Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Derek Parfit, Justus Lipsius and Carl Hempel

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19 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 5. Later European Thought
7822 A neo-Stoic movement began in the late sixteenth century [Lipsius, by Grayling]
     Full Idea: A neo-Stoic movement began at the end of the sixteenth century, under the inspiration of the Dutch scholar Justus Lipsius.
     From: report of Justus Lipsius (works [1584]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.5
     A reaction: I would take this to be just as much a movement against Christianity as the interest in the less theistic Epicurus. They wanted the virtues of Christianity without the theological trappings.
2. Reason / E. Argument / 7. Thought Experiments
5515 Imaginary cases are good for revealing our beliefs, rather than the truth [Parfit]
     Full Idea: I believe it is worth considering imaginary cases (such as Teletransportation), as we can use them to discover, not what the truth is, but what we believe.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
     A reaction: The trouble is that we might say that IF I were suddenly turned into a pig, then I would come to believe in dualism, but that will not and cannot happen, because dualism is false. It seems essential to accept the natural possibility of the case.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
5516 Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
     Full Idea: We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.').
     From: report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
22179 Explanatory facts also predict, and predictive facts also explain [Hempel, by Okasha]
     Full Idea: Hempel said every scientific explanation is potentially a prediction - it would have predicted the phenomenon in question, had it not already been known. But also the information used to make a prediction is potentially an explanation.
     From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 3
     A reaction: Sounds too neatly glib to be quite true. If you explain a single event there is nothing to predict. You might predict accurately from a repetitive pattern, with no understanding at all of the pattern.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
21507 Scientific explanation aims at a unifying account of underlying structures and processes [Hempel]
     Full Idea: What theoretical scientific explanation aims at is an objective kind of insight that is achieved by a systematic unification, by exhibiting the phenomena as manifestations of common underlying structures and processes that conform to testable principles.
     From: Carl Hempel (Philosophy of Natural Science [1967], p.83), quoted by Laurence Bonjour - The Structure of Empirical Knowledge 5.3
     A reaction: This is a pretty good statement of scientific essentialism, and structures and processes are what I take Aristotle to have had in mind when he sought 'what it is to be that thing'. Structures and processes give stability and powers.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
6755 For Hempel, explanations are deductive-nomological or probabilistic-statistical [Hempel, by Bird]
     Full Idea: Hempel proposes that explanations involve covering laws and antecedent conditions; this view (the 'covering law' view) has two versions, the deductive-nomological model and the probabilistic-statistical model of explanation.
     From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965]) by Alexander Bird - Philosophy of Science Ch.2
     A reaction: The obvious problem with this approach, it seem to me, is that the laws themselves need explanation, and I don't see how a law can be foundational unless there is a divine law-giver. Are the laws arbitrary and axiomatic?
17083 The covering-law model is for scientific explanation; historical explanation is quite different [Hempel]
     Full Idea: To put forward the covering-law models of scientific explanation is not to deny that there are other contexts in which we speak of explanation. ….That it does not fit explaining the rules of Hanoverian succession is to miss the intent of our model.
     From: Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965], p. 412-3), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 1
     A reaction: Important to get that clear. It then requires a clear demarcation between science and the rest, and it had better not rule out biology because it is having a love affair with physics.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
13052 Hempel rejects causation as part of explanation [Hempel, by Salmon]
     Full Idea: Hempel explicitly rejects the idea that causality plays any essential explanatory role.
     From: report of Carl Hempel (Aspects of Scientific Explanation [1965], p.352) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 1.1
     A reaction: Hempel champions the 'covering-law' model of explanation. It strikes me that Hempel is so utterly wrong about this that his views aren't even a candidate for correctness, but then for a long time his views were orthodoxy.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 5. Self as Associations
3539 Personal identity is just causally related mental states [Parfit, by Maslin]
     Full Idea: For Parfit all personal identity really amounts to is a chain of experiences and other psychological features causally related to each other in 'direct' sorts of ways.
     From: report of Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971]) by Keith T. Maslin - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind 10.5
     A reaction: When summarised like this, it strikes me that Parfit is just false to our experience, whatever Hume may say. I suspect that Parfit (and those like him) concentrate too much on rather passive perceptual experience, and neglect the will.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 1. Identity and the Self
5514 Psychologists are interested in identity as a type of person, but philosophers study numerical identity [Parfit]
     Full Idea: When psychologists discuss identity, they are typically concerned with the kind of person someone is, or wants to be (as in an 'identity crisis'). But when philosophers discuss identity, it is numerical identity they mean.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.293)
     A reaction: I think it is important to note that the philosophical problem breaks down into two areas: whether I have numerical identity with myself over time, and whether other people have it. It may be that two different sets of criteria will emerge.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / b. Self as mental continuity
1393 One of my future selves will not necessarily be me [Parfit]
     Full Idea: If I say 'It will not be me, but one of my future selves', I do not imply that I will be that future self. He is one of my later selves, and I am one of his earlier selves. There is no underlying person we both are.
     From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §5)
     A reaction: The problem here seems to be explaining why I should care about my later self, if it isn't me. If the answer is only that it will be psychologically very similar to me, then I would care more about my current identical twin than about my future self.
5521 If my brain-halves are transplanted into two bodies, I have continuity, and don't need identity [Parfit]
     Full Idea: If the two halves of my brain are transplanted into different bodies just like mine, they cannot both be me, since that would make them the same person. ..But my relation to these two contains everything that matters, so identity is not what matters.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.314)
     A reaction: I challenge his concept of what 'matters'. He has a rather solipsistic view of the problem, and I take Parfit to be a rather unsociable person, since his friends and partner will be keenly interested in the identities of the new beings.
5522 Over a period of time what matters is not that 'I' persist, but that I have psychological continuity [Parfit]
     Full Idea: We should revise our view about identity over time: what matters isn't that there will be someone alive who will be me; it is rather that there should be at least one living person who will be psychologically continuous with me as I am now.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.316)
     A reaction: Parfit and Locke seem to agree on this, and it is no accident that they both like 'science fiction' examples. Apparently Parfit wouldn't bat an eyelid if someone threatened to cut his corpus callosum. I rate it as a catastrophe for my current existence.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 4. Split Consciousness
1392 If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit]
     Full Idea: In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people.
     From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1)
     A reaction: Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons.
5519 It is fine to save two dying twins by merging parts of their bodies into one, and identity is irrelevant [Parfit]
     Full Idea: If I am largely paralysed, and my twin brother is dying of brain disease, then if the operation to graft my head onto his body is offered, I should accept the operation, and it is irrelevant whether this person would be me.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.308)
     A reaction: Parfit notes that the brain is a particularly significant part of the process. The fact that I might cheerfully accept this offer without philosophical worries doesn't get rid of the question 'who is this person?' Who should they remain married to?
5520 If two humans are merged surgically, the new identity is a purely verbal problem [Parfit]
     Full Idea: If there is someone with my head and my brother's body, it is a merely verbal question whether that person will be me, and that is why, even if it won't be me, that doesn't matter. ..What matters is not identity, but the facts of which identity consists.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.310)
     A reaction: It strikes me that from the subjective psychological point of view identity is of little interest, but from the objective external viewpoint (e.g. the forensic one) such questions are highly significant, and rightly so.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 5. Concerns of the Self
1391 Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit]
     Full Idea: Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity.
     From: Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6)
     A reaction: This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson.
16. Persons / E. Rejecting the Self / 4. Denial of the Self
5518 It doesn't matter whether I exist with half my components replaced (any more than an audio system) [Parfit]
     Full Idea: It is quite uninteresting whether, with half its components replaced, I have the same audio system, and also whether I exist if half of my body were simultaneously replaced.
     From: Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.302)
     A reaction: It is impossible to deny this, if the part replaced is not the brain. My doubt about Parfit's thesis is that while I may not care whether some modified thing is still me, my lawyers and the police might be very concerned.
23. Ethics / E. Utilitarianism / 1. Utilitarianism
9762 We should focus less on subjects of experience, and more on the experiences themselves [Parfit]
     Full Idea: It becomes more plausible, when thinking morally, to focus less upon the person, the subject of experiences, and instead to focus more upon the experiences themselves.
     From: Derek Parfit (Reasons and Persons [1984], §116)
     A reaction: This pinpoints how Parfit moves from a view of persons in terms of continuity of consciousness to a utilitarian morality. It brings out nicely what is wrong with utilitarianism - the reductio of a great ball of nice experiences, with no one having them.