215 ideas
5988 | Anaximander produced the first philosophy book (and maybe the first book) [Anaximander, by Bodnár] |
Full Idea: Anaximander was the first to produce a philosophical book (later conventionally titled 'On Nature'), if not the first to produce a book at all. | |
From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by István Bodnár - Anaximander | |
A reaction: Wow! Presumably there were Egyptian 'books', but this still sounds like a stupendous claim to fame. |
18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: My plea, whatever conclusions are drawn, is to control the metaphysical discussion by continual reference to suggested truthmakers. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.7) | |
A reaction: ...And my plea is to control metaethical discussion by continual reference to value-makers. In general, this is the approach which will deliver a unified account of the world. Truthmakers are the ideal restraint on extravagant metaphysics. |
2546 | Philosophy is a magnificent failure in its attempt to overstep the limits of our knowledge [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Philosophy marks the limits of human theoretical intelligence. Philosophy is an attempt to overstep our cognitive bounds, a kind of magnificent failure. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.209) | |
A reaction: No one attempts to overstep boundaries once they are confirmed as such. The magnificent attempts persist because failure is impossible to demonstrate (except, perhaps, by Gödel's Theorem). |
17663 | If you know what it is, investigation is pointless. If you don't, investigation is impossible [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Paradox of Analysis:if we ask what sort of thing an X is, then either we know what an X is or we do not. If we know then there is no need to ask the question. If we do not know then there is no way to begin the investigation. It's pointless or impossible | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.2) | |
A reaction: [G.E. Moore is the source of this, somewhere] Plato worried that to get to know something you must already know it. Solving this requires the concept of a 'benign' circularity. |
1496 | The earth is stationary, because it is in the centre, and has no more reason to move one way than another [Anaximander, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Something which is established in the centre and has equality in relation to the extremes has no more reason to move up than it has down or to the sides (so the earth is stationary) | |
From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], A26) by Aristotle - On the Heavens 295b11 |
4036 | What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver] |
Full Idea: Armstrong argues that what matters is not how few entities we postulate (quantitative economy), but how few kinds of entities (qualitative economy). | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992]) by DH Mellor / A Oliver - Introduction to 'Properties' §9 | |
A reaction: Is this what Ockham meant? Armstrong is claiming that the notion of a 'property' is needed to identify kinds. See also Idea 7038. |
6052 | Definitions identify two concepts, so they presuppose identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Any definition must presuppose the notion of identity precisely because a definition affirms the identity of two concepts. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: McGinn is arguing that identity is fundamental to thought, and this seems persuasive. It may be, though, that while identities are inescapable, definitions are impossible. |
6064 | Regresses are only vicious in the context of an explanation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Regresses are only vicious in the context of some explanatory aim, not in themselves. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n11) | |
A reaction: A nice point. It is not quite clear how 'pure' reason could ever be vicious, or charming, or sycophantic. The problem about a vicious regress is precisely that it fails to explain anything. Now benign regresses are something else… (see Idea 2523) |
6088 | Truth is a method of deducing facts from propositions [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Truth is essentially a method of deducing facts from propositions. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Very persuasive. McGinn is offering a disquotational account of truth, but in a robust form. Of course, deduction normally takes the form of moving infallibly from one truth to another, but that model of deduction won't fit this particular proposal. |
18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Truth-making cannot be any form of entailment. Both terms of an entailment relation must be propositions, but the truth-making term of the truth-making relation is a portion of reality, and, in general at least, portions of reality are not propositions. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3) | |
A reaction: Along with Idea 18466, that seems to firmly demolish the idea that truth-making is a logical entailment. |
18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
Full Idea: In a bold manouevre Armstrong posited a metaphysically primitive relation of necessitation, and then defined truth-makers in terms of this bridging relation, as a thing that necessitates something being true. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3) by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.2 | |
A reaction: [Not sure of page reference] Spelled out so clearly by MacBride, this sounds dubious. How many truths are necessitated by the City of London? Do truthmakers necessitate the existence of their truths? MacBride says it's a circular theory. |
15547 | Negative existentials have 'totality facts' as truthmakers [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong offers 'totality facts' (complete states of affairs) as truthmakers for negative existentials, and for negated predications. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'The demand' |
18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Postulate a higher-order state of affairs, of all the states of affairs in which Theaetetus is involved. Is this not a good candidate for a truthmaker for the negative truth that 'Theaetetus is not flying'? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2) | |
A reaction: It certainly seems extravagant to need the whole universe to make true 'there are no lions in this room'. But for 'there are no unicorns' it is not clear which states of affairs unicorns are involved. (Armstrong is aware of this). |
18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Each of the arctic animals is by its nature different from a penguin, so this general state of affairs seems truthmaker enough for this negative existential. Similarly, the totality of all birds eliminates the phoenix. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 06.2) | |
A reaction: Why is it 'animals' in one case, and 'birds' in the other? What if there was no life in arctic? Would the snow then do the job? This doesn't seem to work. |
18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A mathematical entity exists if and only if it is possible that there be instantiations of that structure. This transforms the question of truthmakers for the existence of mathematical entities into a question of truthmakers for certain possibilities. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.3) | |
A reaction: This modal approach to structuralism [for which he endorses Hellman 1989] opens up a modal approach to other truthmakers, which places dispositions at the centre of physical truthmaking. No sets of Meinongian objects? |
18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It seems reasonable to say that a truthmaker for a contingent truth is also a truthmaker for the truth that the contradictory of that truth is possible. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.2) | |
A reaction: The truthmaker will have to be not only some fact, but also the additional fact that it is contingent, in order to generate the possibility of the contradictory. |
18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The obvious minimal truthmaker for the truth that 'it is possible that a unicorn exists' is combinatorial. The elements of the combination are all that is needed. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.5) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that there are no possibilities which are not combinations of what currently exists. |
18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is possible that there could have been nothing. ...What would be its truthmaker? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.4) | |
A reaction: I suppose the truthmaker here is the whole of reality, with its dispositions and contingencies. But that won't do for 'possibly there might never have been anything'. In such a case there wouldn't be any truths. |
18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
Full Idea:
The mereological sum of what happens to be all the men does not necessitate that it is all the men. So if truthmaking involves necessitation, then this object cannot be the complete truthmaker for |
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From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 06.1) | |
A reaction: [He invokes Russell has his source] His point is that the truthmaker needs a further fact, beyond the men, which specifies that this is all of them. But only if truthmakers necessitate their truths (as Armstrong claims). I'm sympathetic to both claims. |
4742 | Correspondence may be one-many or many one, as when either p or q make 'p or q' true [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: In Armstrong's version of the correspondence theory, the truth-making relation is not one-one, but one-many or many-one. Thus 'p or q' has two truth makers, p and q. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997], p.129), quoted by Pascal Engel - Truth Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Interesting. Armstrong deals in universals. He also cites many swans as truth-makers for 'there is a least one black swan'. Not correspondence as we know it, Jim. |
6084 | 'Snow does not fall' corresponds to snow does fall [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We can say that the proposition that snow does not fall from the sky corresponds to the fact that snow does fall from the sky - in the sense that there is a mapping from fact to proposition. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A very nice difficulty for the correspondence theory. It becomes essential to say how the two things correspond before it can offer any sort of account of the truth-relation. |
6085 | The idea of truth is built into the idea of correspondence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The correspondence theory has an air of triviality, and hence undeniability, but this is because it implicitly builds the idea of truth into the notion of correspondence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: If this is accepted, it is a really fatal objection to the theory. Russell tried to use the idea of 'congruency' between beliefs and reality, but that may be open to the same objection. McGinn is claiming that truth is essentially indefinable. |
6083 | The coherence theory of truth implies idealism, because facts are just coherent beliefs [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If 'snow falls from the sky' is true iff it coheres with other beliefs, this is a form of idealism; snow could surely fall from sky even if there were no beliefs in the world to cohere with each other. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: The coherence theory of truth strikes me as yet another blunder involving a confusion of ontology and epistemology. Of course, idealism may be true, but I have yet to hear a good reason why I should abandon commonsense realism. |
6086 | Truth is the property of propositions that makes it possible to deduce facts [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Truth is a property of a proposition from which one can deduce the fact stated by the proposition. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This is McGinn's explanation of the disquotational account of truth ('p' is true iff p). The redundancy theorist would reply that you can deduce p from 'p' without mentioning truth, but it remains to ask why this deduction is possible. |
6087 | Without the disquotation device for truth, you could never form beliefs from others' testimony [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Imagine being in a community which had no concept of truth; ..you cannot disquote on p and hence form beliefs about the world as a result of testimony, since you lack the device of disquotation that is the essence of truth. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Whether his theory is right or not, the observation that testimony is the really crucial area where we must have a notion of truth is very good. How about 'truth is what turns propositions into beliefs'? |
15544 | If what is actual might have been impossible, we need S4 modal logic [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong says what is actual (namely a certain roster of universals) might have been impossible. Hence his modal logic is S4, without the 'Brouwersche Axiom'. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'The demand' | |
A reaction: So p would imply possibly-not-possibly-p. |
18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The idea is that braces { } attribute to an entity the place-holding, or perhaps determinable, property of unithood. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.5) | |
A reaction:
I like this. There is Socrates himself, then there is my concept |
18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
Full Idea:
The null class is useful in formal set theory, but I hope that does not require that there be a thing called the null class which is truthmaker for the strange proposition |
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From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
A reaction: It is not quite clear why it doesn't, but then it is not quite clear to philosophers what the status of the null set is, in comparison with sets that have members. |
6051 | In 'x is F and x is G' we must assume the identity of x in the two statements [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If we say 'for some x, x is F and x is G' we are making tacit appeal to the idea of identity in using 'x' twice here: it has to be the same object that is both F and G. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This may well be broadened to any utterances whatsoever. The only remaining question is to speculate about whether it is possible to think without identities. The Hopi presumably gave identity to processes rather objects. How does God think? |
6055 | Both non-contradiction and excluded middle need identity in their formulation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: To formulate the law of non-contradiction ('nothing can be both F and non-F') and the law of excluded middle ('everything is either F or it is not-F'), we need the concept of identity (in 'nothing' and 'everything'). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Two good examples in McGinn's argument that identity is basic to all thinking. But the argument also works to say that necessity is basic (since both laws claim it) and properties are basic. Let's just declare everything 'basic', and we can all go home. |
6059 | Identity is unitary, indefinable, fundamental and a genuine relation [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I have endorsed four main theses about identity: it is unitary, it is indefinable, it is fundamental, and it is a genuine relation | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: That it is fundamental to our thinking seems certain (but to all possible thought?). That it is a relation looks worth questioning. One might challenge unitary by comparing the identity of numbers, values, electrons and continents. I can't define it. |
2544 | Thoughts have a dual aspect: as they seem to introspection, and their underlying logical reality [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Our thoughts have a kind of duality, corresponding to their surface appearance to introspection and their underlying logical reality. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.147) |
6042 | The quantifier is overrated as an analytical tool [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The quantifier has been overrated as a tool of logical and linguistic analysis. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Pref) | |
A reaction: I find this proposal quite thrilling. Twentieth century analytical philosophy has been in thrall to logic, giving the upper hand in philosophical discussion to the logicians, who are often not very good at philosophy. |
6067 | Existential quantifiers just express the quantity of things, leaving existence to the predicate 'exists' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: What the existential quantifier does is indicate the quantity of things in question - it says that some are; it is left up to the predicate 'exists' to express existence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This seems right. The whole quantification business seems like a conjuring trick to conceal the embarrassingly indefinable and 'metaphysical' notion of 'existence'. Cf Idea 7697. |
6069 | 'Partial quantifier' would be a better name than 'existential quantifier', as no existence would be implied [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We would do much better to call 'some' the 'partial quantifier' (rather than the 'existential quantifier'), on analogy with the universal quantifier - as neither of them logically implies existence. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Like McGinn's other suggestions in this chapter, this strikes me as a potentially huge clarification in linguistic analysis. I wait with interest to see whether the philosophical logicians take it up. I bet they don't. |
6068 | We need an Intentional Quantifier ("some of the things we talk about.."), so existence goes into the proposition [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We could introduce an 'intentional quantifier' (Ix) which means 'some of the things we talk about..'; we could then say 'some of the things we talk about are F and exist' (Ix, x is F and x exists). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a promising contribution to the analytical toolkit. McGinn is supporting his view that existence is a predicate, and so belongs inside the proposition, not outside. |
18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Classes, because they have a particular cardinality, are essentially a certain number of ones, things that, within the particular class, are each taken as a unit. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
A reaction: [Singletons are exceptions] So units are basic to set theory, which is the foundations of technical analytic philosophy (as well as, for many, of mathematics). If you can't treat something as a unit, it won't go into set theory. Vagueness... |
14874 | Anaximander saw the contradiction in the world - that its own qualities destroy it [Anaximander, by Nietzsche] |
Full Idea: Anaximander discovers the contradictory character of our world: it perishes from its own qualities. | |
From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Unpublished Notebooks 1872-74 19 [239] | |
A reaction: A lovely gloss on Anaximander, though I am not sure that I understand what Nietzsche means. |
6070 | Existence is a primary quality, non-existence a secondary quality [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Existence is like a primary quality; non-existence is like a secondary quality. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n29) | |
A reaction: Since McGinn thinks existence really is a property, and hence, presumably, a predicate, I don't quite see why he uses the word "like". A nicely pithy and thought-provoking remark. |
6062 | Existence can't be analysed as instantiating a property, as instantiation requires existence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Paraphrasing existence statements into statements about the instantiation of a property does not establish that existence is not a predicate, since the notion of instantiation must be taken to have existence built into it. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Thank you, Colin McGinn! This now strikes me as so obvious that it is astonishing that for the whole of the twentieth century no one seems to have said it. For a century philosophers had swept the ontological dirt under the mat. |
6065 | We can't analyse the sentence 'something exists' in terms of instantiated properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The problems of the orthodox view are made vivid by analysis of the sentence 'something exists'; this is meaningful and true, but what property are we saying is instantiated here? | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: A very nice point. McGinn claims that existence is a property, a very generalised one. Personally I don't think anyone is even remotely clear what a property is, so the whole discussion is a bit premature. Must properties have causal powers? |
18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: One of the assumptions of logical atomism is that all structural properties, all complex properties, are composed of simple properties and relations. ...But does the totality of the simple properties consist of the only possible simple properties? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.3) | |
A reaction: This refers to what Lewis calls 'alien' properties - possible properties that cannot even be constructed from actual properties. Armstrong's question is about the truthmakers for such things. A bit speculative... |
22427 | To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn] |
Full Idea: In order that we have available an explanation of the qualities of objects we need to be able to conceive primary qualities as consisting in something other than powers to produce experiences. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6 n 52) | |
A reaction: I suppose if the qualities are nothing more than the source of the experiences, that is Kant's noumenon. Nothing more could be said. The seems to be a requirement for tacit inference here. We infer the interior of the tomato. |
8507 | Some think of reality as made of things; I prefer facts or states of affairs [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers (like Devitt) think of reality as made up of things. Others, like me, think of it as made up of facts or states of affairs. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Against 'Ostrich Nominalism' [1980], §3) | |
A reaction: Devitt is a follower of Quine on this. Personally I rather like 'processes'. Unanalysed things with predication (Quine) don't look promising. I currently favour things with active powers, which give rise to properties. See Shoemaker and Ellis. |
6082 | If causal power is the test for reality, that will exclude necessities and possibilities [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Whether my body weight is necessary or contingent makes no difference at all to my causal powers, so modality is epiphenomenal; if you took causal potential as a test of reality you would have to declare modes unreal. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: We could try analysing modality into causal terms, as Lewis proposes with quantification across worlds, or as Quine proposes by reduction to natural regularities. I am not sure what it would mean to declare that modes are 'real'. |
18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I define 'naturalism' as the hypothesis that the world of space-time is all that there is. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
A reaction: This is helpful, because it doesn't mention the nature of the physical matter contained in space-time, leaving theories like panpsychism as possible naturalistic theories. Galen Strawson, for example. |
9497 | Without modality, Armstrong falls back on fictionalism to support counterfactual laws [Bird on Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Armstrong has difficulty explaining how laws entail regularities. There is no real modality in the basic components of the world, but he wants to support counterfactuals. His official position is a kind of fictionalism. | |
From: comment on David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997], 49-51) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 4.4.4 | |
A reaction: Armstrong seems to be up against the basic problems that laws won't explain anything if they are merely regularities (assuming they are not decrees of a supernatural force). |
17688 | Negative facts are supervenient on positive facts, suggesting they are positive facts [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Negative facts appear to be supervenient upon the positive facts, which suggests that they are nothing more than the positive facts. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.3) |
6075 | Facts are object-plus-extension, or property-plus-set-of-properties, or object-plus-property [McGinn] |
Full Idea: A fact may be an object and an extension (Quine's view), or a property and a set of properties, or an object and a property; the view I favour is the third one, which seems the most natural. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Personally I tend to use the word 'fact' in a realist and non-linguistic way. There must be innumerable inexpressible facts, such as the single pattern made by all the particles of the universe. McGinn seems to be talking of 'atomic facts'. See Idea 6111. |
18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There must exist states of affairs as truthmakers, to get us beyond 'loose and separate' entities. ...They can be bundles of tropes, or trope-with-particular, or bundles of universals ('compresence'), or instantiations. They are an addition to ontology. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.5) | |
A reaction: Armstrong is the great champion of states of affairs. They seem rather vague to me, and disconcertingly timeless. |
17691 | Nothing is genuinely related to itself [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I believe that nothing is genuinely related to itself. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.7) |
7024 | Properties are universals, which are always instantiated [Armstrong, by Heil] |
Full Idea: Armstrong takes properties to be universals, and believes there are no 'uninstantiated' universals. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978]) by John Heil - From an Ontological Point of View §9.3 | |
A reaction: At first glance this, like many theories of universals, seems to invite Ockham's Razor. If they are always instantiated, perhaps we should perhaps just try to talk about the instantiations (i.e. tropes), and skip the universal? |
17679 | All instances of some property are strictly identical [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A property ...is something which is strictly identical, strictly the same, in all its different instances. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
A reaction: Some is gravitation one property, or an infinity of properties, for each of its values? What is the same between objects of different mass. I sort of believe in all the masses, but I'm not sure what 'mass' is. Abstraction, say I. |
15550 | Properties are contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong has a distinctive conception of (fundamental) properties as contingently existing beings with multiple locations in space and time. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997]) by David Lewis - A world of truthmakers? p.220 | |
A reaction: Armstrong tries to get a naturalistically founded platonism (which he claims is Aristotelian), but the idea that one thing can be multiply located strikes me as daft (especially if the number of its locations increases or decreases). |
15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The ontological correlates of true law-statements must involve properties. How else can one pick our the uniformities which the law-statements entail? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1) | |
A reaction: I'm unconvinced about the 'laws', but I have to admit that it is hard to know how to describe the relevant bits of nature without some family of concepts covered by the word 'property'. I'm in favour of taking some of the family into care, though. |
18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The 'thing itself' seems not be a minimal truthmaker for the thing having its particular mass. ...The thing has a great many other properties. ...It seems entirely reasonable to postulate that the object has properties that are objectively there. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.2) | |
A reaction: This is Armstrong using the truthmaker principle to argue for the existence of properties (as instantiated universals). I like truthmakers, but truths do not have enough precision in their parts for us to read off reality from them. |
18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A set of determinates under the one determinable are incompatible by definition. If an object is not one mile in length, then its actual length will be incompatible with being one mile in length. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.1) | |
A reaction: This is a much better general version of the standard example 'if it is red it can't be green'. Armstrong uses it to give a more precise account of incompatibility. Useful. |
18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Length is a 'determinable' property; being some particular length, such as a mile, is one of its 'determinates'. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.1) | |
A reaction: The seem to be 'type' and 'token' properties, except that this other vocabulary indicates the link between them. |
9478 | Even if all properties are categorical, they may be denoted by dispositional predicates [Armstrong, by Bird] |
Full Idea: Armstrong says all properties are categorical, but a dispositional predicate may denote such a property; the dispositional predicate denotes the categorical property in virtue of the dispositional role it happens, contingently, to play in this world. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 3.1 | |
A reaction: I favour the fundamentality of the dispositional rather than the categorical. The world consists of powers, and we find ourselves amidst their categorical expressions. I could be persuaded otherwise, though! |
12677 | Armstrong holds that all basic properties are categorical [Armstrong, by Ellis] |
Full Idea: I am against Armstrong's strong categoricalism, that is, the thesis that all basic properties are categorical. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Brian Ellis - The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism 3 | |
A reaction: I certainly agree with this, as I cannot see where the power would come from to get the whole thing off the ground. Armstrong depends on universals to necessitate what happens, which I find very peculiar. |
4034 | Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Evading properties by means of predicates is implausible when things change. If a cold thing becomes hot, first 'cold' applies, and then 'hot', but what have predicates to do with the temperature of an object? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: A clear illustration of why properties are part of nature, not just part of language. But some applications of predicates are more arbitrary than this (ugly, cool) |
8535 | To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Upholders of properties have been inclined to postulate a distinct property corresponding to each distinct predicate. We could start by eliminating all those properties where the predicate fails to apply, is not true, of anything. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: This would leave billions of conjunctional, disjunctional and gerrymandered properties where the predicate applies very well. We are all 'on the same planet as New York'. Am I allowed to say that I 'wish' that a was F? He aims for 'sparse' properties. |
8537 | Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Exact similarity is a symmetrical and transitive relation. (Less than exact similarity is not transitive, even for tropes). So the relation of exact similarity is an equivalence relation, partitioning the field of tropes into equivalence classes. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
A reaction: Armstrong goes on the explore the difficulties for trope theory of less than exact similarity, which is a very good line of discussion. Unfortunately it is a huge problem for everyone, apart from the austere nominalist. |
4444 | One moderate nominalist view says that properties and relations exist, but they are particulars [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There is a 'moderate' nominalism (found in G.F.Stout, for example) which says that properties and relations do exist, but that they are particulars rather than universals. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.504) | |
A reaction: Both this view and the 'mereological' view seem to be ducking the problem. If you have two red particulars and a green one, how do we manage to spot the odd one out? |
18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: 'Non-transferable' theories of tropes hold that the mass is of this stone by necessity. It is an identity condition for the property. Every property then becomes an essential property. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Martin and Heil for this view] It is hard to see in this proposal how the trope is in any way separate from its substance, and hence it seems a bit of a vacuous theory. (The other theories of properties aren't much cop either). |
8538 | Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Trope theory needs extra ontological baggage, the Axioms of Resemblance. There is a principle of symmetry, and there is the failure of transitivity - except in the special case of exact resemblance. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
A reaction: [see text for fuller detail] Is it appropriate to describe such axioms as 'ontological' baggage? Interesting, though I suspect that any account of properties and predicates will have a similar baggage of commitments. |
4445 | If properties and relations are particulars, there is still the problem of how to classify and group them [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The view that properties exist, but are particulars rather than universals, is still left with the problem of classification. On what basis do we declare that different things have the same property? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.504) | |
A reaction: This seems like a fairly crucial objection. The original problem was how we manage to classify things (group them into sets), and it looks as if this theory leaves the problem untouched. |
18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Properties are not powers. But properties have powers. They bestow powers. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. In this view, powers become extremely vague things, ranging from the fine-grained to the hugely broad. It seems to me that powers are precise and real, but properties are the vague unhelpful things. |
14330 | To be realists about dispositions, we can only discuss them through their categorical basis [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is only to the extent that we relate disposition to 'categorical basis', and difference of disposition to difference of 'categorical basis', that we can speak of dispositions. We must be Realists, not Phenomenalists, about dispositions. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968], 6.VI) | |
A reaction: It is Armstrong's realism which motivates this claim, because he thinks only categorical properties are real. But categorical properties seem to be passive, and the world is active. |
17666 | Actualism means that ontology cannot contain what is merely physically possible [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Actualism ...debars us from admitting into our ontology the merely possible, not only the merely logically possible, but also the merely physically possible. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.3) | |
A reaction: This is the big metaphysical question for fans (like myself) of 'powers' in nature. Armstrong declares himself an Actualist. I take it as obvious that the actual world contains powers, but how are we to characterise them? |
17667 | Dispositions exist, but their truth-makers are actual or categorical properties [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is not denied that statements attributing dispositions and/or powers to objects are often true. But the truth-makers or ontological ground for such statements must always be found in the actual, or categorical, properties of the objects involved. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.3) | |
A reaction: This is the big debate in the topic of powers. I love powers, but you always think there must be 'something' which has the power. Could reality entirely consist of powers? See Fetzer. |
17687 | If everything is powers there is a vicious regress, as powers are defined by more powers [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I believe reducing all universals to powers is involved in vicious regress. The power is what it is by the sort of actualisations it gives rise to in suitable sorts of circumstances. But they themselves can be nothing but powers... | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 08.3) | |
A reaction: [compressed wording] I don't see this problem. Anything postulated as fundamental is going to be baffling. Why are categorical properties superior to powers? Postulate basic powers (or basic empowered stuff), then build up. |
18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Powers must surely issue in manifestations that are something more than just powers. A world where potency never issued in act, but only in more potency, would be one where one travelled without ever having the possibility of arriving. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
A reaction: Tricky. The picture I favour is that the distinction between powers and categorical properties is a misunderstanding. What is fundamental is active and powerful categoricals. |
18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: If masses are powers, the forces generated between two particulars have to vary inversely with the square of their distance apart. Have not the masses got to 'know' at what distance they are from each other, to exert the right amount of force? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
A reaction: This seems like a good warning against a simplistic account of powers doing all the work, but I suspect that more sophisticated physics would offer the fan of powers a solution here. The power is to 'spread' the force around. |
8506 | Particulars and properties are distinguishable, but too close to speak of a relation [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I favour the Realist view that while we can distinguish the particularity of a particular from its properties, but the two 'factors' are too intimately together to speak of a relation between them. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Against 'Ostrich Nominalism' [1980], §3) | |
A reaction: Is Armstrong being a bit of an ostrich here? We could talk of part-whole relationships, or internal relations, or set membership, or coinciding objects, or bundles. We certainly ought to have a go. Armstrong approaches Quine here! |
4448 | Should we decide which universals exist a priori (through words), or a posteriori (through science)? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Should we decide what universals exist a priori (probably on semantic grounds, identifying them with the meanings of general words), or a posteriori (looking to our best general theories about nature to give revisable conjectures about universals)? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.505) | |
A reaction: Nice question for a realist. Although the problem is first perceived in the use of language, if we think universals are a real feature of nature, we should pursue them scientifically, say I. |
17678 | Universals are just the repeatable features of a world [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Universals can be brought into the spatio-temporal world, becoming simply the repeatable features of that world. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
A reaction: I wish Armstrong wouldn't use the word 'universal', which has so much historical baggage. The world obviously has repeatable features, but does that mean that our ontology must include things called 'features'? Hm. |
4032 | The problem of universals is how many particulars can all be of the same 'type' [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The problem of universals is the problem of how numerically different particulars can nevertheless be identical in nature, all be of the same 'type'. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Nominalism and Realism [1978], p.41), quoted by DH Mellor / A Oliver - Introduction to 'Properties' §7 | |
A reaction: A nice statement of the problem. As usual, the question is whether the 'sameness' is a feature of nature, or a product of human thought |
17669 | Realist regularity theories of laws need universals, to pick out the same phenomena [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A Realistic version of a Regularity theory of laws will have to postulate universals. How else will it be possible to say that the different instances of a certain uniformity are all instances of objectively the same phenomenon? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.4) | |
A reaction: I disagree. We may (or may not) need properties, but they can be have a range. We just need stable language. We use one word 'red', even when the shade of redness varies. Non-realists presumably refer to sense-data. |
8539 | Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A reason why I reject trope theory is that universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
A reaction: This is the key thought in Armstrong's defence of universals. Issues about universals may well be decided on such large playing fields. I think he is probably wrong, and I will gradually explain why. Watch this space as the story unfolds... |
10729 | Universals explain resemblance and causal power [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
Full Idea: Armstrong thinks universals play two roles, namely grounding objective resemblances and grounding causal powers. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978]) by Alex Oliver - The Metaphysics of Properties 11 | |
A reaction: Personally I don't think universals explain anything at all. They just add another layer of confusion to a difficult problem. Oliver objects that this seems a priori, contrary to Armstrong's principle in Idea 10728. |
17677 | Past, present and future must be equally real if universals are instantiated [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Past, present and future I take to be all and equally real. A universal need not be instantiated now. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
A reaction: This is the price you must pay for saying that you only believe in universals which are instantiated. |
15442 | Universals are abstractions from their particular instances [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong takes universals generally, and structural universals along with the rest, to be abstractions from their particular instances. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], p.83-4) by David Lewis - Against Structural Universals 'The pictorial' | |
A reaction: To me, 'abstracted' implies a process of human psychology, a way of thinking about the instances. I don't see how there can be an 'abstracted' relation which is a part of the external world. That makes his laws of nature human creations. |
17686 | Universals are abstractions from states of affairs [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Universals are abstractions from states of affairs. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 7) | |
A reaction: I'm getting confused about Armstrong's commitments. He bases his whole theory on the existence of universals (repeatable features), but now says those are 'abstracted' from something else. Abstracted by us? |
4446 | It is claimed that some universals are not exemplified by any particular, so must exist separately [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There are some who claim that there can be uninstantiated universals, which are not exemplified by any particular, past, present or future; this would certainly imply that those universals have a Platonic transcendent existence outside time and space. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.504) | |
A reaction: Presumably this is potentially circular or defeasible, because one can deny the universal simply because there is no particular. |
4442 | Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Modern upholders of universals generally reject self-predication; humanity is not a man, whiteness is not a white thing. This means that the Third Man argument does not constitute a difficulty. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals and Particulars [1995], p.506) | |
A reaction: This certainly seems right, and is relevant to the modern problem of the content of thought. The idea of a tree does not need to be tree-like. |
8505 | Refusal to explain why different tokens are of the same type is to be an ostrich [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A philosophical account of a general sort is required of what it is for different tokens to be of the same type. To refuse to give such an account is to be a metaphysical ostrich. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Against 'Ostrich Nominalism' [1980], §1) | |
A reaction: This defines Ostrich Nominalism (a label Armstrong aims at Quine). I certainly sympathise with Armstrong. If there is no more to a class (a type) than just having members (tokens), nothing is explain. What is natural, essential, intensional etc.? |
8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The great deniers of properties and relations are of two sorts: those who put their faith in predicates and those who appeal to sets (classes). | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: This ignores the Quine view, which is strictly for ostriches. Put like this, properties and relations seem undeniable. Predicates are too numerous (gerrymandering) or too few (colour shades). Classes can have arbitrary members. |
4440 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' finds that in practice the construction of resemblance classes is hard [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is difficult for Resemblance Nominalists to construct their interconnected classes in practice. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: Given the complexity of the world this is hardly surprising, but it doesn't seem insuperable for the theory. It is hard to decide whether an object is white, or hot, whatever your theory of universals. |
8532 | Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: If a resembles b, in general, they resemble in certain respects, and fail to resemble in other respects. But respects are uncomfortably close to properties, which the Resemblance theory proposes to do without. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: This is a good objection. I think it is plausible to build a metaphysics around the idea of respects, and drop properties. Shall we just talk of 'respects' for categorising, and 'powers' for causation and explanation? Respects only exist in comparisons. |
4439 | 'Resemblance Nominalism' says properties are resemblances between classes of particulars [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Resemblance Nominalists say that to have a property is to be a member of a class which is part of a network of resemblance relations with other classes of particulars. ..'Resemblance' is taken to be a primitive notion, though one that admits of degrees. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: Intuition suggests that this proposal has good prospects, as properties are neither identical, nor just particulars, but have a lot in common, which 'resemblance' captures. Hume saw resemblance as a 'primitive' process. |
4031 | It doesn't follow that because there is a predicate there must therefore exist a property [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I suggest that we reject the notion that just because the predicate 'red' applies to an open class of particulars, therefore there must be a property, redness. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978], p.8), quoted by DH Mellor / A Oliver - Introduction to 'Properties' §6 | |
A reaction: At last someone sensible (an Australian) rebuts that absurd idea that our ontology is entirely a feature of our language |
8530 | Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: To appreciate the implausibility of the predicate view, consider where a thing's properties change. 'Hot' becomes applicable when 'cold' ceases to, ..but the change in the object would have occurred if the predicates had never existed. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: They keep involving secondary qualities! Armstrong is taking a strongly realist view (fine by me), but anti-realists can ignore his argument. I take predicate nominalism to be a non-starter. |
8536 | We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The properties that are of ontological interest are those constituents of objects, of particulars, which serve as the ground in the objects for the application of predicates. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: Good. This is a reversal of the predicate nominalist approach, and is a much healthier attitude to the relationship between ontology and language. Value judgements will be an interesting case. Does this allow us to invent new predicates? |
4431 | 'Predicate Nominalism' says that a 'universal' property is just a predicate applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: For a Predicate Nominalist different things have the same property, or belong to the same kind, if the same predicates applies to, or is 'true of', the different things. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: This immediately strikes me as unlikely, because I think the action is at the proposition level, not the sentence level. And why do some predicates seem to be synonymous? |
4433 | Concept and predicate nominalism miss out some predicates, and may be viciously regressive [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The standard objections to Predicate and Concept Nominalism are that some properties have no predicates or concepts, and that predicates and concepts seem to be types rather than particulars, and it is types the theory is seeking to analyse. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: The claim that some properties have no concepts is devastating if true, but may not be. The regress problem is likely to occur in any explanation of universals, I suspect. |
4432 | 'Concept Nominalism' says a 'universal' property is just a mental concept applied to lots of things [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Concept Nominalism says different things have the same property, or belong to the same kind, if the same concept in the mind is applied to different things. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: This is more appealing than Predicate Nominalism, and may be right. Our perception of the 'properties' of a thing may be entirely dictated by human interests, not by nature. |
8531 | In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Most sets are uninteresting because they are utterly heterogeneous, that is, the members have nothing in common. For most sets there is no common property F, such that the set is the set of all the Fs. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: One might link the interesting sets together by resemblance, without invoking the actual existence of an item F which all the members carry (like freemasons' briefcases). Personally I am only really interested in 'natural' sets. |
4436 | 'Class Nominalism' may explain properties if we stick to 'natural' sets, and ignore random ones [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Class Nominalism can be defended (by Quinton) against the problem of random sets (with nothing in common), by giving an account of properties in terms of 'natural' classes, where 'natural' comes in degrees, but is fundamental and unanalysable. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: This still seems to beg the question, because you still have to decide whether two things have anything 'naturally' in common before you assign them to a set. |
4434 | 'Class Nominalism' says that properties or kinds are merely membership of a set (e.g. of white things) [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Class Nominalists substitute classes or sets for properties or kinds, so that being white is just being a member of the set of white things; relations are treated as ordered sets. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: This immediately seems wrong, because it invites the question of why something is a member of a set (unless membership is arbitrary and whimsical - which it usually isn't). |
4435 | 'Class Nominalism' cannot explain co-extensive properties, or sets with random members [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Class Nominalism cannot explain co-extensive properties (which qualify the same things), and also a random (non-natural) set has particulars with nothing in common, thus failing to capture an essential feature of a general property. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: These objections strike me as conclusive, since we can assign things to a set quite arbitrarily, so membership of a set may signify no shared property at all (except, say, 'owned by me', which is hardly a property). |
18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: For a Class Nominalist 'the class of all 4-kilo objects' is the truthmaker for the truth that the particular has just that mass. Yet this looks far too big! Would not the object still be four kilos even if the other members of the class had never existed? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.2) | |
A reaction: This seems so obvious to me as to be hardly worth saying. To identify redness with the class of red entities just seems crazy. Why do they belong in that class? Armstrong is illustrating the value of the truthmaker idea in philosophy. |
4437 | 'Mereological Nominalism' sees whiteness as a huge white object consisting of all the white things [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Mereological Nominalism views a property as the omnitemporal whole or aggregate of all the things said to have the property, so whiteness is a huge white object whose parts are all the white things. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: A charming proposal, in which bizarre and beautiful unities thread themselves across the universe, but white objects may also be soft and warm. |
4438 | 'Mereological Nominalism' may work for whiteness, but it doesn't seem to work for squareness [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Mereological Nominalism has some plausibility for a case like whiteness, but breaks down completely for other universals, such as squareness. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Universals [1995], p.503) | |
A reaction: A delightful request that you attempt a hopeless feat of imagination, by seeing all squares as parts of one supreme square. A nice objection. |
17668 | It is likely that particulars can be individuated by unique conjunctions of properties [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: For each particular it is likely that there exists at least one individuating conjunction of properties, that is, a conjunction of properties such that the particular instantiates this conjunction and nothing else does. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.3) | |
A reaction: Armstrong commits to a famous Leibniz view, but I don't see his grounds for it. There is nothing incoherent about nature churning out perfect replicas of things, such as quarks and electrons. Would we care if two pens were perfectly identical? |
15753 | Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A sophisticated Resemblance theory can appeal to the natures of the resembling things, from which the resemblances flow. The natures are suitably internal, but are as coarse as the things themselves (and perhaps are the things themselves). | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1) | |
A reaction: Note that this is essentialism as an underpinning for Resemblance Nominalism. His objection is that he just can't believe in essences, because they are too 'coarse' - which I take to mean that we cannot distinguish the boundaries of an essence. |
18892 | Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn] |
Full Idea: It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me? | |
From: Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5 | |
A reaction: [See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what? |
12019 | McGinn falsely claims necessity of origin is a special case of the necessity of identity [Forbes,G on McGinn] |
Full Idea: McGinn assimilates the origin relation among organisms to the identity relation, so that the necessity of origin becomes a special case of the necessity of identity. We argue that this assimilation is illegitimate. | |
From: comment on Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 6.1 | |
A reaction: Not sure about this. I have long suspected what McGinn suspects. Once you have identified the organism with a particular origin, it hardly seems surprising that this particular origin has become inescapable. |
18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There is 'partial identity' where one entity contains another with something to spare, or else where entities overlap each other. ...Extensive quantities, such as length and mass, are the particularly plausible cases. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.5) | |
A reaction: This looks like a very useful concept which deserves wider use. It will help discussions of rivers, statues, intersecting roads etc. |
6058 | Identity propositions are not always tautological, and have a key epistemic role [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Identity propositions are not always analytic or a priori (as Frege long ago taught us) so there is nothing trivial about such propositions; the claim of redundancy ignores the epistemic role that the concept of identity plays. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: He is referring to Frege's Morning Star/Evening Star distinction (Idea 4972). Wittgenstein wanted to eliminate our basic metaphysics by relabelling it as analytic or tautological, but his project failed. Long live metaphysics! |
6053 | Identity is as basic as any concept could ever be [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Identity has a universality and basicness that is hard to overstate; concepts don't get more basic than this - or more indispensable. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: I agree with this. It seems to me to follow that the natural numbers are just as basic, because they are entailed by the separateness of the identities of things. And the whole of mathematics is the science of the patterns within these numbers. |
6043 | Type-identity is close similarity in qualities [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Two things are said to be type-identical when they are similar enough to be declared qualitatively identical. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A simple point which brings out the fact that type-identity is unlikely to be any sort of true identity (unless there is absolutely no different at all between two electrons, say). |
10024 | The type-token distinction is the universal-particular distinction [Armstrong, by Hodes] |
Full Idea: Armstrong conflates the type-token distinction with that between universals and particulars. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978], xiii,16/17) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic 147 n23 | |
A reaction: This seems quite reasonable, even if you don’t believe in the reality of universals. I'm beginning to think we should just use the term 'general' instead of 'universal'. 'Type' also seems to correspond to 'set', with the 'token' as the 'member'. |
6044 | Qualitative identity is really numerical identity of properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: A statement of so-called qualitative identity is really a statement of numerical identity (that is, identity tout court) about the properties of the objects in question - assuming that there are genuine universals. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: We might agree that two cars are type-identical, even though (under the microscope) we decided that none of their properties were absolutely identical. |
6046 | Qualitative identity can be analysed into numerical identity of the type involved [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We can analyse qualitative identity in terms of numerical identity, by saying that x and y are type-identical if there is a single type T that x and y both are, i.e. they both exemplify the same type. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This just seems to shift the problem onto the words 'are' and 'exemplify'. This takes us back to the problem of things 'partaking' of Plato's Forms. Better to say that qualitative identity isn't identity - it is resemblance (see Idea 6045). |
6045 | It is best to drop types of identity, and speak of 'identity' or 'resemblance' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: It would be better to drop talk of 'numerical' and 'qualitative' identity altogether, speaking instead simply of identity and resemblance. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n4) | |
A reaction: This is the kind of beautifully simple proposal I pay analytical philosophers to come up with. I will attempt in future to talk either of 'identity' (which is strict), or 'resemblance' (which comes in degrees). |
10728 | A thing's self-identity can't be a universal, since we can know it a priori [Armstrong, by Oliver] |
Full Idea: Armstrong says that if it can be proved a priori that a thing falls under a certain universal, then there is no such universal - and hence there is no universal of a thing being identical with itself. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Theory of Universals [1978], II p.11) by Alex Oliver - The Metaphysics of Properties 11 | |
A reaction: This is a distinctively Armstrongian view, based on his belief that universals must be instantiated, and must be discoverable a posteriori, as part of science. I'm baffled by self-identity, but I don't think this argument does the job. |
17680 | The identity of a thing with itself can be ruled out as a pseudo-property [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There is reason to rule out as pseudo-properties such things as the identity of a thing with itself. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.2) | |
A reaction: Good on you, David. |
6066 | Existence is a property of all objects, but less universal than self-identity, which covers even conceivable objects [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Existence is a property universal to all objects that exist, somewhat like self-identity, but less universal, because self-identity holds of all conceivable objects, not merely those that happen to exist. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This is a splendidly defiant response to the Kantian slogan that 'existence is not a predicate', and I find McGinn persuasive. I can still not find anyone to explain to me exactly what a property is, so I will reserve judgement. |
6054 | Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical (he is certainly not indentical to Dr Watson). | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Most significant. Identity does not entail existence; identity is necessary for existence (I think) but not sufficient. But the notion of existence might be prior to the notion of identity, and the creation of Holmes be parasitic on real existence. |
6047 | All identity is necessary, though identity statements can be contingently true [McGinn] |
Full Idea: All identity is necessary, although there can be contingently true identity statements - those that contain non-rigid designators. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n5) | |
A reaction: A nice case of the need to keep epistemology and ontology separate. An example might be 'The Prime Minister wears a wig', where 'Prime Minister' may not be a rigid designator. 'Winston wears a wig' will be necessary, if true (which it wasn't). |
6049 | Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py' [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py'. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: That is, two things are the same if when we say that one thing (x) has a property (P), then we are saying that the other thing (y) also has the property. A usefully concise statement of the Law. |
6048 | Leibniz's Law is so fundamental that it almost defines the concept of identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law, which a defender of relative identity might opt to reject, is so fundamental to the notion of identity that rejecting it amounts to changing the subject. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n8) | |
A reaction: The Law here is the 'indiscernibility of identicals'. I agree with McGinn, and anyone who loses their grip on this notion of identity strikes me as losing all grip on reality, and threatening their own sanity (well, call it their 'philosophical sanity'). |
6050 | Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A very important observation, because it leads to recognition of the way in which basic concepts and categories of thought interconnect. Which is more metaphysically basic, identity or properties? It is not easy to say… |
15542 | All possibilities are recombinations of properties in the actual world [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong's thesis is that recombination gives all the possibilities there are. There is no 'outer sphere' of possibilities wherein are found new and different universals alien to the actual world. No extra fundamental properties of fundamental particles. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'Combinatorialism' | |
A reaction: I can't grasp what Armstrong's basis would be for such a claim. I surmise that current fundamental particles can only have the properties they currently have, but I can't see the impossibility of new stuff with new properties. |
17693 | The necessary/contingent distinction may need to recognise possibilities as real [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It may be that the necessary/contingent distinction is tied to a metaphysics which recognises possibility as a real something wider than actuality. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 11.2) | |
A reaction: Armstrong responds by trying to give an account of possibility in terms of 'combinations' from actuality. I think powers offer a much better strategy. |
4743 | The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The truth-maker for a truth must necessitate that truth. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997], p.115), quoted by Pascal Engel - Truth Ch.1 | |
A reaction: Armstrong's 'truth-make principle'. It seems to be a necessity which is neither natural nor analytic, making it metaphysically necessary. Or is it part of the definition of truth? |
6080 | Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Modality has a special ontological category: it consists neither in objects (possible worlds theory) nor in properties (predicate modifier view), but items I have called 'modes', ..which can be hard/soft/rigid/pliable binding of objects to properties. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: As so often, McGinn is very persuasive. Essentially he is proposing that modality is adverbial. He associates the middle view with David Wiggins. |
6079 | If 'possible' is explained as quantification across worlds, there must be possible worlds [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If we replace modal words like 'possible' with quantification across worlds, clearly the notion of 'world' must exclude impossible worlds, otherwise 'possibly p' will be true if 'p' holds in an impossible world. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: The point here, of course, is that the question is being begged of what 'possible' and 'impossible' actually mean. |
11003 | The best version of reductionist actualism around is Armstrong's combinatorial account [Armstrong, by Read] |
Full Idea: Armstrong's combinatorial theory of possibility is perhaps the most sophisticated and best worked out reductionist version of actualism to date. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (The Nature of Possibility [1986]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 |
18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It seems natural and plausible to say that it is the fact that a necessary truth is itself necessary that determines its truth in all possible worlds. This intension determines its extension across possible worlds. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.1) | |
A reaction: Well said. To me (but not to Armstrong) this implies essentialism, that the necessity arises from the intrinsic natures of the things involved. The whole Lewisian approach of explaining things by mapping them strikes me as wrong. |
6171 | Beliefs are states of the head that explain behaviour, and also items with referential truth-conditions [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We view beliefs both as states of the head explanatory of behaviour, and as items possessed of referential truth-conditions. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Structure of Content [1982]), quoted by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.6 | |
A reaction: McGinn wants to build a two-part account of meaning on this point, which Rowlands resists. Hume just wanted to define belief by a feeling, but it seems obvious that truth must also be involved. |
22413 | Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn] |
Full Idea: What we should claim is that being red consists in looking red. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: A very nice simple account. There is more to being square than looking square (which may not even guarantee that it is square). That's the primary/secondary distinction in a nut shell. But red things don't look red in the dark. Sufficient, not necessary. |
22415 | Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Relativity permits differences in the perceived secondary qualities not to imply genuine disagreement, whereas perceived differences of primary qualities imply that at least one perceiver is in error. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: An example of 'relativity' is colour blindness. Sounds good, but what of one perceiver seeing a square as square, and another seeing it obliquely as a parallelogram? The squareness then seems more like a theory than a perception. |
22416 | Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We might say that scepticism is ruled out for secondary qualities because (roughly) phenomenalism is correct for them; but phenomenalism is not similarly correct for primary qualities, and scepticism cannot get a foothold. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: An odd idea, if phenomenalism says that reality consists entirely of phenomena. I should think phenomenalism is a commitment to the absence of primary qualities. |
22422 | Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The inseparability thesis about perception says that for any actual and possible sense the content of experiences delivered by that sense must be both of secondary qualities and of primary qualities. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: That would mean that all possible experience must have a mode of presentation, and also must be 'of' something independent of experience. So a yellow after-image would not count as an 'experience'? |
22428 | You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn] |
Full Idea: To grasp what it is to be red is to know the kind of sensory experience red things produce; ...but it is not true that to grasp what it is to be square one needs to know what kinds of sensory experience square things produce. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 8) | |
A reaction: Are any experiences involved in the understanding of squareness? We don't know squareness by a priori intuition (do we?). To grasp squareness if may be necessary to have a variety of experiences of it. Or to grasp that it is primary. |
22414 | You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness [McGinn] |
Full Idea: To grasp what it is for something to be square it is not constitutively necessary to know how square things look or feel, since what it is to be square does not involve any such relation to experience. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: You could even describe squareness verbally, unlike redness. It seems crucial that almost any sense (such as bat echoes) can communicate primary qualities, but secondary qualities are tied to a sense, and wouldn't exist without it. |
22423 | Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Bennett's claim that touch provides experience of primary qualities without experience of any secondary qualities strikes me as false, because tactile experience includes felt temperature, which is a dispositional secondary quality. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: [J.Bennett 1971 pp. 90-4] Fair point. What about shape and texture? We experience forces, but the shape is assembled in imagination rather than in experience. So do we meet primary qualities directly in forces, such as acceleration? No secondary quality? |
22426 | We can perceive objectively, because primary qualities are not mind-created [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I hold that experience succeeds in representing the world objectively, since primary quality perceptual content is not contributed by the mind. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: My new example of a direct perception of a primary quality is acceleration in a lift. What would we say to one passenger who denied feeling the acceleration? It took an effort to see that mind contributes to secondary qualities (so make more effort?). |
6498 | Armstrong suggests secondary qualities are blurred primary qualities [Armstrong, by Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: According to D.M. Armstrong and others, when we perceive secondary qualities we are in fact perceiving primary qualities in a confused, indistinct or blurred way. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968], 270-90) by Howard Robinson - Perception III.1 | |
A reaction: This is obviously an attempt to fit secondary qualities into a reductive physicalist account of the mind. Personally I favour Armstrong's project, but doubt whether this strategy is necessary. I just don't think there is anything 'primary' about redness. |
7440 | Secondary qualities are microscopic primary qualities of physical things [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I argue for the direct identification of the secondary qualities with microscopic primary qualities of physical things. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xxii) | |
A reaction: This sounds a bit like the eliminativism which Armstrong rejects. This seems in danger of mixing questions about the nature of mental events with questions about the nature of externally perceived objects. |
22412 | Lockean secondary qualities (unlike primaries) produce particular sensory experiences [McGinn] |
Full Idea: In the Lockean tradition, secondary qualities are defined as those whose instantiation in an object consists in a power or disposition of the object to produce sensory experiences in perceivers of a certain phenomenological character. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: Primary qualities are said to lack such dispositions. Not sure about these definitions. Primaries offer no experiences? With these definitions, comparing them would be a category mistake. I take it primaries reflect reality and secondaries do not. |
22421 | Could there be a mind which lacked secondary quality perception? [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Can we form a conception of a type of mind whose representations are free of secondary quality perceptions? | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: Nice question. Minds must have experiences, and there has to be a 'way' or 'mode' for those experiences. A mind which directly grasped the primary quality of sphericity would seem to be visionary rather than sensual or experiential. |
22424 | Secondary qualities contain information; their variety would be superfluous otherwise [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Surely we learn something about an object when we discover its secondary qualities? ...If secondary quality experience were informationally inert, its variety would be something of a puzzle. Why not employ the same medium for all primary informaton? | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: This is important. We can't just focus on the primary qualities, and ignore the secondary. But diverse colours draw attention to information, which can then be translated into neutral data, as in spectroscopic analysis. Locke agrees with this. |
22425 | The utility theory says secondary qualities give information useful to human beings [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Secondary quality perception, according to the utility theory, gives information about the relation between the perceptual object and the perceiver's needs and interests. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: Almost the only example I can think of is whether fruit is ripe or rotten. ...Also 'bad' smells. We recognise aggressive animal noises, but that is not the same as dangerous (e.g. rustling snake). Divine design is behind this theory, I think. |
7629 | We see objects 'directly' by representing them [McGinn] |
Full Idea: My view is that we see objects 'directly' by representing them in visual experience. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], Ch.8 n1) | |
A reaction: [Quoted by Maund] This rejects both inference in perception and sense-data, while retaining the notion of representation. It is a view which has gained a lot of support. But how can it be direct if it represents? Photographs can't do that. |
3900 | Maybe experience is not essential to perception, but only to the causing of beliefs [Armstrong, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Armstrong has argued that experience, as normally understood, is not necessary to perception. To perceive is to acquire beliefs, through a causal process. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 23.4 |
6081 | Necessity and possibility are big threats to the empiricist view of knowledge [McGinn] |
Full Idea: It is clear that modality is a prima-facie threat to the usual kind of naturalistic-causal-empiricist theory of knowledge. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is why modern empiricists spend of a lot of energy on trying to analyse counterfactuals and laws of nature. Rationalists are much happier to assert necessities a priori, but then they often don't have much basis for their claims. |
4253 | Externalism says knowledge involves a natural relation between the belief state and what makes it true [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Externalist accounts of non-inferential knowledge say what makes a true non-inferential belief a case of knowledge is some natural relation which holds between the belief state and the situation which makes the belief true. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Belief Truth and Knowledge [1973], 11.III.6) | |
A reaction: Armstrong's concept is presumably a response to Quine's desire to 'naturalise epistemology'. Bad move, I suspect. It probably reduces knowledge to mere true belief, and hence a redundant concept. |
6071 | Scepticism about reality is possible because existence isn't part of appearances [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Scepticism about the external world is possible because you can never build existence into the appearances, so it must always be inferred or assumed. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: When McGinn's claim that existence is a very universal property begins to produce interesting observations like this, I think we should take it very seriously. |
17685 | Induction aims at 'all Fs', but abduction aims at hidden or theoretical entities [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Many philosophers of science have distinguished between 'simple induction' - the argument from observed Fs to all Fs - and the argument to hidden or theoretical entities (Peirce's 'abduction'). | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) | |
A reaction: 'Abduction' is (roughly) the same is inference to the best explanation, of which I am a great fan. |
17683 | Science suggests that the predicate 'grue' is not a genuine single universal [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is plausible to say, on the basis of total science, that 'grue' is a predicate to which no genuine, that is, unitary, universal corresponds. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) |
17675 | Unlike 'green', the 'grue' predicate involves a time and a change [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The predicate 'grue' involves essential reference to a particular time, which 'green' does not. Also on the 'grue' hypothesis a change occurs in emeralds in a way that change does not occur on the 'green' hypothesis. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.5) | |
A reaction: I'm inclined to think that comparing 'grue' with 'green' is a category mistake. 'Grue' is a behaviour. Armstrong says this is no objection, because Goodman's argument is purely formal. |
17674 | The raven paradox has three disjuncts, confirmed by confirming any one of them [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: We could rewrite the generalisation as For all x, ((x is a raven and x is black) v (x is not a raven and x is black) v (x is not a raven and x is not black)). Instances of any one of the three disjuncts will do as confirmation. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.3) | |
A reaction: A nice clarification. |
17672 | A good reason for something (the smoke) is not an explanation of it (the fire) [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A good reason for P is not necessarily an explanation of P. The presence of smoke is a good reason for thinking that fire is present. But it is not an explanation of the presence of fire. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 04.2) | |
A reaction: This may be an equivocation on 'the reason for'. Smoke is a reason for thinking there is a fire, but no one would propose it as a reason for the fire. If the reason for the fire was arson, that would seem to explain it as well. |
17684 | To explain observations by a regular law is to explain the observations by the observations [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Given the Regularity theory, the explanatory element seems to vanish. For to say that all the observed Fs are Gs because all the Fs are Gs involves explaining the observations in terms of themselves. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.7) | |
A reaction: This point cries out, it is so obvious (once spotted). Tigers are ferocious because all tigers are ferocious (see?). |
17676 | Best explanations explain the most by means of the least [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The best explanation explains the most by means of the least. Explanation unifies. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 05.4) | |
A reaction: To get unification, you need to cite the diversity of what is explained, and not the mere quantity. The force of gravity unifies because it applies to such a diversity of things. |
7437 | Consciousness and experience of qualities are not the same [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Consciousness and experience of qualities are often run together - a serious mistake, I think. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvii) | |
A reaction: A difficult claim to evaluate. Can we experience redness without being conscious of it? Could there be consciousness (e.g. of concepts) which didn't involve any qualities? I suspect that qualities are more basic than intentionality or consciousness. |
4691 | If all mental life were conscious, we would be unable to see things, or to process speech [McGinn] |
Full Idea: If there were nothing more to our mind than our conscious awareness, then we would be unable to see anything or to process speech. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 6) | |
A reaction: A vital point. Traditional dualism has left us a simplistic exaggeration of the role of consciousness, and the misapprehension that most of what we do is conscious - which it clearly isn't, once you think about it. |
2539 | Mental modules for language, social, action, theory, space, emotion [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The prevailing view in cognitive psychology is that the mind consists of separate faculties, each with a certain cognitive task: linguistic, social, practical, theoretical, abstract, spatial and emotional. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.40) | |
A reaction: 'Faculties' are not quite the same as 'modules', and this list mostly involves more higher-order activities than a modules list (e.g. Idea 2495). The idea that emotion is a 'faculty' sounds old-fashioned. |
18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: General truths are a species of negative truth, 'no more' truths, asserting that there are no more men than the mortal ones, no more ravens than the black ones. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.1) | |
A reaction: He goes on to distinguish between 'absences' and 'limits' in this area. |
5690 | A mental state without belief refutes self-intimation; a belief with no state refutes infallibility [Armstrong, by Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: For Armstrong, introspection involves a belief, and mental states and their accompanying beliefs are 'distinct existences', so a state without belief shows states are not self-intimating, and the belief without the state shows beliefs aren't infallible. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection | |
A reaction: I agree with Armstrong. Introspection is a two-level activity, which animals probably can't do, and there is always the possibility of a mismatch between the two levels, so introspection is neither self-intimating nor infallibe (though incorrigible). |
2545 | Free will is mental causation in action [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Free will is mental causation in action. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.167) |
2543 | Brains aren't made of anything special, suggesting panpsychism [McGinn] |
Full Idea: All matter must contain the potential to underlie consciousness, since there is nothing special about the matter that composes brain tissue. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.100) | |
A reaction: This seems to me one of the most basic assumptions which we should all make about the mind. The mind is made of the brain, and the brain is made of food. However, there must be something 'special' about the brain. |
7434 | Behaviourism is false, but mind is definable as the cause of behaviour [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Behaviourism is false, but one is not far from the truth if one defines the mind as the cause of behaviour. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi) | |
A reaction: As Putnam says, if you cut all the efferent (outgoing) nerves, you would have a mind with no behaviour at all. I would say my mind is full of stuff that never affects my behaviour. However, influencing behaviour is certainly the main function of a mind. |
7436 | The manifestations of a disposition need never actually exist [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The manifestations of a disposition have the particularly mysterious property (metaphysically speaking) that they need not exist - which makes them rather like intentional objects. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvii) | |
A reaction: His example is a brittle glass which never shatters. This problem seems to require the mention of conditional and counterfactual statements in the description of the actual world, which rather increases the workload for philosophers. |
5493 | If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Armstrong and Lewis said that mental items were defined in terms of typical causes and effects; if, as seems likely, research reveals that a particular causal niche is occupied by a physical state, it follows that pain is a physical state. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.5 | |
A reaction: I am not fully convinced of the first step in the argument. It sounds like the epistemology and the ontology have got muddled (as usual). We define mental states as we define electrons, in terms of observed behaviour, but what are they? |
4600 | Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil] |
Full Idea: The Armstrong/Lewis version of functionalism takes mental properties to be functional properties, but identifies these with what other functionalists would regard as their realisers. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by John Heil - Philosophy of Mind Ch.4 | |
A reaction: Heil rejects this, but I am beginning to think that this is the answer. If functions do not have an ontological life of their own (the 'ringing' of the bell), then functionalist mental states can't either. Function is not an ontological category. |
7429 | Causal Functionalism says mental states are apt for producing behaviour [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I speak of my view as the Causal version of functionalism, which asserts that mental states are states apt for the production of certain ranges of behaviour and, in some cases, apt for being produced by certain ranges of stimuli. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xiv) | |
A reaction: This effectively makes a mental state a place in a flowdiagram (and hence the mind is software). It says nothing about what qualities the mental states have which make them apt for this role. Full explanations need more than the function. |
7438 | A causal theory of mentality would be improved by a teleological element [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: I now think, following Lycan, that my Causal theory of mentality would be strengthened (perhaps eliminating some potential counter-examples) by the addition of a teleological element. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xviii) | |
A reaction: For Lycan, see Idea 6533. Armstrong has begun to realise that merely specifying the causal role of a mental state is too thin as an explanation. Teleology widens the notion of function. I also want to know about the properties that make it possible. |
7388 | McGinn invites surrender, by saying it is hopeless trying to imagine conscious machines [Dennett on McGinn] |
Full Idea: McGinn invites his readers to join him in surrender: It's just impossible to imagine how software could make a conscious robot. Don't even try, he says. Other philosophical experiments (involving China) "work" by dissuading readers from imagining. | |
From: comment on Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 14.1 | |
A reaction: I agree with Dennett. If you don't try to imagine how robots might do it, you are also denied the right to try to imagine how brains might manage it. Admittedly this is hard, but good imagination needs study, effort, discussion, time, information... |
2540 | Examining mind sees no brain; examining brain sees no mind [McGinn] |
Full Idea: You can look into your mind until you burst and not discover neurons and synapses, and you can stare at someone's brain from dawn till dusk and not perceive the consciousness that is so apparent to the person whose brain it is. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.47) | |
A reaction: This is a striking symmetry of ignorance, though hardly enough to justify McGinn's pessimism about understanding the mind. 'When you are in the grass you can't see the whole of England; if you can see the whole of England, you won't see the grass'. |
7431 | The identity of mental states with physical properties is contingent, because the laws of nature are contingent [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Granted the contingency of the laws of nature, the identification of dispositions with their categorical bases can be contingent only. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xvi) | |
A reaction: Personally I am not willing to grant the contingency of the laws of nature, but I suppose Armstrong is right about identity if he is right about laws. Presumably an identity could happen to be invariant across possible worlds, without being necessary. |
7432 | One mental role might be filled by a variety of physical types [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: If the mental is just that which plays a causal role then there is the possibility, which may even be an empirical possibility, that the causal role of tokens of the same mental type should be filled by tokens of significantly different physical types. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Pref to new 'Materialist Theory' [1992], p.xiv) | |
A reaction: This allows for multiple realisability in a physicalist framework. Fear has the same role in all animals, but may be realised in physically different ways. I go further, and say that two mental states could differ, while playing the same role. |
3185 | Multiple realisability rules out hidden essences and experts as the source of water- and gold-concepts [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The multiple realisability emphasised by functionalists rules out the hidden essences (and the 'deferential' move in semantics) that one finds in the cases, for example, of "water" and "gold" emphasised by Kripke and Putnam. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Problem of Consciousness [1991], p.132) | |
A reaction: Presumably if they are 'hidden', then the people to whom we 'defer' for our concepts can't actually know about the essences we are supposed to be discussing. You can mean essences without knowing them. Cf. Loch Ness Monster. |
22420 | The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I attribute three properties to the indexical perspective: it is subjective, incorrigible, and constant. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 5) | |
A reaction: That is as good an idea as any for summarising the view (associated with John Perry) that the indexical perspective is an indispensable feature of reality. For a good attack on this, which I favour, see Cappelen and Dever. |
18410 | Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Very roughly, we can say that to think of something indexically is to think of it in relation to me, as I am presented to myself in self-consciousness. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: So it is characterised relationally, which doesn't mean it has a distinctive intrinsic character. If I'm lost, and I overhear someone say 'Peter is in Hazlemere', I get the same relational information (in a different mode) without the indexicality. |
22417 | Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Indexicals are like secondary qualities in not figuring in causal explanations of the interactions of objects: physics omits them not because they are relative and egocentric, but because they do not constitute explanatory predicates of a causal theory. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 2) | |
A reaction: They are outside explanatory physics, but not outside explanation. The object moved because a force acted on it; or the object moved because I wanted it moved. |
18402 | Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The present suggestion is that indexical concepts are ineliminable because without them agency would be impossible: when I imagine myself divested of indexical thoughts employing only centreless mental representations, I am deprived of the power to act. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6) | |
A reaction: A nice clear statement of the view developed by Perry and Lewis. I agree with Cappelen and Dever that it is entirely wrong, and that indexical thought is entirely eliminable, and nothing special. |
17664 | Each subject has an appropriate level of abstraction [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: To every subject, its appropriate level of abstraction. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.2) | |
A reaction: Mathematics rises through many levels of abstraction. Economics can be very concrete or very abstract. It think it is clearer to talk of being 'general', rather than 'abstract'. |
4690 | If meaning is speaker's intentions, it can be reduced to propositional attitudes, and philosophy of mind [McGinn] |
Full Idea: The importance of Grice's analysis of speaker meaning is that it offers the prospect of analysing the whole phenomenon of linguistic meaning in terms of propositional attitudes… thus turning semantics into a department of the philosophy of mind. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Making of a Philosopher [2002], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: Although meaning being truth conditions is the most cited theory, the reduction of semantics to an aspect of mind also seems almost orthodox now. But how do the symbols 'represent' the attitudes? |
8533 | Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Must there not be something quite specific about the thing which allows, indeed ensures, that predicates like 'underneath' and 'hot' apply? The predicates require ontological correlates. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: An interesting proposal, that in addition to making use of predicates, we should 'ensure that they apply'. Sounds verificationist. Obvious problem cases would be speculative, controversial or metaphorical predicates. "He's beneath contempt". |
4035 | There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: When we have said that predicates apply to objects, we have surely not said enough. The situation cries out for an explanation. Must there not be something specific about the things which allows, indeed ensures, that these predicates apply? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
A reaction: A nice challenge to any philosopher who places too much emphasis on language. A random and arbitrary (nominalist?) language simply wouldn't work. Nature has joints. |
6077 | Semantics should not be based on set-membership, but on instantiation of properties in objects [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Semantics should not employ the relationship of set-membership between objects and extensions, but rather the relation of instantiation between objects and properties. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: At least this means that philosophers won't be required to read fat books on set theory, but they will have to think very carefully about 'instantiation'. A good start is the ideas on 'Partaking' of Platonic Forms in this database (in 'Universals'). |
2547 | There is information if there are symbols which refer, and which can combine into a truth or falsehood [McGinn] |
Full Idea: There is information in a system if there are symbols in it that refer to things and that together form strings that can be true or false. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.225) | |
A reaction: We can also directly apprehend information by perception. Are facts identical with correct information? Can a universal generalisation be information? |
6074 | Clearly predicates have extensions (applicable objects), but are the extensions part of their meaning? [McGinn] |
Full Idea: We are taught that predicates have extensions - the class of objects of which the predicate is true - which seems hard to deny; but a stronger claim is also made - that extensions are semantically relevant features of predicates. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: He cites Quine as a spokesman for this view. McGinn is going on to challenge it, by defending universals. It seems to fit in with other externalist theories of concepts and meanings, none of which seems very appealing to me. |
22418 | I can know indexical truths a priori, unlike their non-indexical paraphrases [McGinn] |
Full Idea: I know the truth of the sentence 'I am here now' a priori, but I do not know a priori 'McGinn is in London on 15th Nov 1981'. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 3) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that I can grasp the concepts of 'here' and 'now' (i.e. space and time) by purely a priori means. But he certainly shows that you can't glibly dismiss indexicals by paraphrasing them in that way. |
18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The thesis of 'expressibility' says that for all being, there is a proposition (perhaps one never formulated by any mind at any time) that truly renders the existence and nature of this being. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3.2) | |
A reaction: [He credits Stephen Read 2000:68-9 for this] Armstrong accepts this, but I deny it. I can't make any sense of this vast plethora of propositions, each exactly expressing some minute nuance of the infinity complexity of all being. |
18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: We could not stand in any causal or nomic relation to a realm of propositions over and above the space-time world, ...so it is unclear that such a postulation is of any explanatory value. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.6) | |
A reaction: I agree, and I like Armstrong's appeal to explanation as a criterion for whether we should make an ontological commitment here. I am baffled by anyone who thinks reality is crammed full of unarticulated propositions. Only a philosopher.... |
1495 | Anaximander introduced the idea that the first principle and element of things was the Boundless [Anaximander, by Simplicius] |
Full Idea: Anaximander said that the first principle and element of existing things was the boundless; it was he who originally introduced this name for the first principle. | |
From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], A09) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.24.14- | |
A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus |
405 | The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless [Anaximander] |
Full Idea: The essential nature, whatever it is, of the non-limited is everlasting and ageless. | |
From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B2), quoted by (who?) - where? |
13222 | The Boundless cannot exist on its own, and must have something contrary to it [Aristotle on Anaximander] |
Full Idea: Those thinkers are in error who postulate ...a single matter, for this cannot exist without some 'perceptible contrariety': this Boundless, which they identify with the 'original real', must be either light or heavy, either hot or cold. | |
From: comment on Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 329a10 | |
A reaction: A dubious objection, I would say. If there has to be a contrasting cold thing to any hot thing, what happens when the cold thing is removed? |
404 | Things begin and end in the Unlimited, and are balanced over time according to justice [Anaximander] |
Full Idea: The non-limited is the original material of existing things; their source is also that to which they return after destruction, according to necessity; they give justice and make reparation to each other for injustice, according to the arrangement of Time. | |
From: Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE], B1), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 24.13- | |
A reaction: Simplicius is quoting Theophrastus |
17692 | We can't deduce the phenomena from the One [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: No serious and principled deduction of the phenomena from the One has ever been given, or looks likely to be given. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 11) | |
A reaction: This seems to pick out the best reason why hardly anybody (apart from Jonathan Schaffer) takes the One seriously. |
17689 | Absences might be effects, but surely not causes? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Lacks and absences could perhaps by thought of as effects, but we ought to be deeply reluctant to think of them as causes. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.4) | |
A reaction: Odd. So we allow that they exist (as effects), but then deny that they have any causal powers? |
2542 | Causation in the material world is energy-transfer, of motion, electricity or gravity [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Causation in the material world works by energy transfer of some sort: transfer of motion, of electrical energy, of gravitational force. | |
From: Colin McGinn (The Mysterious Flame [1999], p.92) |
18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Is it not very plausible that negative causations supervene on the positive causations together with the laws that govern the positive causations? | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.3) | |
A reaction: This obviously has a naturalistic appeal, since all causation can then be based on the actual world. |
4798 | In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation [Armstrong, by Psillos] |
Full Idea: In recent writings, Armstrong makes a direct identification of necessitation with causation. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A World of States of Affairs [1997]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §6.3.3 | |
A reaction: Obviously logical necessity is not causal, but as a proposal for simplifying accounts of necessity in nature, this is wonderfully simple and appealing. Is his proposal an elevation of causation, or a degradation of necessity? |
17682 | A universe couldn't consist of mere laws [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: A universe could hardly consist of laws and nothing else. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.4) | |
A reaction: Hm. Discuss. How does a universe come into existence, if there are no laws to guide its creation? |
17662 | Science depends on laws of nature to study unobserved times and spaces [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The scientist trying to establish the geography and history of the unobserved portion of the universe must depend upon what he takes to be the laws of the universe. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 01.1) | |
A reaction: This does seem to be the prime reason why we wish to invoke 'laws', but we could just as well say that we have to rely on induction. Spot patterns, then expect more of the same. Spot necessities? Mathematics is very valuable here, of course. |
17690 | Oaken conditional laws, Iron universal laws, and Steel necessary laws [Armstrong, by PG] |
Full Idea: Three degress of law: 1) 'Oaken laws' where all Fs that aren't Hs are Gs; 2) 'Iron' laws where all Fs are Gs; and 3) 'Steel' laws where all Fs must be Gs. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 10.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: [My summary of Armstrong's distinction] One response is to say that all laws are actually Oaken - see Mumfor and Mumford/Lill Anjum. It's all ceteris paribus. |
17670 | Newton's First Law refers to bodies not acted upon by a force, but there may be no such body [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Newton's First Law of Motion tells us what happens to a body which is not acted upon by a force. Yet it may be that the antecedent of the law is never instantiated. It may be that every body that there is, is acted upon by some force. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.7) |
8582 | Regularities are lawful if a second-order universal unites two first-order universals [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
Full Idea: Armstrong's theory holds that what makes certain regularities lawful are second-order states of affairs N(F,G) in which the two ordinary first-order universals F and G are related by a certain dyadic second-order universal N. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by David Lewis - New work for a theory of universals 'Laws and C' | |
A reaction: [see Lewis's footnote] I take the view (from Shoemaker and Ellis) that laws of nature are just plain regularities which arise from the hierarchy of natural kinds. We don't need a commitment to 'universals'. |
17671 | A naive regularity view says if it never occurs then it is impossible [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is a Humean uniformity that no race of ravens is white-feathered. Hence, if the Naive Regularity analysis of law is correct, it is a law that no race of ravens is white-feathered, that is, such a race is physically impossible. A most unwelcome result. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 02.6) | |
A reaction: Chapters 2-4 of Armstrong are a storming attack on the regularity view of laws of nature, and this idea is particularly nice. Laws must refer to what could happen, not what happens to happen. |
8541 | Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Regularity theories make laws molecular, with no inner causal connections; also, only some cosmic regularities are manifestations of laws; molecular states can't sustain counterfactuals; and probabilistic laws are hard to accommodate. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
A reaction: [very compressed] A helpful catalogue of difficulties. The first difficulty is the biggest one - that regularity theories have nothing to say about why there is a regularity. They offer descriptions instead of explanations. |
8540 | The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: Regularity theories of laws face the grue problem. That, I think, can only be got over by introducing properties, sparse properties, into one's ontology. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
A reaction: The problem is, roughly, that regularities have to be described in language, which is too arbitrary in character. Armstrong rightly tries to break the rigid link to language. See his Idea 8536, which puts reality before language. |
17681 | The laws of nature link properties with properties [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: There is an utterly natural idea that the laws of nature link properties with properties. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983], 06.3) | |
A reaction: Put it this way: given that properties are expressions of invariant powers, the interaction of two properties will (ceteris paribus) be invariant, and laws are just invariances in natural behaviour. |
16246 | Rather than take necessitation between universals as primitive, just make laws primitive [Maudlin on Armstrong] |
Full Idea: My own view is simple: the laws of nature ought to be accepted as ontologically primitive. …They are preferable in point of familiarity to such necessitation relations between universals. | |
From: comment on David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Tim Maudlin - The Metaphysics within Physics 1.4 | |
A reaction: I think you make natures of things primitive, and reduce laws to regularities and universals to resemblances. Job done. Natures are even more 'familiar' as primitives than laws are. |
9480 | Armstrong has an unclear notion of contingent necessitation, which can't necessitate anything [Bird on Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The two criticisms levelled against Armstrong are that it is unclear what his relation of contingent necessitation is, and that it is unclear how it is able to necessitate anything. | |
From: comment on David M. Armstrong (What is a Law of Nature? [1983]) by Alexander Bird - Nature's Metaphysics 3.1.2 | |
A reaction: I suppose someone has to explore the middle ground between the mere contingencies of Humean regularities and the strong necessities of scientific essentialism. The area doesn't, however, look promising. |
5492 | How can essences generate the right powers to vary with distance between objects? [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: In Newtonian physics the distance between two objects determines the attractive forces between them, but then the objects will have to be sensitive to the distance, in order to 'know' what forces to generate; but distance isn't a causal power. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Two Problems for Essentialism [2001], p.170) | |
A reaction: Ellis replies that he is not troubled, because he believes in essential properties which are separate from their causal roles. Indeed, how else could you explain their causal roles? Still, distance must be mentioned when explaining gravity. |
18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: The metaphysical present will be a strict instant, or, if time is not infinitely divisible, the present will be a minimum granule of duration. But strict instants or minimal granules of duration, if these exist, cannot be experienced. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 11) | |
A reaction: He points out that this is ironic, since Presentism lies on the basic experience of the present. |
1746 | The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable [Anaximander, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The parts of all things are susceptible to change, but the whole is unchangeable. | |
From: report of Anaximander (fragments/reports [c.570 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.An.2 |
6072 | If Satan is the most imperfect conceivable being, he must have non-existence [McGinn] |
Full Idea: Satan cannot exist because he is the most imperfect conceivable being, and existence is one of the perfections. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: The logic of this seems right to me. Presumably the theologians would hastily deny this as a definition of Satan; he must have some positive qualities (like power) in order to enact his supreme moral imperfections. NIce, though. |
6073 | I think the fault of the Ontological Argument is taking the original idea to be well-defined [McGinn] |
Full Idea: My own suspicion about the Ontological Argument is that the fault lies in taking notions like 'the most perfect, impressive and powerful being conceivable' to be well-defined. | |
From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I'm tempted to put it more strongly: the single greatest challenge for the theist with intellectual integrity is to give a clear and coherent definition of God. There must be no internal contradictions, and it must be within the bounds of possibility. |