Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Begriffsschrift' and 'Our Knowledge of the External World'

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42 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
A sense of timelessness is essential to wisdom [Russell]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 7. Despair over Philosophy
Philosophical disputes are mostly hopeless, because philosophers don't understand each other [Russell]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
Philosophical systems are interesting, but we now need a more objective scientific philosophy [Russell]
Hegel's confusions over 'is' show how vast systems can be built on simple errors [Russell]
Philosophers sometimes neglect truth and distort facts to attain a nice system [Russell]
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
Physicists accept particles, points and instants, while pretending they don't do metaphysics [Russell]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
Frege changed philosophy by extending logic's ability to check the grounds of thinking [Potter on Frege]
When problems are analysed properly, they are either logical, or not philosophical at all [Russell]
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 1. Laws of Thought
We should not describe human laws of thought, but how to correctly track truth [Frege, by Fisher]
4. Formal Logic / C. Predicate Calculus PC / 1. Predicate Calculus PC
I don't use 'subject' and 'predicate' in my way of representing a judgement [Frege]
4. Formal Logic / C. Predicate Calculus PC / 2. Tools of Predicate Calculus / d. Universal quantifier ∀
For Frege, 'All A's are B's' means that the concept A implies the concept B [Frege, by Walicki]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic
Frege has a judgement stroke (vertical, asserting or judging) and a content stroke (horizontal, expressing) [Frege, by Weiner]
The laws of logic are boundless, so we want the few whose power contains the others [Frege]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic
In 1879 Frege developed second order logic [Frege, by Putnam]
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 3. Value of Logic
Logic gives the method of research in philosophy [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
Frege replaced Aristotle's subject/predicate form with function/argument form [Frege, by Weiner]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives
The logical connectives are not objects, but are formal, and need a context [Russell]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 1. Quantification
A quantifier is a second-level predicate (which explains how it contributes to truth-conditions) [Frege, by George/Velleman]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 2. Domain of Quantification
For Frege the variable ranges over all objects [Frege, by Tait]
Frege's domain for variables is all objects, but modern interpretations first fix the domain [Dummett on Frege]
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 3. Objectual Quantification
Frege introduced quantifiers for generality [Frege, by Weiner]
Frege reduced most quantifiers to 'everything' combined with 'not' [Frege, by McCullogh]
5. Theory of Logic / H. Proof Systems / 1. Proof Systems
Proof theory began with Frege's definition of derivability [Frege, by Prawitz]
5. Theory of Logic / H. Proof Systems / 2. Axiomatic Proof
Frege produced axioms for logic, though that does not now seem the natural basis for logic [Frege, by Kaplan]
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 4. Paradoxes in Logic / a. Achilles paradox
The tortoise won't win, because infinite instants don't compose an infinitely long time [Russell]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / f. Mathematical induction
It may be possible to define induction in terms of the ancestral relation [Frege, by Wright,C]
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 6. Logicism / b. Type theory
Frege's logic has a hierarchy of object, property, property-of-property etc. [Frege, by Smith,P]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
Existence is not a first-order property, but the instantiation of a property [Frege, by Read]
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / d. Logical atoms
Atomic facts may be inferrable from others, but never from non-atomic facts [Russell]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / d. Negative facts
A positive and negative fact have the same constituents; their difference is primitive [Russell]
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
With asymmetrical relations (before/after) the reduction to properties is impossible [Russell]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 11. Properties as Sets
When we attribute a common quality to a group, we can forget the quality and just talk of the group [Russell]
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 1. Perceptual Realism / c. Representative realism
Science condemns sense-data and accepts matter, but a logical construction must link them [Russell]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / c. Unperceived sense-data
When sense-data change, there must be indistinguishable sense-data in the process [Russell]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Empirical truths are particular, so general truths need an a priori input of generality [Russell]
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
Objects are treated as real when they connect with other experiences in a normal way [Russell]
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 6. Scepticism Critique
Global scepticism is irrefutable, but can't replace our other beliefs, and just makes us hesitate [Russell]
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
Other minds seem to exist, because their testimony supports realism about the world [Russell, by Grayling]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 4. Compositionality
Frege's account was top-down and decompositional, not bottom-up and compositional [Frege, by Potter]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / a. Experience of time
We never experience times, but only succession of events [Russell]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
The predicate 'exists' is actually a natural language expression for a quantifier [Frege, by Weiner]