Philosophy Concordance - online philosophical quotations

It is the occurrence of certain particular events or entities (the occurrence of certain contents within the heads of speakers, or the occurrence of certain utterances of speakers) which establishes the meaning of an expression15.

For the rest, definition rests on synonymy rather than explaining it.       The word "definition" has come to have a dangerously reassuring sound, due no doubt to its frequent occurrence in logical and mathematical writings.

Then, if 'bachelor' and 'unmarried man' are interchangeable salva veritate, the result (5) Necessarily, all and only bachelors are unmarried men of putting 'unmarried man' for an occurrence of 'bachelor' in (4) must, like (4), be true.

However, from the concept of synonymy of statements we could derive the concept of synonymy for other linguistic forms, by considerations somewhat similar to those at the end of Section III. Assuming the notion of "word," indeed, we could explain any two forms as synonymous when the putting of the one form for an occurrence of the other in any statement (apart from occurrences within "words") yields a synonymous statement.

The notion lingers that to each statement, or each synthetic statement, there is associated a unique range of possible sensory events such that the occurrence of any of them would add to the likelihood of truth of the statement, and that there is associated also another unique range of possible sensory events whose occurrence would detract from that likelihood.

Custom is that principle, by which this correspondence has been effected; so necessary to the subsistence of our species, and the regulation of our conduct, in every circumstance and occurrence of human life. Had not the presence of an object, instantly excited the idea of those objects, commonly conjoined with it, all our knowledge must have been limited to the narrow sphere of our memory and senses; and we should never have been able to adjust means to ends, or employ our natural powers, either to the producing of good, or avoiding of evil.

Better, it tends to inhibit the occurrence of such events as would falsify it -- if it weren't already false, that is, for the generalizations which lie at the core of rules are rarely if ever true, and unless they could (logical or physical possibility) be false, they could scarcely function as rules.

If he had said instead that to act morally is to act as though the truth of the corresponding generalization depended only on the occurrence of that action, his claim would have been essentially identical with ours.

Certainly it won't do to say that that which is criticized as conduct is overt behavior, an individual's impingement on his environment, so that public assertion would be conduct, whereas the private assertion that is involved in thinking would not. For surely the mental setting oneself (Prichard) to stab an enemy would be conduct even though paralysis or a stroke of lightning prevented the occurrence of the intended sequence of events.

Bearing in mind this obvious connection between conduct and intention, shall we say that what the moralist has in mind by "conduct" is basically a matter of the tendency of thoughts about sequences of events beginning with the me-here-now to bring about the actual occurrence of these sequences?