Week Fifteen Cont

1.
A. Is that door open?
B. The door is open

Do A and B express the same thoughts? Do they have the same senses?

2. Are there such things as false thoughts? Why/why not?

3. If there are such things as false thoughts, what makes them false? (Hard question)

4. Does
A. (not (not (p) ) )   express the same thought as
B. p

Week Fifteen

1. What is it for a thought to be 'true'?
2. Do we need a truth predicate?
3. What is the relationship between assertoric sentences and thoughts?
4. What is a thought?
5. Do you agree with Frege's answers to the above questions?

Week Thirteen

1. What is conceptual analysis?

2. Think of some other conceptual analysis you have done in other philosophy courses? What was the purpose? What was the method?

3. If we 'recarve' a sentence/thought, is it the same thought? Why might you think not?

4. Whats the cognitive criterion for thoughts?

5. How should we individuate thoughts?

6. What was Frege trying to preserve in his conceptual analysis? What do you think, what did Dummet think, and what does Blanchette think?

Week Twelve Cont

1. What is an extension of a concept?
2. What is Basic Law V, and why does Frege need it?
3. What is Russell's paradox?
4. How should we respond to Russell's paradox?

Week Twelve

NB. Please don't get too caught up in Freges own invented notation: hardly anyone uses it anymore. Concentrate on the ideas.

1. What is a definition? What do you think, what did Frege think?
2. Frege launches yet another attack on psychologism in the passage we read this week. Are you convinced?
3. What is the extension of a concept?
4. Do sentences really refer to truth values? If they don't, what do they refer to?
5. What does Frege say on pg 210 about extension and sets? Do you agree?
6. Much of the preface is a summary of what Frege has already covered. Does he sound pessimistic? Why? Should he have been? Do you think its a fair summary?

And from last time, if we have the time:

1. Should totality have to apply to natural languages or just the concept script. Someone (Kenny? Paul?) said the problem reoccurs in mathematics as there are some functions which 'don't work' in certain domains (e.g. Non Eculdian geometry). What do people think of this?

2. Is Blanchette's definition of completeness circular? Does it matter?

Week Eleven Cont

From last time:
3. Are thoughts public? Why/why not?


New Questions
1. What are sharp boundaries?
2. What does Frege think about sharp boundaries and concepts?
3. Do any concepts have sharp boundaries?
4. Does every concept have sharp boundaries? If this was true, would there ever be any 'Ceasar problems' (not just for number functions but for any terms)
5. What does Weiner think and who agrees with her?
6. What is linguistic completeness?
7. Is english lingustily complete?
8. What happens when mathematicians expand their domains? Discovery or invention, and why does it matter?

Week Eleven

1. What do you think a 'thought' is? What did Frege think? Did it change?

2. If me and you are thinking/grasping the same thing, what does that involve?

3. Are thoughts public? Why/why not?

4. Can we fully translate sentences from a different language? Does anything get 'lost in translation'?

5. Can different sentences express the same thought?

6. Do 1+1=2 and 1+2=3 express the same thought?

7. What is recarving?

8. What does it take to grasp a thought?

Week Ten

The Dummet is up on Canvas by the way.

1. Why is it that " in one sense we have progressed very little since Frege"? Do you agree?

2. Look at the account Dummet gives of Frege (esp. around pg 89). Do you agree with Dummet?

3. What are the differences between Tascheck's Frege and Dummet's Frege?

4. 'Meaning' and 'theory of meaning' are tricky phrases. Does dummet use them differently to Frege? Look esp. at pg 84 ish and pg 91 onwards.

5. What is the realtionship between the following...
sense of
truth value of
reference of
information convayed by
 a sentence.

6. What are senses? Contrast Dummets view with Russells and Pauls. Which is the most succesful? Why? Which did Frege intend?

7. How rich an answer to qu 6 do we need to give? (eg will 'mode of presentation' be enough?).

Week Nine Cont

1. What is what Tashcek calls the 'logical basis for sense'?
2. Look back at Sense and Reference: do you agree that Tascheck's is the right interpretation? (Especially think about the phrase 'cognitive significance' and if thats a problem for Tasheck)
3.What is the Russellian view, and what is the neo-Russellian view? What motivated the departure?
4. What is the cluster view of descriptions? Does it resemble what Devin and Kenny were advocating yesterday? Does it work?
5. How might the neo-Russellian (or Millian) respond to Frege's puzzle about identity? Does it work?
6. Recall the puzzle of ambiguity we discussed last time. (Google this if you don't remember). Is it more of a problem for the Millian or the Fregan or is it equal?

Week Nine

1. What is the distinction between sense and reference?
2. What is the Millian view of what constitutes the meaning of a name? (We talked about this last time; if you don't remember google it). How does this fall foul of the puzzle Frege poses at the start of the paper? Is there any way of saving Millianism from this puzzle?
3. Empty names are names like 'Santa' 'Sherlock Holmes'. Do they have meaning? In virtue of what?
4. What does Frege mean by differing 'cognitive significance'?
5. Frege thinks senses are public. Do you agree?
6. Are senses descriptions? Why/why not?
7. What might the identity criteria for senses be?
8. What do you think of Frege's proposal that assertoric sentences name The True or The False?

Week Eight

1. Why does Frege say 'the concept horse is not a concept'?
2. How problematic is it to endorse the above?
3. How much does the linguistic turn influence the moves here?
4. What is what Parons calls Frege's strict theory about the functioning of ordinary language?
5. Is this strict theory flawed, and why?
6. What is Parsons solution to the concept horse problem? What do you think of it?
7. Is the concept horse a concept?

Week Six

Before/during or after reading the paper, find out what the 'problem of the unity of the proposition' (sometimes called 'Bradley's regress') is. We'll be talking about it in class.

Thinking questions:
1. Why does Frege say "what is logically simple cannot have a definition". Do you agree?
2. What influence does the Linguistic Turn have on the arguments you find in 'On Concept and Object'
3. Is the concept horse a concept? Why?
4. Frege says he was not trying to give a definition of a concept, only 'hints'. He is confronted, he says, by 'an awkwardness of language'. What do you think of this?
5. Why is the behavior of a concept 'essentially predicative', and why does it matter?
6. Frege holds that concepts are unsaturated, and objects are saturated. What does this mean?
7. How might the saturated/unsaturated distinction help solve the problem of the unity of the proposition?

Week Five Cont

1. What 2 step process does Blanchette claim Frege thinks we can use to demonstrate the ultimate grounds for a body of truths? Have you seen this two step process at work during the topics covered in this course?

2. What does Frege 'reduce' the concept of ordering into?

3.What is it to 'reduce' a concept?

4. What is a stipulative definition, and how does Blanchette claim Frege uses them?

5. How does Frege use 'definition' in the Foundations when he is discussing the possibility of a definition of number?

6. Do you think Frege uses 'definition' in different ways?

7. How much of a distance is there between B and B* on pg 24? Why does it matter?

Week Five

1. What are the 4 formulations of the JC prob which Greimann details?
2. Does Hume's principle alone solve (any versions of) the JC prob?
3. Why does Heck think that the logical formulation of the JC prob is not a problem for Frege (or at least, for Frege as found in Foundations)? How much does it matter if the JC prob only applies to latter Frege?
4. What is the generalised context principle for reference? How does it affect the semantic formulation of the JC prob?
5. How are the different JC probs related to each other? Are any more prior than the others?

Week Four Cont

1. What is the lingustic turn?
2. How much of the philosophy you have encountered so far (not just in my course but in others too) seems to be influenced by the lingustic turn?
3. Why does Frege want to devlop a logically perfect language?
4.In what ways is Frege's language more expressive than natural language, and in what ways is it less?
5. How should we analyze statements containing the identity symbol?
6. Are complete expressions which designate objects the only things which can meaningfully appear either side of an identity symbol?

NB Weiner uses 'Sense and Meaning' to talk about the paper which is also commonly called 'Sense and Reference'

Week Four Questions

1. What is the context principle?

2. What is the principle of individuation?

3. What is the principle of compositionality?

4. Does compositionality threaten the context principle?

5. On pg 17 Linnebo says "Does this show that my account is committed to an extravagant and implausible ontology"? What is he talking about, and does it commit him to an implausible ontology?

6. Do we think of natural numbers as cardinals or ordinals? Why does it matter?

Week Three Cont

Think about this question from last time, which we didn't get a chance to address much:

3. Why must we not ask for the meaning of a word in isolation?

Also think about the following:

1. Frege offers what looks to be a promising and natural definition of number in passage 55 (pg 105 of the Beany). What is this definition and why does Frege reject it?

2. What is the Julius Caesar problem?

3. Frege offers an argument in passage 57 (pg 106 in Beany) that numbers must be objects. What is the argument, and what do you think of it?

4. What does Frege mean by an 'independent object'?

5. Frege says 'not every objective object has a location'. Do you agree?

6. What is Hume's principle?

7.Can we define numbers in terms of the extension of concepts? How?

8. Are numbers objects? Why/why not?

Week Three Questions

1. What insight do normal mathematicians have to the nature of numbers? (What do you think, what does Frege think)

2. Why does Frege think that images and thoughts in our mind are not what mathematics is about?

3. Why must we not ask for the meaning of a word in isolation?

4. The study of arithmetic involves studying an infinite number of truths. Can we then aximotize it?

5. Mill holds that the definition of each number involves the assertion of a physical fact. Do you agree? Did Frege? Why/why not?

6. Does the number 0 have different ontological status than the number 1? Is 0 a number at all?

Week Two Cont

Hi All,

For tomorrow, think back about the questions we talked about last time. Have you changed your opinion about any of them in light of the discussion, or reading the Goldfarb paper?

(Especially think about:

1. What was Frege's goal when writing the concept script?

5. Is logic a branch of psychology? What do you think? What did Frege think?

7. Why might we want to axiomatize logic?

8. What is logic?)

Also have a think about the following questions:

1. What is the difference between what Goldfarb calls the modern conception of logic (schematic), and Freges conception of logic (universalist)?

2. Should logic have a truth predicate? Why/why not?

3. What is it to show that an inference is justified?

Week Two Questions

Think about these questions before tuesday. I may well add some more to think about for thursday, depending on how much progress we make.

1. What was Frege's goal when writing the concept script?

2. Consider the sentence:

'Katie marked the essays'

What is the (lingustic) function?

How many (lingustic) arguments does it have, and what are they?

Why might the function/argument distinction be helpful?

3. What is Frege's metaphor with the microscope and the eye? What does it show?

4. What kind of inferences could syllogistic logic not cope with?

5. Is logic a branch of psychology? What do you think? What did Frege think?

6. If logic isnt a branch of phsychology, how does this affect (if at all) Frege's defintion of the judgement stroke?

7. Why might we want to axiomatize logic?

8. What is logic?