display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
3 ideas
9501 | If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird] |
Full Idea: If one says that 'everything that exists is causally active', that rules out abstracta (notably sets and numbers), and it rules out objects that are causally isolated. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5) | |
A reaction: I like the principle. I take abstracta to be brain events, so they are causally active, within highly refined and focused brains, and if your physics is built on the notion of fields then I would think a 'causally isolated' object incoherent. |
9500 | If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird] |
Full Idea: If one's naturalistic principles are formulated in terms of supervenience, then necessary entities are left untouched. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5) | |
A reaction: I take this to be part of the reason why some people like supervenience - that it leaves a pure 'space of reasons' which is unreachable from the flesh and blood inside a cranium. Personall I like the space of reasons, but I drop the 'pure'. |
6780 | Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird] |
Full Idea: There is anti-realism with regard to unobservable entities and the theories that purport to mention them, but the more plausible version attaches to theories concerning what laws of nature are. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This sounds right. I certainly find anti-realism about the entities of science utterly implausible. I also doubt whether there is any such thing as a law, above and beyond the behaviour of matter. Theories float between the two. |