10 ideas
| 16065 | Constitution is identity (being in the same place), or it isn't (having different possibilities) [Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: Some insist that constitution is identity, on the grounds that distinct material objects cannot occupy the same place at the same time. Others argue that constitution is not identity, since the statue and its material differ in important respects. | |
| From: Ryan Wasserman (Material Constitution [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The 'important respects' seem to concern possibilities rather than actualities, which is suspicious. It is misleading to think we are dealing with two things and their relation here. Objects must have constitutions; constitutions make objects. |
| 16067 | Constitution is not identity, because it is an asymmetric dependence relation [Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: For those for whom 'constitution is not identity' (the 'constitution view'), constitution is said to be an asymmetric relation, and also a dependence relation (unlike identity). | |
| From: Ryan Wasserman (Material Constitution [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: It seems obvious that constitution is not identity, because there is more to a thing's identity than its mere constitution. But this idea makes it sound as if constitution has nothing to do with identity (chalk and cheese), and that can't be right. |
| 16069 | There are three main objections to seeing constitution as different from identity [Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: The three most common objections to the constitution view are the Impenetrability Objection (two things in one place?), the Extensionality Objection (mereology says wholes are just their parts), and the Grounding Objection (their ground is the same). | |
| From: Ryan Wasserman (Material Constitution [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: [summary] He adds a fourth, that if two things can be in one place, why stop at two? [Among defenders of the Constitution View he lists Baker, Fine, Forbes, Koslicki, Kripke, Lowe, Oderberg, N.Salmon, Shoemaker, Simons and Yablo.] |
| 16068 | The weight of a wall is not the weight of its parts, since that would involve double-counting [Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: We do not calculate the weight of something by summing the weights of all its parts - weigh bricks and the molecules of a wall and you will get the wrong result, since you have weighed some parts more than once. | |
| From: Ryan Wasserman (Material Constitution [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: In fact the complete inventory of the parts of a thing is irrelevant to almost anything we would like to know about the thing. The parts must be counted at some 'level' of division into parts. An element can belong to many different sets. |
| 16074 | Relative identity may reject transitivity, but that suggests that it isn't about 'identity' [Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: If the relative identity theorist denies transitivity (to deal with the Ship of Theseus, for example), this would make us suspect that relativised identity relations are not identity relations, since transitivity seems central to identity. | |
| From: Ryan Wasserman (Material Constitution [2009], 6) | |
| A reaction: The problem here, I think, focuses on the meaning of the word 'same'. One change of plank leaves you with the same ship, but that is not transitive. If 'identical' is too pure to give the meaning of 'the same' it's not much use in discussing the world. |
| 19525 | If the only aim is to believe truths, that justifies recklessly believing what is unsupported (if it is right) [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: If it is intellectually required that one try to believe all and only truths (as Chisholm says), ...then it is possible to believe some unsubstantiated proposition in a reckless endeavour to believe a truth, and happen to be right. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Justification') | |
| A reaction: This implies doxastic voluntarism. Sorry! I meant, this implies that we can control what we believe, when actually we believe what impinges on us as facts. |
| 19524 | We don't have the capacity to know all the logical consequences of our beliefs [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Our limited cognitive capacities lead Goldman to deny a principle instructing people to believe all the logical consequences of their beliefs, since they are unable to have the infinite number of beliefs that following such a principle would require. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Evidentialism [1985], 'Doxastic') | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound like much of an objection to epistemic closure, which I took to be the claim that you know the 'known' entailments of your knowledge. |
| 19518 | Evidentialism says justifications supervene on the available evidence [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: Fundamentally Evidentialism is a supervenience thesis, according to which facts about whether or not a person is justified in believing a proposition supervene on facts describing the evidence the person has. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.1) | |
| A reaction: If facts 'describe', does that make them linguistic? That's not how I use 'facts'. A statement of a fact is not the same as the fact. An ugly fact can be beautifully expressed. I am, however, in favour of evidence. |
| 19519 | Rational decisions are either taken to be based on evidence, or to be explained causally [Conee/Feldman] |
| Full Idea: In decision theory, there is a view according to which the rational basis for all decisions is evidential. This kind of decision theory is typically contrasted with causal decision theory. | |
| From: E Conee / R Feldman (Introduction to 'Evidentialism' [2004], p.3) | |
| A reaction: Your Kantian presumably likes rational reflection on evidence, and your modern reductive scientist prefers causality (which doesn't really sound very rational). |
| 651 | Eurytus showed that numbers underlie things by making pictures of creatures out of pebbles [Eurytus, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Eurytus assigned numbers to things by taking some pebbles and using them to create likeness of the shapes of living things, such as a man or a horse. | |
| From: report of Eurytus (fragments/reports [c.400 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1092b | |
| A reaction: Pythagorean. Digitising reality. |