display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
6 ideas
| 9482 | If the laws necessarily imply p, that doesn't give a new 'nomological' necessity [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It does not add to the kinds of necessity to say that p is 'nomologically necessary' iff (the laws of nature → p) is metaphysically necessary. That trick of construction could be pulled for 'feline necessity' (true in all worlds that contain cats). | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1.2) | |
| A reaction: I love it! Bird seems to think that the only necessity is 'metaphysical' necessity, true in all possible worlds, and he is right. The question arises in modal logic, though, of the accessibility between worlds (which might give degrees of necessity?). |
| 9481 | Logical necessitation is not a kind of necessity; George Orwell not being Eric Blair is not a real possibility [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I do not regard logical necessitation as a kind of necessity. It is logically possible that George Orwell is not Eric Blair, but in what sense is this any kind of possibility? It arises from having two names, but that confers no genuine possibility. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1.2) | |
| A reaction: How refreshing. All kinds of concepts like this are just accepted by philosophers as obvious, until someone challenges them. The whole undergrowth of modal thinking needs a good flamethrower taken to it. |
| 6796 | Subjective probability measures personal beliefs; objective probability measures the chance of an event happening [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Subjective probability measures a person's strength of belief in the truth of a proposition; objective probability concerns the chance a certain sort of event has of happening, independently of whether anyone thinks it is likely to occur or not. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: The challenge to the second one is that God would know for certain whether a meteor will hit the Earth next week. The impact looks like 'bad luck' to us, but necessary to one who really knows. |
| 6797 | Objective probability of tails measures the bias of the coin, not our beliefs about it [Bird] |
| Full Idea: In tossing a coin, the objective probability of tails is a measure of the bias of the coin; the bias and the probability are objective features of the coin, like its mass and shape; these properties have nothing to do with our beliefs about the coin. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Despite my reservation that God would not seem to be very interested in the probabilities of coin-tossing, since he knows each outcome with certaintly, this is fairly convincing. God might say that the coin has a 'three-to-two bias'. |
| 9505 | Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Whereas the link between imaginability and possibility was once held, under the influence of empiricism, to be close, it is now widely held to be very remote. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 8) | |
| A reaction: Tim Williamson nicely argues the opposite - that assessment of possibility is an adjunct of our ability to think counterfactually, which is precisely an operation of the imagination. Big error is possible, but how else could we do it? |
| 9491 | Haecceitism says identity is independent of qualities and without essence [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The core of haecceitism is the view that the transworld identity of particulars does not supervene on their qualitative features. ...The simplest expression of it is that particulars lack essential properties. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be something the 'bare substratum' account of substance (associated with Locke). You are left with the difficulty of how to individuate an instance of the haecceity, as opposed to the bundle of properties attached to it. |