Reading Notes: March 6th, 2023

“McTaggart was one of the least linguistic of philosophers: he adverts to the use of words very little. I am far from thinking that what has been called “the linguistic turn” is always good for the solution of philosophical problems: all too often, the problem supposedly dissolved by an appeal to language replicates itself on the level of language—not surprisingly, because language is part of the world, not something contrasting with the world. For example, we cannot dismiss the problem of universals by saying it is an illusion due to our applying one word to many things; for the relation between the word “sheep” (as we say) and its many utterances is another case of that relation between the Sheep and the many sheep which we were trying to avoid discussing. Again, as we saw, the problem of synthetic incompatibilities cannot be disposed of by the linguistic turn: the same problem arises about incompatible sound-qualities in our utterances. So, upon the whole I think McTaggart’s not going in for language about language did him little harm.” (Geach, Truth, Love, and Immortality, 62) 

“Characteristics enter into perceptions in quite another way. Perception of an individual substance is obviously perception of a substance as having qualities, and as having relations to other substances. And this does not mean merely perception of a substance that has qualities, or that has relations to other substances; it is perception of a substance as having qualitative and relational characteristics. It is fairly clear that you need not perceive all of the characteristics that an individual thing you perceive in fact has….If we see a thing as ABC, that does not mean that all that it is is ABC, and it does not mean that it even has to be ABC at all: we may be misperceiving. To sum up: we perceive a thing, not just naked, but as having characteristics; to affirm that a thing is so perceived neither is entailed by nor entails the proposition that the thing in question actually has those characteristics.” (Geach, Truth, Love, and Immortality, 115-116) 

“To repeat: the supposed relation between consecutive terms in the series, say A and B, is that A is individuated by some relation to B, and this individuating characteristic will itself be a definite characteristic only if the individuation of B is already given. If this relation is supposed to generate an infinite series, A’s individuating characteristics depend for their identity on the individuation of B, and B’s individuating characteristics on the individuation of C, and so on without end: the individuating characteristics for any term in the series thus have a fixed identity only if the series has an end, but ex hypothesi it has none….[Furthermore,] if A’s individuation depended on the characteristic, [being a “perception of A”], but the identity of this characteristic depended on the individuation of A, we should run in a vicious circle.” (Geach, Truth, Love, and Immortality, 52-53) 

“I conclude that we ought to accept McTaggart’s principle of Sufficient Description as a correct inference from the Dissimilarity of the Diverse, and therefore as necessarily true.” (Geach, Truth, Love, and Immortality, 54) 

“I shall instead speak of the Principle of Ontological Determinacy: the adjective is meant to distinguish, but bring together, this principle and another principle we shall come to later, the principle of Perceptual Determinacy. The principle is: Nothing can have a determinable characteristic without having it in a perfectly determinate form. For example, nothing can have shape without having a perfectly determinate shape, or size without having a perfectly determinate size, or colour, without having a perfectly determinate colour. Vagueness and fuzziness can infect only our descriptions, not the actual things we describe.” (Geach, Truth, Love, and Immortality, 54)