22 ideas
5182 | Claims about 'the Absolute' are not even verifiable in principle [Ayer on Bradley] |
Full Idea: Such a metaphysical pseudo-proposition as 'the Absolute enters into, but is itself incapable of, evolution and progress' (F.H.Bradley) is not even in principle verifiable. | |
From: comment on F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.J. Ayer - Language,Truth and Logic Ch.1 | |
A reaction: One may jeer at the Verification Principle for either failing to be precise, or for failing to pass its own test, but Ayer still has a point here. When we drift off into sustained abstractions, we must keeping asking if we are still saying anything real. |
6864 | Metaphysics is finding bad reasons for instinctive beliefs [Bradley] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics is the finding of bad reasons for what we believe upon instinct; but to find these reasons is no less an instinct. | |
From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Interview with Baggini and Stangroom p.165 | |
A reaction: A famous and very nice remark. The idea of believing things on instinct sounds more like David Hume than an idealist. Personally I am not so pessimistic about the enterprise. I think metaphysics is capable of changing what we believe. |
10999 | Names need a means of reidentifying their referents [Bradley, by Read] |
Full Idea: Unless a name has associated with it a means of reidentifying its referent, we cannot use it. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.4 | |
A reaction: Brilliant! This point is totally undeniable. It is not enough that someone be 'baptised'. We need to hang onto both the name and what it refers to, and how are we going to do that? |
17486 | Supervenience is simply modally robust property co-variance [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is not an ontological relationship, being just modally robust property co-variance. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Ontol') | |
A reaction: I take supervenience to be nothing more than an interesting phenomenon that requires explanation. I suppose Humean Supervenience is a priori metaphysics, since you could hardly explain it. |
6422 | Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell] |
Full Idea: The doctrine of internal relations held that every relation between two terms expresses, primarily, intrinsic properties of the two terms and, in ultimate analysis, a property of the whole which the two compose. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Bertrand Russell - My Philosophical Development Ch.5 | |
A reaction: Russell's first big campaign was to reject this view, and his ontology from then on included relations among the catalogue of universals. The coherence theory of truth also gets thrown out at the same time. Russell seems right. |
7966 | Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley] |
Full Idea: If a relation between qualities is to be something, then clearly we will now require a new connecting relation. The links are united by a link, and this link has two ends, which require a fresh link to connect them to the old. | |
From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.28), quoted by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
A reaction: That is: external relations generates an infinite regress, so relations must be internal. Russell launched his own philosophy with an attack on Bradley's idea. Personally I take how two things 'relate' to one another as one of the deepest of mysteries. |
6404 | British Idealists said reality is a single Mind which experiences itself [Bradley, by Grayling] |
Full Idea: The idealism of Green and Bradley, both of whom were much influenced by the German Idealists, espoused the thesis that the universe ultimately consists of a single Mind which, so to speak, experiences itself. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This looks now like the last (extreme) throw by the religious view of the world, which collapsed in the face of the empirical realism of Russell and Moore. It is all Kant's fault, for cutting us off from his 'noumenon'. |
22299 | Bradley's objective idealism accepts reality (the Absolute), but says we can't fully describe it [Bradley, by Potter] |
Full Idea: Objective idealists such as Bradley (rather than Berkeley's subjective view) accepted the substantial existence of reality (which they called the 'Absolute') but held that thought cannot fully describe it. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 23 'Abs' | |
A reaction: That thought can't 'fully' describe it seems obvious, so I suspect Bradley's view are stronger than that. This sounds like modern strong and weak anti-realists; strong ones deny reality, but weak ones just deny we know where the joints are. |
21343 | Qualities and relations are mere appearance; the Absolute is a single undifferentiated substance [Bradley, by Heil] |
Full Idea: In Bradley's view, qualities and relations belong to the realm of appearance. We are left with a single, undifferentiated substance: the Absolute. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal' | |
A reaction: I've not read Bradley, but I can't distinguish this proposal from Parmenides's belief in The One. Or maybe Spinoza's monist view of God and Nature (but that is 'differentiated'). It doesn't sound like Hegel. |
17481 | Nuclear charge (plus laws) explains electron structure and spectrum, but not vice versa [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Given relevant laws of nature (quantum mechanics, the exclusion principle) nuclear charge determines and explains electronic structure and spectroscopic behaviour, but not vice versa. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: I argue that the first necessary condition for essentialism is a direction of explanation, and here we seem to have one. |
8638 | Thomae's idea of abstract from peculiarities gives a general concept, and leaves the peculiarities [Frege on Thomae] |
Full Idea: When Thomae says "abstract from the peculiarities of the individual members of a set of items", or "disregard those characteristics which serve to distinguish them", we get a general concept under which they fall. The things keep their characteristics. | |
From: comment on C.J. Thomae (works [1869], §34) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §34 | |
A reaction: Interesting. You don't have to leave out their distinctive fur in order to count cats. But you have to focus on some aspect of them, because they aren't 'three meats'. |
5655 | Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16 | |
A reaction: Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452). |
6406 | Reality is one, because plurality implies relations, and they assert a superior unity [Bradley] |
Full Idea: Reality is one. It must be simple because plurality, taken as real, contradicts itself. Plurality implies relations, and, through its relations it unwillingly asserts always a superior unity. | |
From: F.H. Bradley (Appearance and Reality [1893], p.519), quoted by A.C. Grayling - Russell Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This argument depends on a belief in 'internal' relations, which Russell famously attacked. If an internal feature of every separate item was its relation to other things, then I suppose Bradley would be right. But it isn't, and he isn't. |
17478 | Maybe two kinds are the same if there is no change of entropy on isothermal mixing [Hendry] |
Full Idea: One suggestion is that any two different substance, however alike, exhibit a positive entropy change on mixing. So absence of entropy change on isothermal mixing provides a criterion of sameness of kind. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: [He cites Paul Needham 2000] This sounds nice, because at a more amateur level we can say that stuff is the same if mixing two samples of it produces no difference. I call it the Upanishads Test. |
17484 | Maybe the nature of water is macroscopic, and not in the microstructure [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Some deny that that microstructure is what makes it water; substance identity and difference should be determined instead by macroscopic similarities and differences. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: Very plausible. Is the essential nature of human beings to be found in the structure of our cells? |
17479 | The nature of an element must survive chemical change, so it is the nucleus, not the electrons [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Whatever earns something membership of the extension of 'krypton' must be a property that can survive chemical change and, therefore, the gain and loss of electrons. Hence what makes it krypton must be a nuclear property. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: A very nice illuminating example of essentialism in chemistry. The 'nature' is what survives through change, just like what Aristotle said, innit? |
17485 | Maybe water is the smallest part of it that still counts as water (which is H2O molecules) [Hendry] |
Full Idea: If they do count as water, individual H2O molecules are the smallest items that can qualify as water on their own account. Hydroxyl ions and protons, in contrast, qualify as water only as part of a larger body. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: As Aristotle might say, this is the homoeomerous aspect of water. This is Hendry's own proposal, and seems rather good. |
17482 | Compounds can differ with the same collection of atoms, so structure matters too [Hendry] |
Full Idea: The distinctness of the isomers ethanol (CH3CH2OH, boiling at 78.4°) and dimethyl ether (CH3OCH3, boiling at -24.9°) must lie in their different molecular structures. ...But structure has continuously varying quantities, like bond length and angle. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: [compressed] This seems to imply that what matters is an idealised abstraction of the structure (i.e. its topology), which is a reason for denying that chemistry is reducible to mere physics. |
17483 | Water continuously changes, with new groupings of molecules [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Macroscopic bodies of water are complex and dynamic congeries of different molecular species, in which there is a constant dissociation of individual molecules, re-association of ions, and formation, growth and disassociation of oligomers. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: The point is that these activities are needed to explain the behaviour of water (such as its conductivity). |
17476 | Elements survive chemical change, and are tracked to explain direction and properties [Hendry] |
Full Idea: Elements survive chemical change, and chemical explanations track them from one composite substance to another, thereby explaining both the direction of the chemical change, and the properties of the substances they compose. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], Intro) | |
A reaction: [The 16,000th idea of this database, entered on Guy Fawkes' Day 2013] |
17477 | Defining elements by atomic number allowed atoms of an element to have different masses [Hendry] |
Full Idea: In 1923 elements were defined as populations of atoms with the same nuclear charge (i.e. atomic number), allowing that atoms of the same element may have different masses. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Chem') | |
A reaction: The point is that it allowed isotopes of the same element to come under one heading. This is fine for the heavier elements, but a bit dubious for the very light ones (where an isotope makes a bigger difference). |
17480 | Generally it is nuclear charge (not nuclear mass) which determines behaviour [Hendry] |
Full Idea: In general, nuclear charge is the overwhelming determinant of an element's chemical behaviour, while nuclear mass is a negligible factor. | |
From: Robin F. Hendry (Chemistry [2008], 'Micro') | |
A reaction: The exception is the isotopes of very light elements light hydrogen. |