Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'A Plea for Substitutional Quantification' and 'fragments/reports'

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5 ideas

4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 4. Alethic Modal Logic
9470 Modal logic is not an extensional language [Parsons,C]
     Full Idea: Modal logic is not an extensional language.
     From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.159 n8)
     A reaction: [I record this for investigation. Possible worlds seem to contain objects]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 4. Substitutional Quantification
9469 Substitutional existential quantifier may explain the existence of linguistic entities [Parsons,C]
     Full Idea: I argue (against Quine) that the existential quantifier substitutionally interpreted has a genuine claim to express a concept of existence, which may give the best account of linguistic abstract entities such as propositions, attributes, and classes.
     From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
     A reaction: Intuitively I have my doubts about this, since the whole thing sounds like a verbal and conventional game, rather than anything with a proper ontology. Ruth Marcus and Quine disagree over this one.
9468 On the substitutional interpretation, '(∃x) Fx' is true iff a closed term 't' makes Ft true [Parsons,C]
     Full Idea: For the substitutional interpretation of quantifiers, a sentence of the form '(∃x) Fx' is true iff there is some closed term 't' of the language such that 'Ft' is true. For the objectual interpretation some object x must exist such that Fx is true.
     From: Charles Parsons (A Plea for Substitutional Quantification [1971], p.156)
     A reaction: How could you decide if it was true for 't' if you didn't know what object 't' referred to?
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
1556 By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
7903 The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').