I 249ff
Theory/object level/Field: we assume a theory here instead of the truth of the theory. Problem: the theory requires mathematical entities.
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Mathematical entities, >
Truth, >
Description levels.
I 262
Physics/theory/Language/ontology/Field: Thesis: in the typical physical language, sentences are essential for the description of observations that contain mathematical entities. Then a theory without mathematical entities does not allow any inference about distances and masses.
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Physics, >
Ontology.
Solution: new (comparative) predicates: For example, the distance between x and y is r-times the distance between z and w, etc. - For example, the velocity of y relative to y multiplied by the time difference between z and w is r-times spatial distance between u and v (Definition acceleration without numbers). - r: is a rational number.
This distinguishes the predicates in the family.
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Predicates.
NominalismVs: these are too many predicates.
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Nominalism.
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II 46
Theory/truth/Field: it is the assertion that the axioms of the theory are true of their objects at certain points of time (or at all times) - not the theory itself.
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Axioms.
Variables: We leave it out here very often, but they must be understood as implicitly existing.
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Variables.
Instead of "pain has that and that causal role" we must say: "For every t and every c (organism) of type S to t, pain has that and that causal role in c to t".
II 187
Ideal theory/Quine/Field: (Quine 1960
(1), 23-4): Suppose there is an ideal theory (in the future) that could be considered as completely true: problem: this ideal theory could not correct the truth values of our actual (present) individual sentences.
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Reference, >
Theory change, >
Meaning change, >
Idealization.
Reason: there is no general sense in which one can equate a single sentence of a theory with a single sentence of another theory.
Quine/(s): there is no inter-theoretical translatability. - Thus there is no Truth-predicate for single sentences of a theory. - Falsehood is distributed to the whole theory. - There is no fact that distributes falsehood onto single sentences.
FieldVsQuine: therefore the sentences are not "intertheoretically meaningless"!
Solution/Field: "partial denotation": Newton's mass partially denoted.
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Partial denotation.
FieldVsKuhn/FieldVsIncommensurability: denotational refinement: (later only partial quantity) means no incommensurability.
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Incommensurability.
1. Quine, W. V. (1960). Word and Object. MIT Press.