Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

A detailed argument against a particularistic construal of mind in general has been presented in the famous paper of Sellars (1956).

From the latter point of view it may indeed be conceded (if only for the sake of argument) that rationality is involved in the meaning of the word 'man' while two-leggedness is not; but two-leggedness may at the same time be viewed as involved in the meaning of 'biped' while rationality is not.

Let us see what there is about the above argument that gives it its air of hocus-pocus.

The above argument supposes we are working with a language rich enough to contain the adverb 'necessarily,' this adverb being so construed as to yield truth when and only when applied to an analytic statement.

Our argument is not flatly circular, but something like it.

Such a rule is not subject to the criticism of containing the un-understood word 'analytic'; and we may grant for the sake of argument that there is no difficulty over the broader term 'true.'

The word 'postulate' is significant only relative to an act of inquiry; we apply the word to a set of statements just in so far as we happen, for the year or the argument, to be thinking of those statements which can be reached from them by some set of trasformations to which we have seen fit to direct our attention.

The alternative, "mathematical argument or experiential evidence?" corresponds to "reason or cause?" 5 Where the class defined by f can be given by an enumeration, i.e., by a list, (x)fx is simply a logical product and (Œx)fx a logical sum. E.

When there is an argument about whether a thing is good, the discussion shows what we are talking about.

In the course of the argument the word may begin to get a new grammar.