Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Anaxarchus, Paul Audi and Dean W. Zimmerman

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18 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out.
Ground relations depend on the properties [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding relations depend on the natures of the properties involved in them.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: I'm cautious about this if we don't find out more exactly what properties are (and they had better not just be predicates). Maybe properties are the only apparatus we have here, though I prefer 'powers' for the fundamentals.
A ball's being spherical non-causally determines its power to roll [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The fact that a given thing is spherical non-causally determines the fact that it has the power to roll.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Quine won't accept this, because you have added something called a 'power' to the ball (intrinsically, it seems), over and above its observable sphericity. Does being a ball 'determine' that it can't be in two places at once? Order of explanation?
Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8)
     A reaction: [It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed]
The best critique of grounding says it is actually either identity or elimination [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I think the most promising skeptical strategy is to insist on either identity or elimination wherever grounding is alleged to hold.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.9)
     A reaction: This comes after an assessment of the critiques of grounding by Oliver, Hofweber and Daly. So we don't say chemistry grounds biology, we either say biology is chemistry, or that there is no biology. Everything is just simples. Not for me.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / b. Relata of grounding
Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry.
If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4)
     A reaction: It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / c. Grounding and explanation
We must accept grounding, for our important explanations [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The reason we must countenance grounding is that it is indispensible to certain important explanations.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: I like this a lot. The first given of all philosophy is the drive to exlain. However, we mustn't go inventing features of the world, simply to give us the possibility of explaining it. The objective fact seems to be the without-which-not relation.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / d. Grounding and reduction
Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5)
     A reaction: Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact
Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The 'worldly' view of facts says they are obtaining states of affairs, individuated by their constituents and their combination. On the 'conceptual' view, facts will differ if they pick out an object or property via different concepts.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: Might it be that conceptual differences between facts are supervenient on worldly differences (with the worldly facts in charge)?
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 3. Instantiated Universals
An immanent universal is wholly present in more than one place [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: An immanent universal will routinely be 'at some distance from itself', in the sense that it is wholly present in more than one place.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.306)
     A reaction: This is the Aristotelian view, which sounds distinctly implausible in this formulation. Though I suppose redness is wholly present in a tomato, in the way that fourness is wholly present in the Horsemen of the Apocalypse. How many rednesses are there?
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
If only two indiscernible electrons exist, future differences must still be possible [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: If nothing existed except two electrons, which are indiscernible, it remains possible that differences will emerge later. Even if this universe has eternal symmetry, such differences are still logically, metaphysically, physically and causally possible.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.306)
     A reaction: The question then is whether the two electrons have hidden properties that make differences possible. Zimmerman assumes that 'laws' of an indeterministic kind will do the job. I doubt that. Can differences be discerned after the event?
Discernible differences at different times may just be in counterparts [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: Possible differences which may later become discernible could be treated as differences in a counterpart, which is similar to, but not identical with, the original object.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (Distinct Indiscernibles and the Bundle Theory [1997], p.307)
     A reaction: [compressed] This is a reply to Idea 10198, which implies that two things could never be indiscernible over time, because of their different possibilities. One must then decide issues about rigid designation and counterparts.
13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism
Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing.
     From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Two things being identical (like water and H2O) is not an explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: If there is identity between water and H2O, we have neither the asymmetry nor the irreflexivity that explanations require.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Once you realise it is H2O, you understand its deeper features, which will open up new explanations. He's right, though.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
Neither 'moving spotlight' nor 'growing block' views explain why we care what is present or past [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: Neither the 'moving spotlight' nor the 'growing block' view of A-theory time can explain why we care so much about whether things (such as a headache) are present or past.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (The Privileged Present: A-Theory [2008], 3)
     A reaction: He goes on the defend Presentism as the best version of the A-series view. You can't deny that the past is more of a 'truthmaker' than the future, so it seems to have a firmer ontological status. Deeply weird.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series
A-theorists, unlike B-theorists, believe some sort of objective distinction between past, present and future [Zimmerman,DW]
     Full Idea: To be an A-theorist is to believe in some sort of objective distinction between what is present and past and future. ..To be a B-theorist is to deny the objectivity of our talk about past, present and future.
     From: Dean W. Zimmerman (The Privileged Present: A-Theory [2008], 2)
     A reaction: The A/B distinction originates with McTaggart. All my intuitions side with the A-theory, certainly to the extent that the present seems to be objectively privileged in some way (despite special relativity).