Category: Propositions
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Visual and Propositional Contents of That-Clauses: An Aporetic Hexad
Edward of the Logic Museum bids us ruminate upon the following aporetic hexad: We agree that visual and propositional content can be the same. The content-clause ‘that a man was dead’ specifies a content that can be seen (‘the armour-bearer saw (or seemed to see) that a man was dead’) or told (‘the armour-bearer was…
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Pre-Print: Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology
The following review article is scheduled to appear later this year in Studia Neoscholastica. The editor grants me permission to reproduce it here should anyone have comments that might lead to its improvement. REVIEW ARTICLE William F. Vallicella Peter van Inwagen, Existence: Essays in Ontology, Cambridge University Press, 2014, viii + 261 pp. This volume…
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Peter van Inwagen, “A Theory of Properties,” Exposition and Critique
This entry is a summary and critique of Peter van Inwagen's "A Theory of Properties," an article which first appeared in 2004 and now appears as Chapter 8 of his Existence: Essays in Ontology (Cambridge University Press, 2014, pp. 153-182.) Andrew Bailey has made it available on-line. (Thanks Andrew!) I will be quoting from the…
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Language and Reality
London Ed sends his thoughts on language and reality. My comments are in blue. Still mulling over the relation between language and reality. Train of thought below. I tried to convert it to an aporetic polyad, but failed. The tension is between the idea that propositions are (1) mind-dependent and (2) have parts and so…
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Lukasiewicz on Logical Form
London Ed writes, I read and excerpted the chapter. I am not mistaken. Also, what he says seems correct to me. He claims that logic is not formal, insofar as it is concerned with the 'laws of thought'. He says "Thought is a psychical phenomenon, and psychical phenomena have no extension. What is meant by…
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*Every Proposition is Affirmative*
Nicholas Rescher cites this example from Buridan. The proposition is false, but not self-refuting. If every proposition is affirmative, then of course *Every proposition is affirmative* is affirmative. The self-reference seems innocuous, a case of self-instantiation. But *Every proposition is affirmative* has as a logical consequence *No proposition is negative.* This follows by Obversion, assuming…
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From the Laws of Logic to the Existence of God
James N. Anderson and Greg Welty have published a paper entitled The Lord of Non-Contradiction: An Argument for God from Logic. Having worked out similar arguments in unpublished manuscripts, I am very sympathetic to the project of arguing from the existence of necessary truths to the necessary existence of divine mind. Here is a quick sketch of…
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Are Propositions Counterexamples to Brentano’s Thesis?
Franz Brentano, for whom intentionality is the mark of the mental, is committed to the thesis that all instances of (intrinsic) intentionality are instances of mentality. Propositions and dispositions are apparent counterexamples. For they are nonmental yet intrinsically object-directed. Whether they are also real counterexamples is something we should discuss. This post discusses (Fregean) propositions. Later,…
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Times as Maximal Propositions
1. Here are three temporal platitudes: The wholly past is no longer present; the wholly future is not yet present; the present alone is present. Here are three closely related controversial metaphysical theses: the wholly past, being no longer is not; the wholly future, being not yet, is not; the present alone is. The second trio…
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Time, Truth, and Truth-Making: An Antilogism Revisited and Transmogrified
Earlier, I presented the following, which looks to be an antilogism. An antilogism, by definition, is an inconsistent triad. This post considers whether the triad really is logically inconsistent, and so really is an antilogism. 1. Temporally Unrestricted Excluded Middle: The principle that every declarative sentence is either true, or if not true, then false…
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Excluded Middle and Future-Tensed Sentences: An Aporetic Triad
Do you remember the prediction, made in 1999, that the DOW would reach 36,000 in a few years? Since that didn't happen, I am inclined to say that Glassman and Hasset's prediction was wrong and was wrong at the time the prediction was made. I take that to mean that the content of their prediction…
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Fregean Propositions, Unmereological Compositions, and Bradley’s Regress
Steven Nemes writes and I respond in blue: I know you're in a bit of a mereology phase at the moment, but I figured I'd shoot this by you. Mereology is the theory of parts and wholes. Now propositions, whether Fregean or Russellian, are wholes of parts. So mereology is not irrelevant to questions about…
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Richard Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition
The current issue of Dialectica (vol. 64, no. 2, June 2010) includes a symposium on Richard Gaskin, The Unity of the Proposition (Oxford 2008). Gaskin's precis of his work is followed by critical evaluations by William F. Vallicella ("Gaskin on the Unity of the Proposition"), Manuel Garcia-Carpintero ("Gaskin's Ideal Unity"), and Benjamin Schnieder ("Propositions United:…
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Divine Simplicity and Truthmakers: Notes on Brower
1. One of the entailments of the doctrine of divine simplicity (DDS) is that God is identical to: God's omniscience, God's omnipotence, and in general God's X-ness, where 'X' ranges over the divine attributes. And it is easy to see that if God = God's F-ness, and God = God's G-ness, then (by transitivity of…