It would be unresponsive to what I said. — Dfpolis
So this is the question:
If Alice is thinking something, must we conclude there is something that Alice is thinking? — Srap Tasmaner
The objects of belief, as well as of knowledge-that, are propositions. These are abstract objects/entities/things that by their wist (essence) intrinsically mean states-of-affairs. — Tristan L
If I understand you correctly, we're talking about conceptual dependence here. That I can deal with. It even has a natural connection to Frege's saturated/unsaturated distinction: "___ is thinking it's going to rain" is unsaturated, incomplete, and therefore an abstraction, and therefore has only dependent existence. — Srap Tasmaner
I was seriously afraid that "independent existence" was going to lead to having to say what the ultimate constituents of the universe are! — Srap Tasmaner
You have a comfort level with QM that I don't, so I thought that might not scare you as much as it does me; or, rather, it might be something I would rather not have to do just to talk about what ordinary sentences mean, but you might not mind! — Srap Tasmaner
The second way to teach quantum mechanics leaves a blow-by-blow account of its discovery to the historians, and instead starts directly from the conceptual core -- namely, a certain generalization of probability theory to allow minus signs. — Scott Aaronson - Lecture 9: Quantum
For Aristotle, ordinary objects (his primary substances) were the fundamental entities.
— Andrew M
So here maybe we're talking about what is conceptually fundamental, and for what Sellars calls the "manifest image" (or for Strawson's "descriptive metaphysics") that is indeed going to be sensible objects and persons. — Srap Tasmaner
Those were the examples I threw out not to hide the differences between meanings of "think" but to highlight them: splitting at the preposition (what could easily be a prefix in a language like German) was deliberate. — Srap Tasmaner
Any of those look like things to you? — Srap Tasmaner
Andrew M has explained what he means by "abstract entity". What do you mean? — Srap Tasmaner
So what did you mean by saying the following? — Tristan L
If Alice is thinking something, must we conclude there is something that Alice is thinking? — Srap Tasmaner
it is not clear to me that if Sally thinks it's going to rain then there is an object Sally thinks. — Srap Tasmaner
"Sally kicks Steve" is in fact strongly analogous to
"Sally thinks-that it's going to rain."
"Sally thinks-of buying a guitar."
"Sally thinks-about how much easier it used to be." — Srap Tasmaner
1. Why does "thinks" have to be part of a phrasal verb when "kicks" doesn't? Why isn't there a "kicks-that", a "kicks-of", or a "kicks-about"? — Srap Tasmaner
If I'm thinking about Steve, it seems I'm thinking about the object Steve; therefore, if I'm thinking about how much easier it used to be, I must be thinking about the object how much easier it used to be. How convincing is that "therefore"? — Srap Tasmaner
when I think about Steve, am I doing the same sort of thing as when I think about how much easier it used to be? — Srap Tasmaner
Isn’t it perfectly clear that the proposition that it’s going to rain is the object of Alice’s belief? — Tristan L
The characterology of that drama we each bring to it is the substance of it — Gary M Washburn
Without asking Alice, the discussion is vacuous. — Gary M Washburn
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