14 ideas
13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
9169 | A statement can be metaphysically necessary and epistemologically contingent [Putnam] |
5819 | Conceivability is no proof of possibility [Putnam] |
13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
9168 | I can't distinguish elm trees, but I mean by 'elm' the same set of trees as everybody else [Putnam] |
5820 | 'Water' has an unnoticed indexical component, referring to stuff around here [Putnam] |
9170 | We need to recognise the contribution of society and of the world in determining reference [Putnam] |
5817 | Language is more like a cooperative steamship than an individual hammer [Putnam] |
20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
5818 | If water is H2O in the actual world, there is no possible world where it isn't H2O [Putnam] |