
Ch.3.II p.53 Colours and points seem to be both concrete and abstract
Ch.3.II p.55 Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not
Ch.3.III p.56 Token-letters and token-words are concrete objects, type-letters and type-words abstract
Ch.3.III p.56 The abstract/concrete distinction is in the relations in the identity-criteria of object-names
Ch.3.III p.57 The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations
Ch.3.III p.57 If F can't have location, there is no problem of things having F in different locations
Ch.3.III p.59 Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated
Ch.3.III p.61 There is a hierarchy of abstraction, based on steps taken by equivalence relations
1996 Absolute Necessities
p.16 Maybe not-p is logically possible, but p is metaphysically necessary, so the latter is not absolute
1 p.94 'Relative' necessity is just a logical consequence of some statements ('strong' if they are all true)
1 p.94 A strong necessity entails a weaker one, but not conversely; possibilities go the other way
2 p.95 Metaphysical necessity says there is no possibility of falsehood
3 p.100 'Broadly' logical necessities are derived (in a structure) entirely from the concepts
4 p.101 Absolute necessity might be achievable either logically or metaphysically
p.10 p.10 Logical necessities are true in virtue of the nature of all logical concepts
p.9 p.9 Conceptual necessities are made true by all concepts
1998 Reals by Abstraction
p.27 The real numbers may be introduced by abstraction as ratios of quantities [Hale/Wright]
2002 The Source of Necessity
p.301 p.301 Explanation of necessity must rest on something necessary or something contingent
p.302 p.302 If necessity rests on linguistic conventions, those are contingent, so there is no necessity
p.308 p.308 Why is this necessary, and what is necessity in general; why is this necessary truth true, and why necessary?
p.311 p.311 The explanation of a necessity can be by a truth (which may only happen to be a necessary truth)
P.313 p.313 Concept-identities explain how we know necessities, not why they are necessary
2013 Necessary Beings
Intro p.1 You cannot understand what exists without understanding possibility and necessity
Intro p.5 The big challenge for essentialist views of modality is things having necessary existence
03.2 p.68 There is no gap between a fact that p, and it is true that p; so we only have the truth-condtions for p
03.3.2 p.71 What are these worlds, that being true in all of them makes something necessary?
03.4.1 p.82 Interesting supervenience must characterise the base quite differently from what supervenes on it
03.4.3 p.88 It seems that we cannot show that modal facts depend on non-modal facts
04.1 p.98 Logical necessity is something which is true, no matter what else is the case
04.1 p.99 'Absolute necessity' is when there is no restriction on the things which necessitate p
04.5 p.114 Maybe each type of logic has its own necessity, gradually becoming broader
04.5 p.115 Logical and metaphysical necessities differ in their vocabulary, and their underlying entities
05.2 p.120 Maybe conventionalism applies to meaning, but not to the truth of propositions expressed
05.5.2 p.136 Absolute necessities are necessarily necessary
06.4 p.151 A canonical defintion specifies the type of thing, and what distinguish this specimen
06.6 p.158 Essentialism doesn't explain necessity reductively; it explains all necessities in terms of a few basic natures
07.1 p.165 If necessity derives from essences, how do we explain the necessary existence of essences?
07.4 p.177 Add Hume's principle to logic, to get numbers; arithmetic truths rest on the nature of the numbers
08.2 p.182 If second-order variables range over sets, those are just objects; properties and relations aren't sets
09.2 p.204 The two Barcan principles are easily proved in fairly basic modal logic
09.2 n7 p.205 Unlike axiom proofs, natural deduction proofs needn't focus on logical truths and theorems
10.3 p.227 Possible worlds make every proposition true or false, which endorses classical logic
11.2 p.251 The molecules may explain the water, but they are not what 'water' means
11.3 p.259 With a negative free logic, we can dispense with the Barcan formulae
11.3.7 p.276 If a chair could be made of slightly different material, that could lead to big changes