45
votes
Accepted
Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
You understand what the sentence means; therefore, it is not nonsense. We can perform all sorts of analyses to try to analyse why the sentence is meaningful (e.g. the "nose" refers both to ...
- 1,810
27
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
The solution is to realise that the problem as posed is based on a false assumption that there is always a clear dividing line between two opposing classifications of degree. Take long and short, ...
- 12.8k
15
votes
Accepted
Is Analytic Philosophy really just Language Philosophy
That quote is from Michael Dummett's book, Origins of Analytical Philosophy. A short answer is that according to Dummett, we cannot have a philosophy of anything until we have a clear theory of ...
- 22.8k
15
votes
Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
An objective statement is a statement about "the thing in itself", with reality as is rather than as perceived. The statement "my computer runs Mac OS" is objective.
I start there ...
- 1,573
11
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
The answer is in the definition of a heap.
I offer the definition that a heap must have at least one layer stacked upon a base layer.
For grains of sand you need at least 3 grains in a base layer to ...
- 211
11
votes
Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
"Fake" in "fake nose" typically means the nose is artificial (e.g. man-made and surgically inserted), not that it's not a nose.
One might go one step further and say that it ...
- 5,388
11
votes
Accepted
What's the name of a fallacy when a debater selectively picks facts and ignores others?
It is the cherry picking fallacy: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking
Edit:
Thanks to gidds for pointing out the number of different names for this fallacy. Here are a few:
Cherry Picking
(...
10
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
One solution would be to say that even 1 grain is a heap. That would be defining "heap" more precisely than its informal, intuitive meaning. What does "heap" precisely mean anyway? ...
- 2,405
9
votes
Is the statement "They like curry chicken." an objective or subjective statement?
The other answers rely on either a non-technical understanding of the terms "subjective" and "objective" or depend on a particular philosophical viewpoint. This answer is viewpoint-...
- 7,444
7
votes
What is the meaning of assertion?
A very rough approach is the following: humans use sentences, i.e. expressions made of words (spoken or written) in many contexts, i.e. speech acts.
See Assertion: "Asserting is the act of ...
- 36.1k
7
votes
If calculating the p-value post-hoc is meaningless, why is it reasonable to believe the Grimm's Law (and other laws of historical phonology) is true?
I'm not sure that Grimm's law should be viewed a natural law akin to the laws of thermodynamics, rather it should be viewed as a condensation of empirical observations into a structure that aids in ...
- 5,257
7
votes
Who ever argued that natural languages have an exact logic?
I think nobody has seriously argued such a thing. Given how easy it is to formulate semantic paradoxes in natural languages, it would seem to be impossible.
Leibniz did some work towards what he ...
- 22.8k
7
votes
Is mathematics analytic or synthetic?
A possible counterargument is that the analytic-synthetic distinction you are using is inherently inadequate and outmoded language and thinking. For the first part, Quine in his Two Dogmas of ...
- 22.6k
6
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
So I would say that two possible answers to the paradox are
Rigorously define a 'heap' to explicitly consider the number of grains of sand, or
Keep the fuzziness around heaps, and observe that tiny ...
6
votes
How can we denote objects that no longer exist?
Existence cannot be a property of an object, because "being a property of X" supposes that X already exists. The object Socrates did exist (essentially) in some period of time and no longer ...
- 2,405
6
votes
What is the difference between a "question" and an "answer"?
I would not care to guess what the quote was intended to mean, since it is too ambiguous. However, I suggest an important next step in your quest would be to clarify what constitutes a question and ...
- 12.8k
6
votes
Is "that nose is fake" nonsense?
By your argument a "rubber duck" is nonsense too, as is a "prosthetic leg".
Avoiding this type of pedantry/sophistry just renders human conversation too tiring to bother. Anything ...
- 161
5
votes
What is the meaning of assertion?
An assertion in philosophy is simply a claim of some sort, usually of the form NOUN VERB PROPERTY, such as 'Snow is white', 'Insects have six legs', 'beauty is in the eye of the beholder' or 'Marco ...
- 12.8k
5
votes
What is the meaning of assertion?
A proposition is a sentence that is either true or false. Assertion is one of the things you can do with a proposition. To assert a proposition is to say or write it with the intention of claiming ...
- 7,444
5
votes
What's the solution to Sorites paradox?
The solution, of course, is to learn to cook:
Therefore, how many grains must be removed to "turn a heap into not-a-heap" depends on the spoon.
- 191
5
votes
What is there to philosophy these days, other than intellectual self-gratification?
Oh, boy. 3 votes for closure in less than 24 hours. (How dare you impugn philosophy as misguided in a community of people who do philosophy either professionally or as amateurs with an emphasis on the ...
- 22.6k
5
votes
Accepted
An introductory book on philosophy of language and logic?
If you are happy to learn from books, here are some suggestions.
If you want an introduction to elementary logic aimed at philosophers, John MacFarlane's "Philosophical Logic: A Contemporary ...
- 22.8k
5
votes
Identity in Quantified Modal Logic
That formula is indeed a validity under Kripke's understanding of the necessity of identity, with names as rigid designators.
To understand why your example is not a counterexample, we need to be ...
- 22.8k
5
votes
Who ever argued that natural languages have an exact logic?
Noam Chomsky posited deep structure to account for apparent differences in languages at the surface of regular usage, such as sentences having the same meaning across slightly different sentences. (I ...
- 2,385
5
votes
Accepted
Evolution of Logos
why logos as discourse or word was taken by Stoics and Platonists as some divine principle and by scientists as logic or -logy, like biology, geology, etc. What does that have to do?
You have it ...
- 6,211
5
votes
Michael Dummett on the indeterminacy thesis
Assume that the scenario involving "two equally acceptable schemes of translation from a language L into a language M might carry a given sentence of L respectively into distinct sentences of M ...
- 36.1k
5
votes
"Unround circles don't exist." Is it nonsense?
"In this sort of predicament, always ask yourself: How did we learn
the meaning of this word ("good", for instance)? From what sort of
examples? In what language-games? Then it will be ...
- 20.5k
5
votes
Why do some philosphers including Russell paraphrase this sentence?
In Fregean terms, a phrase has both a sense and a denotation. For a phrase like "the king of England", the sense is the concept of being king of England, and the denotation is the actual man ...
- 7,444
4
votes
Implicature vs implication
Usually, conversational implicature is a way of understanding how it is that when someone utters a sentence, they convey more than the literal conventional meaning of the sentence. So, for example, ...
- 22.8k
4
votes
What's The Reasoning Or Logic Behind The Value Of A Promise / Agreement?
No, the fact that you are more mature and better informed at a later time is in most cases irrelevant.
In most human societies there is a convention that a promise should be honoured, and that to ...
- 12.8k
Only top scored, non community-wiki answers of a minimum length are eligible