Combining Philosophers

Ideas for William James, Sydney Shoemaker and Jos L. Zalabardo

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2 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
A complete system is just a classification of the whole world's ingredients [James]
     Full Idea: A completed theoretic philosophy can never be anything more than a completed classification of the world's ingredients.
     From: William James (The Sentiment of Rationality [1882], p.23)
     A reaction: I assume this is not just the physical ingredients, but must also include our conceptual scheme - but then we must first decide which is the best conceptual scheme to classify, and that's where the real action is. [He scorns such classifation later].
One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker]
     Full Idea: There is a system of internally related concepts containing the notion of a property, the notion of a causal power, the concept of an event, the concept of similarity, and the concept of a persisting substance.
     From: Sydney Shoemaker (Causality and Properties [1980], §07)
     A reaction: A nice example of a modern metaphysical system, one which I find fairly congenial. His notion of events is Kim's, which involves his properties. The persisting substance is the one I am least clear about.