176 ideas
| 9218 | Maybe what distinguishes philosophy from science is its pursuit of necessary truths [Sider] |
| Full Idea: According to one tradition, necessary truth demarcates philosophical from empirical inquiry. Science identifies contingent aspects of the world, whereas philosophical inquiry reveals the essential nature of its objects. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Reductive Theories of Modality [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: I don't think there is a clear demarcation, and I would think that lots of generalizations about contingent truths are in philosophical territory, but I quite like this idea - even if it does make scientists laugh at philosophers. |
| 18559 | Philosophy is empty if it does not in some way depend on matters of fact [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Save, maybe, for purely formal (e.g. logical) theories, philosophical claims whose correctness does not depend, however indirectly, on matters of fact are empty: they are neither true nor false. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I subscribe to this view. I'd even say that logic is empty if it is not answerable to the facts. The facts are nature, so this is a naturalistic manifesto. |
| 14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical enquiry can survive if we are willing to live with highly tentative conclusions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Nothing alienates the rather literal scientific sort of mind quicker that bold, dogmatic and even arrogant assertions about metaphysics. But to entirely close down metaphysical speculation for that reason is absurd. |
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Ontological 'cheaters' are those ne'er-do-well metaphysicians (such as presentists, phenomenalists, or solipsists) who refuse to countenance a sufficiently robust conception of the fundamental to underwrite the truths they accept. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: Presentists are placed in rather insalubrious company here, The notion of 'cheaters' is nice, and I associate it with Australian philosophy, and the reason that was admired by David Lewis. |
| 14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics, at bottom, is about the fundamental structure of reality. Not about what's necessarily true. Not about what properties are essential. Not about conceptual analysis. Not about what there is. Structure. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01) | |
| A reaction: The opening words of his book. I take them to be absolutely correct, and to articulate the new orthodoxy about metaphysics which has emerged since about 1995. He expands this as being about patterns, categories and joints. |
| 14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The most extreme critics of metaphysics base their critique on sweeping views about language (logical positivism), or knowledge (empiricism), ...but this notoriously threatens the science of unobservables as much as it threatens metaphysics. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: These criticisms also threaten speculative physics (even about what is possibly observable). |
| 15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
| Full Idea: It has always seemed odd that insight into the fundamental workings of the universe should be gained by reflection on how we think and speak. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.8) | |
| A reaction: A nice expression of what should by now be obvious to all philosophers - that analysis of language is not going to reveal very much. It is merely clearing the undergrowth so that we can go somewhere. |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual analysts generally regard intuitive judgements about particular cases as being far more diagnostic than intuitive judgements about general principles. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.4 n7) | |
| A reaction: Since I take the aim to be the building up an accurate picture about general truths, it would be daft to just leap to our intuitions about those general truths. Equally you can't cut intuition out of the picture (pace Ladyman). |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Arguably, 'there is absolutely no space between two objects in contact' is false, but definitional of 'contact'. ...We need a word for true definitional sentences. I propose: 'analytic'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.8) |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Philosophical concepts of interest are rarely reductively defined; still more rarely does our understanding of such concepts rest on definitions. ...(We generally understand concepts to the extent that we know what role they play in thinking). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that I agree with this. I suspect that Sider has the notion of definition in mind that is influenced by lexicography. Aristotle's concept of definition I take to be lengthy and expansive, and that is very relevant to philosophy. |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| Full Idea: What we care about is truth in joint-carving terms, not just truth. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: The thought is that it matters what conceptual scheme is used to express the truth (the 'ideology'). Truths can be true but uninformative or unexplanatory. |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: According to the entrenched truthmaker theorist, the fundamental facts consist just of facts citing the existence of entities. It's hard to see how all the complexity we experience could possibly be explained from that sparse basis. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: This may be the 'entrenched' truthmaker view, but it is not clear why there could not be more complicated fundamental truthmakers, with structure as well as entities. And powers. |
| 13689 | 'Theorems' are formulas provable from no premises at all [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Formulas provable from no premises at all are often called 'theorems'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.6) |
| 13705 | Truth tables assume truth functionality, and are just pictures of truth functions [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The method of truth tables assumes truth functionality. Truth tables are just pictures of truth functions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.3) |
| 13706 | Intuitively, deontic accessibility seems not to be reflexive, but to be serial [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Deontic accessibility seems not to be reflexive (that it ought to be true doesn't make it true). One could argue that it is serial (that there is always a world where something is acceptable). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.3.1) |
| 13710 | In D we add that 'what is necessary is possible'; then tautologies are possible, and contradictions not necessary [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In D we add to K a new axiom saying that 'what's necessary is possible' (□φ→◊φ), ..and it can then be proved that tautologies are possible and contradictions are not necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.4.2) |
| 13711 | System B introduces iterated modalities [Sider] |
| Full Idea: With system B we begin to be able to say something about iterated modalities. ..S4 then takes a different stand on the iterated modalities, and neither is an extension of the other. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.4.4) |
| 13708 | S5 is the strongest system, since it has the most valid formulas, because it is easy to be S5-valid [Sider] |
| Full Idea: S5 is the strongest system, since it has the most valid formulas. That's because it has the fewest models; it's easy to be S5-valid since there are so few potentially falsifying models. K is the weakest system, for opposite reasons. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.3.2) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, the orthodox view is that S5 is the correct logic for metaphysics, but it sounds a bit lax. Compare Idea 13707. |
| 13712 | Epistemic accessibility is reflexive, and allows positive and negative introspection (KK and K¬K) [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Epistemic accessibility should be required to be reflexive (allowing Kφ→φ). S4 allows the 'KK principle', or 'positive introspection' (Kφ→KKφ), and S5 allows 'negative introspection' (¬Kφ→K¬Kφ). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 7.2) |
| 13714 | We can treat modal worlds as different times [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We can think of the worlds of modal logic as being times, rather than 'possible' worlds. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 7.3.3) |
| 13720 | Converse Barcan Formula: □∀αφ→∀α□φ [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Converse Barcan Formula reads □∀αφ→∀α□φ (or an equivalent using ◊). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.5.2) | |
| A reaction: I would read that as 'if all the αs happen to be φ, then αs have to be φ'. Put like that, I would have thought that it was obviously false. Sider points out that some new object could turn up which isn't φ. |
| 13718 | The Barcan Formula ∀x□Fx→□∀xFx may be a defect in modal logic [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Barcan Formula ∀x□Fx→□∀xFx is often regarded as a defect of Simple Quantified Modal Logic, though this most clearly seen in its equivalent form ◊∃xFx→∃x◊Fx. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.5.2) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 13719 for an explanation why it might be a defect] I translate the first one as 'if xs must be F, then they are always F', and the second one as 'for x to be possibly F, there must exist an x which is possibly F'. Modality needs existence. |
| 13723 | System B is needed to prove the Barcan Formula [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The proof of the Barcan Formula require System B. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.7) |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If we accept the Barcan and converse Barcan schemas, this leads to surprising ontological consequences. Wittgenstein might have fathered something, so, by the Barcan schema, there is something that Wittgenstein might have fathered. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.9) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Tim Williamson for this line of thought] I was liking the Barcan picture, by now I am backing away fast. They cannot be serious! |
| 13715 | You can employ intuitionist logic without intuitionism about mathematics [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Not everyone who employs intuitionistic logic is an intuitionist about mathematics. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 7.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems worthy of note, since it may be tempting to reject the logic because of the implausibility of the philosophy of mathematics. I must take intuitionist logic more seriously. |
| 15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: An object is 'gunky' if each of its parts has further proper parts; thus gunk involves infinite descent in the part-whole relation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.11.2) |
| 14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Should our fundamental theory of part and whole take 'part' or 'overlap' as primitive? | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.3) |
| 14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Certain debates over the 'correct' logic are genuine, and not linguistic or conceptual. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01.3) | |
| A reaction: It is rather hard to give arguments in favour of this view, but I am pleased to have the authority of Sider with me. |
| 15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: I cannot legislate-true 'It is raining' and I cannot legislate true 'It is not raining', so if I cannot legislate either true then I cannot legislate-true the disjunction 'it is raining or it is not raining'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very simple and very persuasive argument against the idea that logic is a mere convention. I take disjunction to be an abstract summary of how the world works. Sider seems sympathetic. |
| 15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Despite its brilliant success in mathematics and fundamental science, classical logic applies uneasily to natural language. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: He gives examples of the conditional, and debates over the meaning of 'and', 'or' and 'not', and also names and quantifiers. Many modern philosophical problems result from this conflict. |
| 13678 | The most popular account of logical consequence is the semantic or model-theoretic one [Sider] |
| Full Idea: On the question of the nature of genuine logical consequence, ...the most popular answer is the semantic, or model-theoretic one. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Reading the literature, one might be tempted to think that this is the only account that anyone takes seriously. Substitutional semantics seems an interesting alternative. |
| 13679 | Maybe logical consequence is more a matter of provability than of truth-preservation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Another answer to the question about the nature of logical consequence is a proof-theoretic one, according to which it is more a matter of provability than of truth-preservation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't like this, and prefer the model-theoretic or substitutional accounts. Whether you can prove that something is a logical consequence seems to me entirely separate from whether you can see that it is so. Gödel seems to agree. |
| 13682 | Maybe logical consequence is impossibility of the premises being true and the consequent false [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The 'modal' account of logical consequence is that it is not possible for the premises to be true and the consequent false (under some suitable notion of possibility). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Sider gives a nice summary of five views of logical consequence, to which Shapiro adds substitutional semantics. |
| 13680 | Maybe logical consequence is a primitive notion [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There is a 'primitivist' account, according to which logical consequence is a primitive notion. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: While sympathetic to substitutional views (Idea 13674), the suggestion here pushes me towards thinking that truth must be at the root of it. The trouble, though, is that a falsehood can be a good logical consequence of other falsehoods. |
| 15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The simplest modal account is that logical consequence is just necessary consequence; another modal account says that logical consequences are modal consequences that involve only logical words essentially. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Quine's 'Carnap and Logical Truth' for the second idea] Sider is asserting that Humeans like him dislike modality, and hence need a nonmodal account of logical consequence. |
| 13722 | A 'theorem' is an axiom, or the last line of a legitimate proof [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A 'theorem' is defined as the last line of a proof in which each line is either an axiom or follows from earlier lines by a rule. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.7) | |
| A reaction: In other words, theorems are the axioms and their implications. |
| 15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Some say that logical constants are those expressions that are defined by their proof-theoretic roles, others that they are the expressions whose semantic values are permutation-invariant, and still others that they are the topic-neutral expressions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites MacFarlane 2005 as giving a survey of this] |
| 13696 | When a variable is 'free' of the quantifier, the result seems incapable of truth or falsity [Sider] |
| Full Idea: When a variable is not combined with a quantifier (and so is 'free'), the result is, intuitively, semantically incomplete, and incapable of truth or falsity. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 4.2) |
| 13700 | A 'total' function must always produce an output for a given domain [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Calling a function a 'total' function 'over D' means that the function must have a well-defined output (which is a member of D) whenever it is given as inputs any n members of D. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 5.2) |
| 13703 | λ can treat 'is cold and hungry' as a single predicate [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We might prefer λx(Fx∧Gx)(a) as the symbolization of 'John is cold and hungry', since it treats 'is cold and hungry' as a single predicate. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 5.5) |
| 13688 | Good axioms should be indisputable logical truths [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Since they are the foundations on which a proof rests, the axioms in a good axiomatic system ought to represent indisputable logical truths. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.6) |
| 13687 | No assumptions in axiomatic proofs, so no conditional proof or reductio [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Axiomatic systems do not allow reasoning with assumptions, and therefore do not allow conditional proof or reductio ad absurdum. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.6) | |
| A reaction: Since these are two of the most basic techniques of proof which I have learned (in Lemmon), I shall avoid axiomatic proof systems at all costs, despites their foundational and Ockhamist appeal. |
| 13690 | Proof by induction 'on the length of the formula' deconstructs a formula into its accepted atoms [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The style of proof called 'induction on formula construction' (or 'on the number of connectives', or 'on the length of the formula') rest on the fact that all formulas are built up from atomic formulas according to strict rules. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: Hence the proof deconstructs the formula, and takes it back to a set of atomic formulas have already been established. |
| 13691 | Induction has a 'base case', then an 'inductive hypothesis', and then the 'inductive step' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A proof by induction starts with a 'base case', usually that an atomic formula has some property. It then assumes an 'inductive hypothesis', that the property is true up to a certain case. The 'inductive step' then says it will be true for the next case. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] |
| 15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Tonk' is stipulated by Prior to stand for a meaning that obeys the elimination and introduction rules; but there simply is no such meaning; 'tonk' cannot be interpreted so as to obey the rules. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: 'Tonk' thus seems to present a problem for so-called 'natural' deduction, if the natural deduction consists of nothing more than obey elimination and introduction rules. |
| 13685 | Natural deduction helpfully allows reasoning with assumptions [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The method of natural deduction is popular in introductory textbooks since it allows reasoning with assumptions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: Reasoning with assumptions is generally easier, rather than being narrowly confined to a few tricky axioms, You gradually show that an inference holds whatever the assumption was, and so end up with the same result. |
| 13686 | We can build proofs just from conclusions, rather than from plain formulae [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We can construct proofs not out of well-formed formulae ('wffs'), but out of sequents, which are some premises followed by their logical consequence. We explicitly keep track of the assumptions upon which the conclusion depends. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.5.1) | |
| A reaction: He says the method of sequents was invented by Gerhard Gentzen (the great nazi logician) in 1935. The typical starting sequents are the introduction and elimination rules. E.J. Lemmon's book, used in this database, is an example. |
| 13697 | Valuations in PC assign truth values to formulas relative to variable assignments [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A valuation function in predicate logic will assign truth values to formulas relative to variable assignments. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Sider observes that this is a 'double' relativisation (due to Tarski), since propositional logic truth was already relative to an interpretation. Now we are relative to variable assignments as well. |
| 13684 | The semantical notion of a logical truth is validity, being true in all interpretations [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The semantical notion of a logical truth is that of a valid formula, which is true in all interpretations. In propositional logic they are 'tautologies'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This implies that there is a proof-theoretic account of logical truth as well. Intuitively a logical truth is a sequent which holds no matter which subject matter it refers to, so the semantic view sounds OK. |
| 13704 | It is hard to say which are the logical truths in modal logic, especially for iterated modal operators [Sider] |
| Full Idea: It isn't clear which formulas of modal propositional logic are logical truths, ...especially for sentences that contain iterations of modal operators. Is □P→□□P a logical truth? It's hard to say. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: The result, of course, is that there are numerous 'systems' for modal logic, so that you can choose the one that gives you the logical truths you want. His example is valid in S4 and S5, but not in the others. |
| 13724 | In model theory, first define truth, then validity as truth in all models, and consequence as truth-preservation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In model theory one normally defines some notion of truth in a model, and then uses it to define validity as truth in all models, and semantic consequence as the preservation of truth in models. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 10.1) |
| 13698 | In a complete logic you can avoid axiomatic proofs, by using models to show consequences [Sider] |
| Full Idea: You can establish facts of the form Γ|-φ while avoiding the agonies of axiomatic proofs by reasoning directly about models to conclusions about semantic consequence, and then citing completeness. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: You cite completeness by saying that anything which you have shown to be a semantic consequence must therefore be provable (in some way). |
| 13699 | Compactness surprisingly says that no contradictions can emerge when the set goes infinite [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Compactness is intuitively surprising, ..because one might have thought there could be some contradiction latent within some infinite set, preventing it from being satisfiable, only discovered when you consider the whole set. But this can't happen. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 4.5) |
| 13007 | Archimedes defined a straight line as the shortest distance between two points [Archimedes, by Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Archimedes gave a sort of definition of 'straight line' when he said it is the shortest line between two points. | |
| From: report of Archimedes (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Gottfried Leibniz - New Essays on Human Understanding 4.13 | |
| A reaction: Commentators observe that this reduces the purity of the original Euclidean axioms, because it involves distance and measurement, which are absent from the purest geometry. |
| 13701 | A single second-order sentence validates all of arithmetic - but this can't be proved axiomatically [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A single second-order sentence has second-order semantic consequences which are all and only the truths of arithmetic, but this is cold comfort because of incompleteness; no axiomatic system draws out the consequences of this axiom. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 5.4.3) |
| 14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalism does not respect a deep difference between thing-talk and process-talk, because it tends to place events and things in the same ontological category. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: He then quotes Broad, Idea 14759. This idea is the best reason yet for being sympathetic to the four-dimensionalist view, because I think processes really must have a central place in any decent ontology. |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Supervenience is just a kind of modal connection. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.10) | |
| A reaction: It says what would happen, as well as what does. This is big for Sider because he rejects modality as a feature of actuality. I think the world is crammed full of modal facts, so supervenience should be a handy tool for me. |
| 15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The locus of fundamentality for a Finean is the whole proposition, whereas for me it is the proposition-part. Fundamentality is holistic for the Finean, atomistic for me. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.3) | |
| A reaction: This is because Kit Fine has pushed fundamentality into a relation (grounding), rather than into the particular entities involved (if I understand Sider's reading of him aright). My first intuition is to side with Sider. I'm on Sider's side... |
| 15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The existence of tables and chairs is just as fundamental as the existence of electrons (in contrast, perhaps, with smirks and shadows, which do not exist fundamentally). However, tables and chairs have nonfundamental natures. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a good clarification, and to me the 'nature' of something points towards its essence. However, I suppose he refers here to the place of something in a dependence hierarchy. But then, why does it have that place? What power? |
| 15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism, whereas things do not. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.6.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Markosian 2004] |
| 15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The truthmaker theorist's 'concrete' states of affairs must be distinguished from necessarily existing 'abstract' states of affairs. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Plantinga's 'Nature of Necessity' for the second one; I presume the first one is Armstrong] |
| 13692 | A 'precisification' of a trivalent interpretation reduces it to a bivalent interpretation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: For a 'precisification' we take a trivalent interpretation and preserve the T and F values, and then assign all the third values in some way to either T or F. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 3.4.5) | |
| A reaction: [my informal summary of Sider's formal definition] |
| 13695 | Supervaluational logic is classical, except when it adds the 'Definitely' operator [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Supervaluation preserves classical logic (even though supervaluations are three-valued), except when we add the Δ operator (meaning 'definitely' or 'determinately'). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 3.4.5) |
| 13693 | A 'supervaluation' assigns further Ts and Fs, if they have been assigned in every precisification [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In a 'supervaluation' we take a trivalent interpretation, and assign to each wff T (or F) if it is T (or F) in every precisification, leaving the third truth-value in any other cases. The wffs are then 'supertrue' or 'superfalse' in the interpretation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 3.4.5) | |
| A reaction: [my non-symbolic summary] Sider says the Ts and Fs in the precisifications are assigned 'in any way you like', so supervaluation is a purely formal idea, not a technique for eliminating vagueness. |
| 13694 | We can 'sharpen' vague terms, and then define truth as true-on-all-sharpenings [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We can introduce 'sharpenings', to make vague terms precise without disturbing their semantics. Then truth (or falsity) becomes true(false)-in-all-sharpenings. You are only 'rich' if you are rich-on-all-sharpenings of the word. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 3.4.5) | |
| A reaction: Not very helpful. Lots of people might be considered rich in many contexts, but very few people would be considered rich in all contexts. You are still left with some vague middle ground. |
| 14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We can add to the Quinean advice to believe the ontology of your best theory that you should also regard the ideology of your best theory as carving at the joints. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: I've never liked the original Quinean formulation, but this is much better. I just take my ontological commitments to reside in me, not in whatever theory I am currently employing. I may be dubious about my own theory. |
| 18564 | Do categories store causal knowledge, or typical properties, or knowledge of individuals? [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists have attempted to determine whether a concept of a category stores some causal knowledge about the members, some knowledge about their typical properties, or some knowledge about specific members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.3.2) | |
| A reaction: I take there to be a psychological process of 'generalisation', so that knowledge of individuals is not and need not be retained. I am dubious about entities called 'properties', so I will vote for causal (including perceptual) knowledge. |
| 18604 | Are quick and slow categorisation the same process, or quite different? [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Are categorisation under time pressure and categorisation without time pressure ...two different cognitive competences? | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 5.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a psychologist's question. Introspectively, they do seem to be rather different, as there is no time for theorising and explaining when you are just casting your eyes over the landscape. |
| 18573 | For each category of objects (such as 'dog') an individual seems to have several concepts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: I contend that the best available evidence suggests that for each category of objects an individual typically has several concepts. For instance, instead of having a single concept of dog, an individual has in fact several concepts of dog. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3) | |
| A reaction: Machery's book is a sustained defence of this hypothesis, with lots of examples from psychology. Any attempt by philosophers to give a neat and tidy account of categorisation looks doomed. |
| 18602 | A thing is classified if its features are likely to be generated by that category's causal laws [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A to-be-classified object is considered a category member to the extent that its features were likely to have been generated by the category's causal laws. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.4) | |
| A reaction: [from Bob Rehder, psychologist, 2003] This is an account of categorisation which arises from the Theory Theory view of concepts, of which I am a fan. I love this idea, which slots neatly into the account I have been defending. Locke would like this. |
| 18565 | There may be ad hoc categories, such as the things to pack in your suitcase for a trip [Machery] |
| Full Idea: There may be ad hoc categories, as when people think about the things to pack in a small suitcase for a trip abroad. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be obviously correct, though critics might say that 'category' is too grand a term for such a grouping. |
| 13683 | A relation is a feature of multiple objects taken together [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A relation is just a feature of multiple objects taken together. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 1.8) | |
| A reaction: Appealingly simple, especially for a logician, who can then just list the relevant objects as members of a set, and the job is done. But if everyone to the left of me is also taller than me, this won't quite do. |
| 14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm and Kim proposed a modal notion of an 'intrinsic' property - that a property is intrinsic if and only if it is possibly instantiated by an object that is alone in the world. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Chisholm 1976:127 and Kim 1982:59-60] Sider then gives a counterexample from David Lewis (Idea 14979). |
| 14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A proper ontology should invoke only categorical, or occurrent, properties and relations. Categorical properties involve what objects are actually like, whereas hypothetical properties 'point beyond' their instances. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This spectacularly leaves out powers and dispositions, which are actual properties which 'point beyond' their instances! This is the nub of the powers debate, and the most interesting topic in modern metaphysics. |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: For Armstrong a predicate is sparse when there exists a corresponding universal; for Lewis, a predicate is sparse when there exists a corresponding natural property or relation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06) | |
| A reaction: I like 'sparse' properties, but have no sympathy with Armstrong, and am cautious about Lewis. I like Shoemaker's account, which makes properties even sparser. 'Abundant' so-called properties are my pet hate. They are 'predicates'! |
| 18570 | There may be several ways to individuate things like concepts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers have rarely explained why they believe that there is a single correct way of individuating concepts. Many entities can be legitimately individuated in several ways. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 2.1.3) | |
| A reaction: I cite this under 'individuation' because I think that is a very garbled concept. I agree with this point, even though I don't really know exactly what individuation is supposed to be. |
| 14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Followers of the view that every entity is associated with some sortal term that answers the question 'what kind of thing is this?', and determines its persistence conditions, must answer the question what kinds of entity there are. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: [He explicitly refers to David Wiggins here] In other words Wiggins has got it the wrong way round, which is my own view of his theory. Sortal terms don't grow on the trees in the Garden of Eden, available for applications. |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| Full Idea: This powerful puzzle (known to the Stoics, introduced by Geach, popularised by Wiggins) has a cat Tibbles and a proper part Tib, which is all of Tibbles except the tail. If Tibbles loses her tail, the two were distinct, but they now coincide. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Compare a few people leave a football ground, and what was a large part of the crowd becomes the whole of the crowd. Which suggests that there is no problem if cats are like crowds. But we don't like that view of cats. |
| 14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Presumably it is claimed that the artist 'created' the statue because the object created is essentially a statue, and thus cannot be identified with the unformed lump of clay with which the artist began. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001]) | |
| A reaction: This is based on Burke's views. This is sortal essentialism, rather than my own view of essence as an inner explanatory mechanism or form. If an old abstract sculpture was no longer recognised as a statue, would it necessarily still be a statue? |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There are numerous cases in which there is pressure to admit coincident entities. The best way of coming to grips with this, I think, invokes the stage view. ...In the worm theory, coincident objects are no more mysterious than overlapping roads. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: At this point I get nervous if in order to 'get to grips' with a phenomenon which is hard to articulate but obvious to common sense, we have to invoke a rather startling metaphysics that completely upends the common sense we started with. |
| 14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Composition as identity' says that when a thing, x, is composed of some other objects, the ys, then this is a kind of identity between the x and the ys. The industrial-strength version says object x just is the ys. Lewis says it is just an analogy. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: I am averse to such a doctrine, as is Leibniz, with his insistence that an aggregate is not a unity. There has to be some sort of principle that bestows oneness on a many. I take this to be structural, and is an elucidation of hylomorphism. |
| 14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Mereological essentialism says that an object's parts are necessary for its existence. ....It is literally never correct to say that an thing survives a change in its parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.7) | |
| A reaction: Chisholm is well known for proposing this view. Sider adds a possible toughening clause, that the parts are also sufficient for the object's existence. This is a philosophers' notion of identity, not the normal English language concept. |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We should not regard nonmodal essence as being metaphysically basic: fundamental theories need essence no more than they need modality. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: He is discussing Kit Fine, and notes that Fine offers a nonmodal view of essence, but still doesn't make it fundamental. I am a fan of essences, but making them fundamental in metaphysics seems unlikely. |
| 14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Three-dimensionalists say that things have no 'temporal parts', that they 'endure', and that they are wholly present at every moment of their careers. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: An obvious problem case for being wholly present would be the building and fitting of a large ship, where it might seem to be present before it was wholly present. |
| 14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Some might even regard inconsistency with time travel as an advantage of three-dimensionalism, as a vindication of a prior belief that time travel is impossible! I see no merit in these claims. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: I do! Sider cheerfully says that there are good reasons to believe that time travel is possible, and then use this possibility to support his four-dimensional view, but I personally doubt his assumption. The evidence for time travel is flimsy and obscure. |
| 14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalists say that things have 'temporal parts', that they 'perdure', and that they are spread out over time. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3) |
| 14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: For four-dimensionalists intrinsic change is difference between successive temporal parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This attempts a reply to the commonest criticism of four-dimensionalism - that you can't explain change if you don't have one enduring thing which undergoes the change. I get stuck of the question 'how big (temporally) is a part?'. |
| 14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalism may be formulated as the claim that, necessarily, each spatiotemporal object has a temporal part at every moment at which it exists. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: If there were tiny quantum gaps between temporal parts, that would presumably ruin the story. On this view an object has to be a 'worm', to be the thing which has the parts. |
| 14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
| Full Idea: My four-dimensionalism implies the existence of temporal parts, but not that those parts are more fundamental, nor that the object is 'constructed' from its parts, nor that identity over time is reducible to parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: That's a rather negative account of temporal parts, which makes you ask what their positive role could be. Do they contribute anything to our understanding of a temporally extended object? |
| 14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Unless otherwise noted, I will think of temporal parts as being instantaneous. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This comes up against all the Augustinian worries about the intrinsic nature of time. How many temporal parts does a typical object possess? Is a third temporal part always to be found between any two of them? How do they 'connect'? |
| 14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: How can an instantaneous stage believe anything? Beliefs take time. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.8) | |
| A reaction: Sider's four-dimensionalist answer is that the belief is embodied in the earlier counterparts, making belief a 'highly relational property'. I am not impressed by this answer to the very nice problem which he has raised. It's a problem for 3D, too. |
| 14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The sensible four-dimensionalist will claim that current temporal parts are caused to exist by previous temporal parts. The laws that govern this process are none other than the familiar laws of motion. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: I keep struggling with the instantaneous natural of temporal parts, and now I find that they have to do the job of being causal relata. When do they do their job? They've gone home before they've finished clocking in. Continuance requires motion? |
| 14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Ship of Theseus seems to be a case of 'asymmetric' fission (where one resultant entity has a stronger claim). Many see the continuously rebuilt ship as the stronger candidate, but each candidate, without the other, would be the original ship. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) |
| 13702 | The identity of indiscernibles is necessarily true, if being a member of some set counts as a property [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The identity of indiscernibles (∀x∀y(∀X(Xx↔Xy)→x=y) is necessarily true, provided that we construe 'property' very broadly, so that 'being a member of such-and-such set' counts as a property. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 5.4.3) | |
| A reaction: Sider's example is that if the two objects are the same they must both have the property of being a member of the same singleton set, which they couldn't have if they were different. |
| 14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If someone is in pain at t1 and not at t2, we might restrict Leibniz's Law so as not to apply to 'timebound' properties, ..but this is deeply unsatisfying, ...and forfeits one's claim to be discussing identity. The demands of identity are high. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: [on Myro 1986] Sider's response is unsatisfying. It means a thing loses its identity (with itself?) if it has even a tiny fluctuating in its properties. Quantum changes then destroy all notions of identity. English-speakers don't use 'identity' like that. |
| 13721 | 'Strong' necessity in all possible worlds; 'weak' necessity in the worlds where the relevant objects exist [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Strong necessity' requires the truth of 'necessarily φ' is all possible worlds. 'Weak necessity' merely requires that 'necessarily φ' be true in all worlds in which objects referred to within φ exist. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.6.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a highly desirably distinction, given the problem of Idea 13719. It is weakly necessary that humans can't fly unaided, assuming we are referring the current feeble wingless species. That hardly seems to be strongly necessary. |
| 13707 | Maybe metaphysical accessibility is intransitive, if a world in which I am a frog is impossible [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Some argue that metaphysical accessibility is intransitive. The individuals involved mustn't be too different from the actual world. A world in which I am a frog isn't metaphysically possible. Perhaps the logic is modal system B or T. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather plausible and attractive to me. We don't want to say that I am necessarily the way I actually am, though, so we need criteria. Essence! |
| 13709 | Logical truths must be necessary if anything is [Sider] |
| Full Idea: On any sense of necessity, surely logical truths must be necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 6.4) |
| 13716 | 'If B hadn't shot L someone else would have' if false; 'If B didn't shoot L, someone else did' is true [Sider] |
| Full Idea: To show the semantic difference between counterfactuals and indicative conditionals, 'If Booth hadn't shot Lincoln someone else would have' is false, but 'If Booth didn't shoot Lincoln then someone else did' is true. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 8) | |
| A reaction: He notes that indicative conditionals also differ in semantics from material and strict conditionals. The first example allows a world where Lincoln was not shot, but the second assumes our own world, where he was. Contextual domains? |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The spirit of Humeanism is that necessity is not a realm to be discovered. We draw the lines around what is necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, but it is hard to argue the point. My intuitions are that the obvious necessities of logic and mathematics reflect the way nature has to be. The deepest necessities are patterns (about which God has no choice). |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| Full Idea: English modals are context-dependent through and through; there is no stable 'outer modality'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.7) | |
| A reaction: Sider has been doing so well up to here. To me this is swallowing the bait of linguistic approaches to philosophy which he has fought so hard to avoid. |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If □φ says that φ is true by convention, then □φ would apparently turn out to be contingent, since statements about what conventions we adopt are not themselves true by convention. The main axioms of S4 and S5 would be false. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Conventionalism is apparently inapplicable to Kripke's and Putnam's examples of the necessary a posteriori (and, relatedly, to de re modality). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: [Sidelle 1989 discusses this] |
| 15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Why are logical (or mathematical, or analytic...) truths necessary? The Humean's answer is that this is just how our concept of necessity works. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.11) | |
| A reaction: This is why I (unlike Sider) am not a Humean. If we agreed that 'necessary' meant 'whatever is decreed by the Pope', that would so obviously not be necessary that we would have to start searching nature for true necessities. |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| Full Idea: At bottom, the world is an amodal place. Necessity and possibility do not carve at the joints; ultimate reality is not 'full of threats and promises' (Goodman). The book of the world says how things are, not how they must or might be. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see this expressed so clearly. I find it much easier to disagree with as a result. At first blush I would say that if you haven't noticed that the world is full of threats and promises, you should wake up and smell the coffee. Actuality is active. |
| 13717 | Transworld identity is not a problem in de dicto sentences, which needn't identify an individual [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There is no problem of transworld identification with de dicto modal sentence, for their evaluation does not require taking an individual from one possible world and reidentifying it in another. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: If 'de dicto' is about the sentence and 'de re' is about the object (Idea 5732), how do you evaluate the sentence without at least some notion of the object to which it refers. Nec the Prime Minister chairs the cabinet. Could a poached egg do the job? |
| 14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A counterpart relation is a similarity relation. Since there are different dimensions of similarity, there are different counterpart relations. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.4) |
| 13719 | Barcan Formula problem: there might have been a ghost, despite nothing existing which could be a ghost [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A problem with the Barcan Formula is it might be possible for there to exist a ghost, even though there in fact exists nothing that could be a ghost. There could have existed some 'extra' thing which could be a ghost. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Logic for Philosophy [2010], 9.5.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus when we make modal claims, do they only refer to what actually exists, or is specified in our initial domain? Can a claim enlarge the domain? Are domains 'variable'? Simple claims about what might have existed seem to be a problem. |
| 18616 | If a term doesn't pick out a kind, keeping it may block improvements in classification [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a hypothesised natural kind term fails to pick out a natural kind, keeping this theoretical term is likely to prevent the development of a new classification system that would identify the relevant kinds. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I'm persuaded. This is why metaphysicians should stop talking about 'properties'. |
| 18614 | Vertical arguments say eliminate a term if it picks out different natural kinds in different theories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Vertical arguments for eliminativism of theoretical terms note that distinct types of generalisation do not line up with each other. ...It is argued that the theoretical term picks out more than one natural kind. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: He mentions 'depression', as behavioural and cognitive; the former includes apes, and the latter doesn't. It is a nice principle for tidying up theories. |
| 18615 | Horizontal arguments say eliminate a term if it fails to pick out a natural kind [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Horizontal arguments for eliminativism of theoretical terms say that some terms should be eliminated if they do not pick out a natural kind. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the one Machery likes, but I would say that it is less obvious than the 'vertical' version, since picking out a natural kind may not be the only job of a theoretical term. (p.238: Machery agrees!) |
| 14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Theories' based on bizarre, non-joint-carving classifications are unexplanatory even when true. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: This nicely pinpoints why I take explanation to be central to whole metaphysical enterprise. |
| 14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If the entire theory of this book were replaced by its Ramsey sentence, omitting all mention of fundamentality, something would seem to be lost. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.2 n2) | |
| A reaction: It is a moot point whether Ramsey sentences actually eliminate anything from the ontology, but trying to wriggle out of ontological commitment looks a rather sad route to follow. |
| 18609 | Psychologists use 'induction' as generalising a property from one category to another [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Typically, psychologists use 'induction' to refer to the capacity to generalise a property from a category (the source) to another category (the target). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is because psychologists are interested in the ongoing activities of thought. Philosophers step back a bit, to ask how the whole thing could get started. Philosophical induction has to start with individuals and single observations. |
| 18610 | 'Ampliative' induction infers that all members of a category have a feature found in some of them [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Induction is 'ampliative' when it infers that all or most members of a category possess a property from the fact that some of its members have this property. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a simple step in reasoning, but actually it is more like explanation, and will involve overall coherence and probability, rather than a direct conclusion. This invites sceptical questions. The last one observed may be the exception. |
| 14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Is nonblack', 'is a nonraven', and 'grue' fail to carve at the joints. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: A lot more than this needs to said, but this remark encapsulates why I find most of these paradoxes of induction uninteresting. They are all the creations of logicians, rather than of scientists. |
| 14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The applicability of 'grue' to each of a pair of particulars does not guarantee the similarity of those particulars. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Grue is not a colour but a behaviour. If two things are 'mercurial' or 'erratic', will that ensure a similarity at any given moment? |
| 14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In the Bayesian approach, bizarre prior probability distributions will result in bizarre responses to evidence. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly what you find when people with weird beliefs encounter ridiculous evidence for things. It doesn't invalidate the formula, but just says rubbish in rubbish out. |
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Explanations must cite generalisations. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.13) | |
| A reaction: I'm uneasy about this. Presumably some events have a unique explanation - a unique mechanism, perhaps. Language is inescapably general in its nature - which I take to be Aristotle's reason for agreeing the Sider. [Sider adds mechanisms on p.159] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Ultimate explanations always terminate in the citation of entities; but since a mere list of entities is so unstructured, these 'explanations' cannot be systematized with detailed general laws, patterns, or mechanisms. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: We just need to distinguish between ultimate ontology and ultimate explanations. I think explanations peter out at the point where we descend below the mechanisms. Patterns or laws don't explain on their own. Causal mechanisms are the thing. |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| Full Idea: One day the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible properties of things. When they do, the like of spin, charm and charge will perhaps appear on the list. But aboutness sure won't; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 4 Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fodor's project is to give a reductive, and perhaps eliminative, account of intentionality of mind, while leaving open what one might do with the phenomenological aspects. Personally I don't think they will appear on the list either. |
| 18562 | Connectionists cannot distinguish concept-memories from their background, or the processes [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Connectionists typically do not distinguish between processes and memory stores, and, more importantly, it is unclear whether connectionists can draw a distinction between the knowledge stored in a concept and the background. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: In other words connectionism fails to capture the structured nature of our thinking. There is an innate structure (which, say I, should mainly be seen as 'mental files'). |
| 18561 | We can identify a set of cognitive capacities which are 'higher order' [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Categorization, deduction, induction, analogy-making, linguistic understanding, and planning - all of these are higher cognitive capacities. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: His 'lower' competences are perceptual and motor. I say the entry to the higher competences are abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. If you can't do these (chimpanzees!) you will not be admitted. |
| 18574 | Concepts for categorisation and for induction may be quite different [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In general, concepts that are used when we categorise and concepts that are used when we reason inductively could have little in common. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.2.1) | |
| A reaction: In the end he is going to reject concepts altogether, so he would say this. Friends of concepts would be very surprised if the mind were so uneconomical in its activities, given that induction seems to be up to its neck in categorisation. |
| 18588 | Concept theories aim at their knowledge, processes, format, acquisition, and location [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A theory of concepts should determine the knowledge stored in them, and the cognitive processes that use concepts. Ideally it should also characterise their format, their acquisition, and (increasingly) localise them in the brain. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: Machery reveals his dubious scientism in the requirement to localise them in the brain. That strikes me as entirely irrelevant to both philosophy and psychology. I want the format, acquisition and knowledge. |
| 18611 | We should abandon 'concept', and just use 'prototype', 'exemplar' and 'theory' [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The notion of 'concept' ought to be eliminated from the theoretical vocabulary of psychology, and replaced by the notions of prototype, exemplar, and theory. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8) | |
| A reaction: Machery's main thesis. I think similarly about 'property' in metaphysics. It embraces different ideas, and if we eliminated 'property' (and used predicate, class, fundamental power, complex power) we would do better. Psychologists have dropped 'memory'. |
| 18567 | In the philosophy of psychology, concepts are usually introduced as constituents of thoughts [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In the philosophy of psychology, concepts are usually introduced as constituents, components, or parts of thoughts. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.3) | |
| A reaction: My instincts are against this. I take the fundamentals of concepts to be mental responses to distinct individual items in the world. Thought builds up from that. He says psychologists themselves don't see it this way. Influence of Frege. |
| 18569 | In philosophy theories of concepts explain how our propositional attitudes have content [Machery] |
| Full Idea: A philosophical theory of concepts is a semantic theory for our propositional attitudes: it explains how our thoughts can have the content they have. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 2.1.2) | |
| A reaction: I suppose this is what I am interested in. I want to know in what way concepts form a bridge between content and world. I am more interested in the propositions, and less interested in our attitudes towards them. |
| 18563 | By 'concept' psychologists mean various sorts of representation or structure [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists use 'concept' interchangeably with 'mental representation', 'category representation', 'knowledge representation', 'knowledge structure', 'semantic representation', and 'conceptual structures'. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [Machery gives references for each of these] Machery is moving in to attack these, but we look to psychologists to give some sort of account of what a concept might consist of, such that it could be implemented by neurons. |
| 18558 | Concept theorists examine their knowledge, format, processes, acquisition and location [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychological theories of concepts try to describe the knowledge stored in concepts, the format of concepts, the cognitive processes that use the concepts, the acquisition of concepts, and the localization of concepts in the brain. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I suppose it would the first two that are of central interest. What individuates a concept (its 'format') and what are the contents of a concept. The word 'stored' seems to imply a mental files view. |
| 18557 | Psychologists treat concepts as long-term knowledge bodies which lead to judgements [Machery] |
| Full Idea: In psychology, concepts are characterized as those bodies of knowledge that are stored in long-term memory and used most higher cognitive competences when these processes result in judgements. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Machery mounts an attack on this idea. I like the 'mental files' idea, where a concept starts as a label, and then acquires core knowledge, and then further information. The 'concept' is probably no more than a label, and minimal starter information. |
| 18560 | Psychologist treat concepts as categories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Psychologists often use 'concept' and 'category' interchangeably. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Well they shouldn't. Some concepts are no more than words, and don't categorise anything. Some things may be categorised by a complex set of concepts. |
| 18592 | The concepts OBJECT or AGENT may be innate [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Several concepts, such as OBJECT or AGENT, may be innate. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.4) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to say that we respond to objects and agents, and another to say that we have those 'concepts'. Presumably birds, and even bees, have to relate to similar features. Add PROCESS? |
| 18566 | Concepts should contain working memory, not long-term, because they control behaviour [Machery] |
| Full Idea: We ought to reserve the term 'concept' for the bodies of knowledge in working memory, and not for our knowledge of long-term memory, because the former, and not the latter, 'control behaviour'. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 1.4.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites the psychologist Barsalou 1993] Some more theoretical concepts can only be recalled with difficulty, and control our theorising rather than our behaviour. But we act on some theories, so there is no clear borderline. |
| 18584 | One hybrid theory combines a core definition with a prototype for identification [Machery] |
| Full Idea: One hybrid theory of concepts says they have both a core and an identification procedure. The core is a definition (necessary and sufficient conditions), while the identification procedure consists of a prototype (the properties typical of a category). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This combines the classical and prototype theories of concepts. I like it because it fits the idea of 'mental files' nicely (see Recanati). If concepts are files (as in a database) they will have aspects like labels, basic info, and further details. |
| 18585 | Heterogeneous concepts might have conflicting judgements, where hybrid theories will not [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The Heterogeneity Hypothesis, but not the hybrid theory of concepts, predicts that the coreferential bodies of knowledge it posits will occasionally lead to conflicting outcomes, such as inconsistent judgements. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.2) | |
| A reaction: Machery's book champions the Heterogeneous Hypothesis. Hybrid views say the aspects of a concept are integrated, but Heterogeneity says there are separate processes. My preferred 'file' approach would favour integration. |
| 18578 | Concepts as definitions was rejected, and concepts as prototypes, exemplars or theories proposed [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Since the rejection of the classical theory of concepts (that they are definitions), three paradigms have successively emerged in the psychology of concepts: the prototype paradigm, the exemplar paradigm, and the theory paradigm. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: I am becoming a fan of the 'theory theory' proposal, because the concepts centre around what explains the phenomenon, which fits my explanatory account of essentialism. Not that it's right because it agrees with me, of course..... |
| 18575 | The concepts for a class typically include prototypes, and exemplars, and theories [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Across domains (such as biology and psychology) classes of physical objects, substances and events are typically represented by a prototype, by a set of exemplars, and by a theory. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.2.3) | |
| A reaction: In other words he thinks that all of the major psychological theories of concepts are partially correct, and he argues for extensive pluralism in the true picture. Bad news for neat philosophy, but real life is a right old mess. |
| 18591 | Classical theory can't explain facts like typical examples being categorised quicker [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The nail in the coffin of the classical theory is its lack of explanatory power. For example it doesn't explain the fact that typical x's are categorised more quickly and more reliably than atypical x's. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Rosch and Mervis: 1975:ch 5] This research launched the 'prototype' theory, which has since been challenged by the 'exemplar' and 'theory theory' rivals (and neo-empiricism, and idealisation). |
| 18583 | Many categories don't seem to have a definition [Machery] |
| Full Idea: For many categories there is simply no definition to learn (such as Wittgenstein's example of a 'game'). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.4) |
| 18590 | Classical theory implies variety in processing times, but this does not generally occur [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a concept is defined by means of another, such as MURDER by means of KILL, then processing the former concept should take longer in the classical theory, but several experiments show that this is not the case. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.3) | |
| A reaction: For the philosopher there is no escaping the findings of neuroscience when it comes to the study of concepts. This invites the question of the role, if any, of philosophy. I take philosophy to concern the big picture, or it is nothing. |
| 18594 | Knowing typical properties of things is especially useful in induction [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Knowing which properties are typical of a class is particularly useful when you have to draw inductions about the members of a class. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.1) |
| 18593 | The term 'prototype' is used for both typical category members, and the representation [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The term 'prototype' is used ambiguously to designate the most typical members of a category, and the representation of a category. (I use the term in the second sense). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.1 n25) |
| 18595 | Prototype theories are based on computation of similarities with the prototype [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The most important property of prototype theories is that cognitive processes are assumed to involve the computation of the similarity between prototypes and other representations. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites J.A.Hampton 1998, 2006] This presumably suits theories of the mind as largely computational (e.g. Fodor's account, based on the Turing machine). |
| 18596 | Prototype theorists don't tell us how we select the appropriate prototype [Machery] |
| Full Idea: We are typically not told how prototypes are selected, that is, what determines whether a specific prototype is retrieved from memory in order to be involved in the categorisation process. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.2.4) | |
| A reaction: One of the aims of this database is to make people aware of ideas that people have already thought of. This one was spotted 2,400 years ago. It's the Third Man problem. How do you even start to think about a particular thing? |
| 18603 | Maybe concepts are not the typical properties, but the ideal properties [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Barsalou (1983,1985) introduced the idea of ideals instead of prototypes. An ideal is a body of knowledge about the properties a thing should possess (rather than its typical actual properties). ... A 'bully' might be perfect, rather than typical. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.5.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Machery offers this as an interesting minor variant, with little experimental support. I take idealisation to be one of the three key mental operations that enable us to think about the world (along with abstraction and generalisation). |
| 18605 | It is more efficient to remember the prototype, than repeatedly create it from exemplars [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Instead of regularly producing a prototype out of the exemplars stored in long-term memory, it seems more efficient to extract a prototype from category members during concept learning and to use this prototype when needed. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.3.2) | |
| A reaction: [This is a critique of Barsalou's on-the-fly proposal for prototypes] If the exemplar theory is right, then some sort of summary must occur when faced with a new instance. So this thought favours prototypes against exemplars. |
| 18606 | The prototype view predicts that typical members are easier to categorise [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The prototype paradigm of concepts makes the strong prediction that typical members should be easier to categorise than atypical members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is why philosophers should approach the topic of concepts with caution. Clearly empirical testing is going to settle this matter, not abstract theorising. |
| 18597 | Concepts as exemplars are based on the knowledge of properties of each particular [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The exemplar paradigm of concepts is built around the idea that concepts are sets of exemplars. In turn, an exemplar is a body of knowledge about the properties believed to be possessed by a particular member of a class. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.1) | |
| A reaction: I like the fact that this theory is rooted in particulars, where the prototype theory doesn't seem to say much about how prototypes are derived. But you have to do more than just contemplate a bunch of exemplars. |
| 18598 | Exemplar theories need to explain how the relevant properties are selected from a multitude of them [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Exemplar theories have a selection problem. Given that individuals have an infinite number of properties, they need to explain why exemplars represent such and such properties, instead of others. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.1) | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that this idea rests on the 'abundant' view of properties - that every true predicate embodies a property. A sparse view of properties might give a particular quite a restricted set of properties. |
| 18599 | In practice, known examples take priority over the rest of the set of exemplars [Machery] |
| Full Idea: An object that is extremely similar to a specific known category member, but only moderately similar to others, is more likely to be categorised as a category member than an object that is moderately similar to most known category members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.3.3) | |
| A reaction: This research finding is a problem for the Exemplar Theory, in which all the exemplars have equal status. It is even a problem for the Prototype Theory, since the known member may not be like the prototype. |
| 18600 | Theory Theory says category concepts are knowledge stores explaining membership [Machery] |
| Full Idea: According to theory theorists, a concept of a category stores some knowledge that can explain the properties of the category members. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the account of essentialism which I defended in my PhD thesis. So naturally I embrace a theory of the nature of concepts which precisely dovetails with my view. I take explanation to be the central concept in metaphysics. |
| 18601 | Theory Theory says concepts are explanatory knowledge, and concepts form domains [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The two core ideas of the Theory Theory are that concepts are bodies of knowledge that underlie explanation, where explanation rests on folk examples, and concepts are organised in domains which use similar knowledge. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Folk explanation is opposed to scientific explanation, as expounded by Hempel etc. This sounds better and better, since the domains reflect the structure of reality. Machery defends Theory Theory as part of the right answer, but it's my favourite bit. |
| 18607 | Theory theorists rely on best explanation, rather than on similarities [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Theory theorists deny that categorisation depends on similarity; they often propose that categorisation involves some kind of inference to the best explanation. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.5.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it. Any theory of concepts should, in my view, be continuous with a plausible account of animal minds, and best explanations are not their strong suit. Maybe its explanations for slow categorising, and something else when it's quick. |
| 18608 | If categorisation is not by similarity, it seems to rely on what properties things might have [Machery] |
| Full Idea: It seems that when subjects are not categorising by similarity, they are relying on what properties objects can and cannot have - that is, on some modal knowledge. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 6.5.1) | |
| A reaction: I would call this essentialist categorisation, based on the inner causal powers which generate the modal profile of the thing. We categorise bullets and nails very differently, because of their modal profiles. |
| 18587 | The theory account is sometimes labelled as 'knowledge' or 'explanation' in approach [Machery] |
| Full Idea: The theory paradigm is sometimes called 'the knowledge approach' (Murphy 2002) or 'explanation-based views' (Komatsu 1992). | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4) | |
| A reaction: The word 'explanation' is music to my ears, so I am immediately sympathetic to the theory theory of concepts, even if it falls at the final hurdle. |
| 18577 | The word 'grandmother' may be two concepts, with a prototype and a definition [Machery] |
| Full Idea: If a prototype of grandmothers represents them as grey-haired old women, and a definition of grandmothers represents them as being necessarily the mother of a parent ....we may fail to recognise that 'grandmother' represents two distinct concepts. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 3.3.4) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to two distinct theories about what a concept is. He argues that both theories apply, so words do indeed represent several different concepts. Nice example. |
| 18589 | For behaviourists concepts are dispositions to link category members to names [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Behaviourists identified concepts with a mere disposition to associate category members with a given name. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 4.1.1) | |
| A reaction: This is one reason why the word 'disposition' triggers alarm bells in the immediately post-behaviourist generation of philosophers. The proposal is far too linguistic in character. |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: It is absurd to say that 'before we introduced our conventions, not all green things were green'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: Well… Different cultures label the colours of the rainbow differently, and many of them omit orange. I suspect the blue/green borderline has shifted. |
| 18612 | Americans are more inclined to refer causally than the Chinese are [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Tests suggest that American subjects were significantly more likely than Chinese subjects to have intuitions in line with causal-historical theories of reference. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.1.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an example of 'experimental philosophy' in action (of which Machery is a champion). The underlying idea is that Americans are generally more disposed to think causally than the Chinese are. So more scientific? What do the Hopi do? |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: To suggest that analytic truths make statements about linguistic conventions is a nonstarter; statements about linguistic conventions are contingent, whereas the statements made by typical analytic sentences are necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: That 'anything yellow is extended' is not just a convention should be fairly obvious, and it is obviously necessary. But we can say that bachelors are necessarily unmarried men - given the current convention. |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can fully play the role traditionally associated with analyticity, for much of that traditional role presupposed the doctrine of truth by convention. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.8) | |
| A reaction: Sider rejects Quine's attack on analyticity, but accepts his critique of truth by convention. |
| 18613 | Artifacts can be natural kinds, when they are the object of historical enquiry [Machery] |
| Full Idea: Some artifacts are the objects of inquiry in the social sciences ...such as prehistoric tools ...and hence, artifacts are bona fide natural kinds. | |
| From: Edouard Machery (Doing Without Concepts [2009], 8.2.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably if a bird's nest can be a natural kind, then so can a flint axe, but then so can a mobile phone, for an urban anthropologist. 'Natural' is, to put it mildly, a tricky word. |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Adding the notion of law to physical theory doesn't seem to enhance its explanatory power. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: I agree with his scepticism about laws, although Sider offers it as part of his scepticism about modal facts being included in explanations of actuality. Personally I like dispositions, but not laws. See the ideas of Stephen Mumford. |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: That spacetime is 4D Lorentzian manifold, that the universe began with a singularity, and in a state of low entropy, are all central to physics, but it is a stretch to call them 'laws'. ...It has been argued that there are no laws of biology. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.1) |
| 14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There is an alternative to the Russellian 'at-at' theory of motion, according to which dynamical quantities are intrinsic to times. Whether and how an object is moving at a time is a fact about what that object is like then. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I think I find this quite appealing, because there is too much of a tendency to think of objects as passive and inert, with laws, forces, motions etc. imposed from the outside. But nature is active and dynamic. However, motion can't be wholly intrinsic. |
| 14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In metaphysics, space is intrinsically structured; the genuine betweenness and congruence relations are privileged in a way that Euclidean-betweenness and Euclidean-congruence are not. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: I note that Einstein requires space to be 'curved', which implies that it is a substance with properties. |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Unlike time, space has three dimensions and lacks a distinguishing direction; unlike space, time seems to be specially connected with causation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: These strike me as nice reasons to doubt (what I already prima facie doubt) that there is a single manifold that is 'space-time', for all that twentieth century physics tells us it is so. A century is a mere click of a clock where truth is concerned. |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.1) |
| 15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The spotlight theorist accepts the block universe, but also something in addition: a joint-carving monadic property of presentness, which is possessed by just one moment of time, and which 'moves', to be possessed by later and later times. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.9) | |
| A reaction: This seems better than the merely detached eternalist view, which seems to ignore the key phenomenon. I just can't comprehend any theory which makes the future as real as the past. |
| 14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Intermediate between the polar opposites of presentism and eternalism is the view (defended by Broad 1923 and Tooley 1997) that the past is real but the future is not. Reality consists of a growing four-dimensional manifold, the 'growing block universe'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: The obvious and plausible basis for this is that statements about the past seem to have truthmakers, but statements about the future lack them. Does a truth always require ontological commitment? Death is cessation of existence. |
| 14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Presentist acknowledges that no atemporal description of the case can be given; a vantage point must be chosen for any description. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: This is because Presentists are committed to tense, which have to be either explicit or implicit in any sentence. But what of famously 'timeless' truths such as '2 and 2 are 4'? |
| 14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The presentist must deny the truth of everyday claims that concern multiple times taken together. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This rests on the extent to which every truth has an ontological commitment. You can deny the literal existence of multiple times without denying such truths. |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The temporal reductionist claims that tensed locutions are indexical - 'present' being the time of utterance etc. This generalises to say that nothing corresponding to tense need be admitted as a fundamental feature of the world. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [He particular cites Mellor for this view] Highly implausible. I very much doubt whether it is possible to explain the indexicality of a word like 'now' without referring to tenses. Does time only exist when sentences and thoughts occur? |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The B-theoretic description of the world is completely adequate except that it leaves out information about which time is present. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty basic deficiency. How could there a time which lacked a present moment? The present is when things happen. How would it qualify as time at all if it lacked past, present and future? |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The B-series has two components: eternalism - the thesis that all future entities are real - and the thesis of reducibility of tense. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.2) |