Philosophy Now Forum

Wyman wrote: I have to confess I know nothing about Whitehead except his being co-author of the Principia Mathematica. I'm interested in knowing how the position 'the physical and mental are two necessary poles of all actual entities' is not dualism. I agree that the 'phenomenal' is caused in part b...

Hi Wyman: Thanks for your critique. If we grant you your postulate, it still does not follow that 1) 'propositions are statements'; 2) statements are 'about our phenomenal world'; 3) statements 'can be shown to have a basis in this actuality. The postulate is probably better read with the word 'stat...

Orin said: But this is not what we find. Instead we see that propositions carry real power to make us act correctly or incorrectly. This means our intuitions must be discoveries about real state-of-affairs. Wyman Wrote: This is circular reasoning, presupposing in the concept of a 'power' to cause '...

Hi Arising_uk, Thanks very much, I had given up on getting any sensible answers form this site! Yes, I was heading towards seeing how this line of reasoning could reach Wittgenstein's conclusion. However, to reach this conclusion you have to realize that all propositions are based on our intuitions ...

Susan Lucas states that along with Wittgenstein, Gottlob Frege was not a Platonist. This seems entirely out of line with most other authorities, e.g. "Many of the greatest mathematicians and logicians have been gung-ho Platonists. Let’s sample some views, starting with Gottlob Frege, arguably t...

I think this is a good article but it lead me to the following question: are all absolute truths simply tautologies? From Marianne's article we learn that only deductive arguments are valid since induction, the argument such as “the sun will rise tomorrow because it always does" has only a prob...