38 ideas
22121 | The concept of being has only one meaning, whether talking of universals or of God [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus was the first scholastic to hold that the concept of being and other transcendentals were univocal, not only in application to substance and accidents, but even to God and creatures. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |
A reaction: So either it exists or it doesn't. No nonsense about 'subsisting'. Russell flirted with subsistence, but Quine agrees with Duns Scotus (and so do I). |
22122 | Being (not sensation or God) is the primary object of the intellect [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus said the primary object of the created intellect was being, rejecting Aquinas's Aristotelian view that it was limited to the quiddity of the sense particular, and Henry of Ghent's Augustinian view that it was God. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.205 | |
A reaction: I suppose the 'primary object of the intellect' is the rationalist/empiricism disagreement. So (roughly) Aquinas was an empiricist, Duns Scotus was a rationalist, and Augustine was a transcendentalist? Augustine sounds like Spinoza. |
16660 | Are things distinct if they are both separate, or if only one of them can be separate? [Duns Scotus, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Later standard theories said that a real distinction obtains between two things that can each exist without the other. For Scotus a real distinction requires only that one of the pair be able to exist without the other. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], V.5-6 n91) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.5 | |
A reaction: His example is the similarity relation, which is independent of the whiteness on which it is based (since the other thing can become non-white). |
16648 | Accidents must have formal being, if they are principles of real action, and of mental action and thought [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: Accidents are principles of acting and principles of cognizing substance, and are the per se objects of the senses. But it is ridiculous to say that something is a principle of acting (either real or intentional) and yet does not have any formal being. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.12.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.5 | |
A reaction: Pasnau cites this as the key scholastic argument for accidental properties having some independent and real existence (as required for Transubstantiation). Rival views say accidents are just 'modes' of a thing's existence. Aquinas compromised. |
22125 | Duns Scotus was a realist about universals [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus was a realist on the issue of universals and one of the main adversaries of Ockham's programme of nominalism. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: The view of Scotus seems to be the minority view. It is hard to find thinkers who really believe that universals have an independent existence. My interest in Duns Scotus waned when I read this. How does he imagine universals? |
15386 | If only the singular exists, science is impossible, as that relies on true generalities [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
Full Idea: Scotus argued that if everything is singular, with no objective common feature, science would be impossible, as it proceeds from general concepts. General is the opposite of singular, so it would be inadequate to understand a singular reality. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'John Duns' | |
A reaction: [compressed] It is a fact that if you generalise about 'tigers', you are glossing over the individuality of each singular tiger. That is OK for 'electron', if they really are identical, but our general predicates may be imposing identity on electrons. |
15387 | If things were singular they would only differ numerically, but horse and tulip differ more than that [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
Full Idea: Scotus argued that there must be some non-singular aspects of things, since there are some 'less than numerical differences' among them. A horse and a tulip differ more from each other than do two horses. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'John Duns' | |
A reaction: This seems to treat being 'singular' as if it were being a singularity. Presumably he is contemplating a thing being nothing but its Scotist haecceity. A neat argument, but I don't buy it. |
16632 | We distinguish one thing from another by contradiction, because this is, and that is not [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: What is it [that establishes distinctness of things]? It is, to be sure, that which is universally the reason for distinguishing one thing from another: namely, a contradiction…..If this is, and that is not, then they are not the same entity in being. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.11.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.2 | |
A reaction: This is a remarkably intellectualist view of such things. John Wycliff, apparently, enquired about how animals were going to manage all this sort of thing. It should appeal to the modern logical approach to metaphysics. |
22127 | Scotus said a substantial principle of individuation [haecceitas] was needed for an essence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Rejecting the standard views that essences are individuated by either actual existence, quantity or matter, Scotus said that the principle of individuation is a further substantial difference added to the species - the so-called haecceitas or 'thisness'. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: [Scotus seldom referred to 'haecceitas'] I suppose essences have prior existence, but are too generic, so something must fix an essence as pertaining to this particular object. Is the haecceitas part of the essence, or of the particular? |
13094 | The haecceity is the featureless thing which gives ultimate individuality to a substance [Duns Scotus, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: For Scotus, the haecceity of an individual was a positive non-quidditative entity which, together with a common nature from which it was formally distinct, played the role of the ultimate differentia, thus individuating the substance. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3 | |
A reaction: Most thinkers seem to agree (with me) that this is a non-starter, an implausible postulate designed to fill a gap in a metaphysic that hasn't been properly worked out. Leibniz is the hero who faces the problem and works around it. |
16650 | 'Unity' is a particularly difficult word, because things can have hidden unity [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: I believe that 'unity' is one of the more difficult words in philosophy, for there are in things many hidden (occultae) unities that are obscure to us. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Lectura [1298], I.17.2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 | |
A reaction: Some examples would be nice. Do the Earth and the Moon form a unity, because of gravity? How ponders whether whiteness and a white man are unified. |
16770 | It is absurd that there is no difference between a genuinely unified thing, and a mere aggregate [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: It seems absurd …that there should be no difference between a whole that is one thing per se, and a whole that is one thing by aggregation, like a cloud or a heap. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], III.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.5 | |
A reaction: Leibniz invented monads because he was driven crazy by the quest for 'true unity' in things. Objective unity may be bogus, but I suspect that imposing plausible unity on things is the only way we can grasp the world. |
16776 | Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: Substance ...is an ens per se. No part of a substance is an ens per se when it is part of a substance, because then it would be a particular thing, and one substance would be a particular thing from many things, which does not seem to be true. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (In Praed. [1300], 15.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1 | |
A reaction: The tricky bit is 'when it is a part of a substance', meaning a substance must cease to be a substance when it is subsumed into some greater substance. Maybe. Drops of water? Molecules? Bricks? Cells? |
16626 | Substance is only grasped under the general heading of 'being' [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: No substance is understood in its own right, except in the most universal of concepts, namely of 'being'. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (In Metaphysics [1304], III n. 116), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.3 | |
A reaction: This is a fairly standard scholastic pessimism about knowing anything about substance. The modern view suggests that actually scientists know 'substance' pretty well. |
16614 | Matter and form give true unity; subject and accident is just unity 'per accidens' [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: From matter and form comes one thing per se. This is not so for subject and accident. Matter and form are instrinsic causes of a composite being, but whiteness and a human being are not. Humans can exist without whiteness, so it is one thing per accidens. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Oxford Commentary on Sentences [1301], II.12.1.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 | |
A reaction: This isn't much of a theory, but at least it is focusing on an interesting question, and the distinction between genuinely unified, and unified by chance. Compare a loving couple with siblings who hate each other. |
10919 | What prevents a stone from being divided into parts which are still the stone? [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: What is it in this stone, by which ...it is absolutely incompatible with the stone for it to be divided into several parts each of which is this stone, the kind of division that is proper to a universal whole as divided into its subjective parts? | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], II d3 p1 q2 n48) | |
A reaction: This is the origin of the concept of haecceity, when Scotus wants to know what exactly individuates each separate entity. He may have been mistaken in thinking that such a question has an answer. |
22126 | Avicenna and Duns Scotus say essences have independent and prior existence [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus endorsed Avicenna's theory of the common nature, according to which the essences have an independence and priority to their existence as either universal in the mind or singular outside it. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: I occasionally meet this weird idea in modern discussions of essence (in Lowe?), and now see its origin. It makes little sense without a divine mind to support the independent essences. Scotus had to add a principle of individuation for essences. |
16768 | Two things are different if something is true of one and not of the other [Duns Scotus] |
Full Idea: If this is, and that is not, then they are not the same entity in being. | |
From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.11.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.3 | |
A reaction: This is the contrapositive of the indiscernibility of identicals, expressed in terms of what is true about a thing, rather than what properties pertain to it. |
22129 | Certainty comes from the self-evident, from induction, and from self-awareness [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus grounded certitude in the knowledge of self-evident propositions, induction, and awareness of our own state. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: Induction looks like the weak link here. |
22130 | Scotus defended direct 'intuitive cognition', against the abstractive view [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Scotus allocated to the intellect a direct, existential awareness of the intelligible object, called 'intuitive cognition', in contrast to abstractive knowledge, which seized the object independently of its presence to the intellect in actual existence. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: Presumably if you see a thing, shut your eyes and then know it, that is 'abstractive'. Scotus says open your eyes for proper knowledge. |
22128 | Augustine's 'illumination' theory of knowledge leads to nothing but scepticism [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Scotus rejected Henry of Ghent's defence of Augustine's of knowledge by 'illumination', as leading to nothing but scepticism. ...After this, illumination never made a serious recovery. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 |
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. |
22189 | Why abandon a theory if you don't have a better one? [Gorham] |
Full Idea: There is no sense in abandoning a successful theory if you have nothing to replace it with. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 2) | |
A reaction: This is also a problem for infererence to the best explanation. What to do if your best explanation is not very good? The simple message is do not rush to dump a theory when faced with an anomaly. |
22190 | If a theory is more informative it is less probable [Gorham] |
Full Idea: Popper's theory implies that more informative theories seem to be less probable. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 3) | |
A reaction: [On p.75 Gorham replies to this objection] The point is that to be more testable they must be more detailed. He's not wrong. Theories are meant to be general, so they sweep up the details. But they need precise generalities and specifics. |
22192 | Is Newton simpler with universal simultaneity, or Einstein simpler without absolute time? [Gorham] |
Full Idea: Is Newton's theory simpler than Einstein's, since there is only one relation of simultaneity in absolute time, or is Einstein's simpler because it dispenses with absolute time altogether? | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: A nice question, to which a good scientist might be willing to offer an answer. Since simultaneity is crucial but the existence of time is not, I would vote for Newton as the simpler. |
22194 | Structural Realism says mathematical structures persist after theory rejection [Gorham] |
Full Idea: Structural Realists say that modern science achieves a true or 'truer' account of the world only with respect to its mathematical structure rather than its intrinsic qualities or nature. The structure carries over to new theories. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: At first glance I am unconvinced that when an old theory is replaced it neverthess contains some sort of 'mathematical structure' which endures and is worth preserving. No doubt Worrall, French and co have examples. |
22195 | Structural Realists must show the mathematics is both crucial and separate [Gorham] |
Full Idea: Structural Realists must show that it is the mathematical aspects of the theories, not their content, that account for their success ….and that their structure and content can be clearly separated. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: Their approach certainly seems to rely on mathematical types of science, so it presumably fits biology, geology and even astronomy less well. |
22197 | Theories aren't just for organising present experience if they concern the past or future [Gorham] |
Full Idea: The strangeness of interpreting theories as mere tools for organising present experience is brought out clearly in sciences like cosmology and paleontology, which largely concern events in the remote past or future. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: Not conclusive. An anti-realist has to interpret those sciences in terms of the current observations that are available. |
22196 | For most scientists their concepts are not just useful, but are meant to be true and accurate [Gorham] |
Full Idea: The main difficulty with instrumentalism is its implausible account ot the meaning of theoretical claims and concepts. Most scientists take them to be straightforward attempts to describe the world. Most say they are useful because they are accurate. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: Instrumentalism is seen as a Pragmatist view, and Dewey is cited. |
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. |
22193 | Consilience makes the component sciences more likely [Gorham] |
Full Idea: The more unification and integration is found among the modern sciences, the less likely it seems it will have all been a dream. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: I believe this strongly. Ancient theories which were complex, wide ranging and false do not impress me. This is part of my coherence view of justification. |
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. |
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. |
22131 | The will retains its power for opposites, even when it is acting [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Scotus said the will is a power for opposites, in the sense that even when actually willing one thing, it retains a real, active power to will the opposite. He detaches the idea of freedom from time and variability. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: In the sense that we can abandon an action when in the middle of it, this seems to be correct. Not just 'I could have done otherwise', but 'I don't have to be doing this'. This shows that the will has wide power, but not that it is 'free'. |
22198 | Aristotelian physics has circular celestial motion and linear earthly motion [Gorham] |
Full Idea: Aristotelian physics assumed that celestial motion is naturally circular and eternal while terrestrial motion is naturally toward the center of the earth and final. | |
From: Geoffrey Gorham (Philosophy of Science [2009], 4) | |
A reaction: The overthrow of this by Galileo and then Newton may have been the most dramatic revolution of the new science. It opened up the possibility of universal laws of physics. |
22123 | The concept of God is the unique first efficient cause, final cause, and most eminent being [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus establishes God as first efficient cause, as ultimate final cause, and as most eminent being - his so-called 'triple primacy' - and says there is a unique nature within these primacies. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: This is the first stage of Duns Scotus's unusually complex argument for God's existence. Asserting the actual infinity of this unique being concludes his argument. |
22124 | We can't infer the infinity of God from creation ex nihilo [Duns Scotus, by Dumont] |
Full Idea: Duns Scotus rejected the traditional argument that the infinity of God can be inferred from creation ex nihilo. | |
From: report of John Duns Scotus (works [1301]) by Stephen D. Dumont - Duns Scotus p.206 | |
A reaction: He accepted the infinity of God, however, but not for this reason. I don't know why he rejected it. I suppose the rejected claim is that something has to be infinite, and if it isn't the Cosmos then that leaves God? |