Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, John Dupr and Jan Westerhoff

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32 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 1. Naming / a. Names
We negate predicates but do not negate names [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: We negate predicates but do not negate names.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §88)
     A reaction: This is a point for anyone like Ramsey who wants to collapse the distinction between particulars and universals, or singular terms and their predicates.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Classification pervades any descriptive use of language whatever.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: This is because, as Aristotle well knew, language consists almost entirely of universals (apart from the proper names). Language just is classification.
Categories can be ordered by both containment and generality [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: Categories are usually not assumed to be ordered by containment, but also be generality.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02)
     A reaction: I much prefer generality, which is responsive to the full picture, whereas containment seems to appeal too much to the orderly and formalised mind. Containments overlap, so we can't dream of a perfectly neat system.
How far down before we are too specialised to have a category? [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: How far down are we allowed to go before the categories become too special to qualify as ontological categories?
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: A very nice question, because we can't deny a category to a set with only one member, otherwise the last surviving dodo would not have been a dodo.
Maybe objects in the same category have the same criteria of identity [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: There is an idea that objects belonging to the same category have the same criteria of identity. This view was first explicitly endorsed by Frege (1884), and was later systematized by Dummett (1981).
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: This approach is based on identity between equivalence classes. Westerhoff says it means, implausibly, that the resulting categories cannot share properties.
Categories are base-sets which are used to construct states of affairs [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: My fundamental idea is that 'form-sets' are intersubstitutable constituents of states of affairs with the same form, and 'base-sets' are special form-sets which can be used to construct other form-sets. Ontological categories are the base-sets.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: The spirit of this is, of course, to try to achieve the kind of rigour that is expected in contemporary professional philosophy, by aiming for some sort of axiom-system that is related to a well established precise discipline like set theory. Maybe.
Categories are held to explain why some substitutions give falsehood, and others meaninglessness [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: It is usually assumed of ontological categories that they can explain why certain substitutions make a statement false ('prime' for 'odd'), while others make it meaningless ('sweet' for 'odd', of numbers).
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §05)
     A reaction: So there is a strong link between big ontological questions, and Ryle's famous identification of the 'category mistake'. The phenomenon of the category mistake is undeniable, and should make us sympathetic to the idea of categories.
Categories systematize our intuitions about generality, substitutability, and identity [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: Systems of ontological categories are systematizations of our intuitions about generality, intersubstitutability, and identity.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §23)
     A reaction: I think we might be able to concede this without conceding the relativism about categories which Westerhoff espouses. I would claim that our 'intuitions' are pretty accurate about the joints of nature, and hence accurate about these criteria.
Categories as generalities don't give a criterion for a low-level cut-off point [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: Categories in terms of generality, dependence and containment are unsatisfactory because of the 'cut-off point problem': they don't give an account of how far down the order we can go and be sure we are still dealing with categories.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27)
     A reaction: I don't see why this should be a devastating objection to any theory. I have a very clear notion of a human being, but a very hazy notion of how far back towards its conception a human being extends.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 2. Categorisation
We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The most important desideratum of a classificatory scheme is that assigning an object to a particular classification tell us as much as possible about that object.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Ch 1)
     A reaction: We should probably say that the aim is a successful explanation, rather than a heap of information. If we are totally baffled by a particular type of object, it is presumably important to group the instances together, to focus the bafflement.
The aim is that everything should belong in some ontological category or other [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: It seems to be one of the central points of constructing systems of ontological categories that everything can be placed in some category or other.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §49)
     A reaction: After initial resistance to this, I suppose I have to give in. The phoenix (a unique mythological bird) is called a 'phoenix', though it might just be called 'John' (cf. God). If there were another phoenix, we would know how to categorise it.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
All systems have properties and relations, and most have individuals, abstracta, sets and events [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: Surveyed ontological systems show overlaps: properties and relations turn up in every system; individuals form part of five systems; abstracta, collections/sets and events are in four; facts are in two.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §02)
     A reaction: Westerhoff is a hero for doing such a useful survey. Of course, Quine challenges properties, and relations are commonly given a reductive analysis. Individuals can be challenged, and abstracta reduced. Sets are fictions. Events or facts? Etc.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
Ontological categories are like formal axioms, not unique and with necessary membership [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: I deny the absolutism of a unique system of ontological categories and the essentialist view of membership in ontological categories as necessary features. ...I regard ontological categories as similar to axioms of formalized theories.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: The point is that modern axioms are not fundamental self-evident truths, but an economic set of basic statements from which some system can be derived. There may be no unique set of axioms for a formal system.
Categories merely systematise, and are not intrinsic to objects [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: My conclusion is that categories are relativistic, used for systematization, and that it is not an intrinsic feature of an object to belong to a category, and that there is no fundamental distinction between individuals and properties.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], Intro)
     A reaction: [compressed] He calls his second conclusion 'anti-essentialist', but I think we can still get an account of (explanatory) essence while agreeing with his relativised view of categories. Wiggins might be his main opponent.
A thing's ontological category depends on what else exists, so it is contingent [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: What ontological category a thing belongs to is not dependent on its inner nature, but dependent on what other things there are in the world, and this is a contingent matter.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §89)
     A reaction: This is aimed at those, like Wiggins, who claim that category is essential to a thing, and there is no possible world in which that things could belong to another category. Sounds good, till you try to come up with examples.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
Essential kinds may be too specific to provide ontological categories [Westerhoff]
     Full Idea: Essential kinds can be very specific, and arguably too specific for the purposes of ontological categories.
     From: Jan Westerhoff (Ontological Categories [2005], §27)
     A reaction: Interesting. There doesn't seem to be any precise guideline as to how specific an essential kind might be. In scientific essentialism, each of the isotopes of tin has a distinct essence, but why should they not be categories
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The importance of natural kinds for explanation does not depend on a doctrine of essences.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 3)
     A reaction: He suggest as the alternative that laws do the explaining, employing natural kinds. He allows that individual essences might be explanatory.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Contradicting one of the main points of essentialism, there is no reason in principle why a species should not survive the demise of its current genetic mechanisms (some other species coherence gradually taking over).
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: I would say that this meant that the species had a new essence, because I don't take what is essential to be the same as what is necessary. The new genetics would replace the old as the basic explanation of the species.
It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré]
     Full Idea: It is widely agreed among biologists that no essential property can be found to demarcate species, so that if an essential property is necessary for a natural kind, species are not natural kinds.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: This uses 'essential' to mean 'necessary', but I would use 'essential' to mean 'deeply explanatory'. Biological species are, nevertheless, dubious members of an ontological system. Vegetables are the problem.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Determinism is the metaphysical underlay of the possibility of prediction.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro)
     A reaction: Not convinced. There might be micro-indeterminacies which iron out into macro-regularities.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
     Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
     From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
     A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré]
     Full Idea: It is surely the absence of experiences like the one Putnam describes that makes it reasonable to attach to molecular structure at least most of the importance that Putnam ascribes to it.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: That is, whenever we experience water-like stuff, it always turns out to have the same molecular structure. Twin Earth is a nice thought experiment, except that XZY is virtually inconceivable.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds
Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The phylogenetic conception of classification reflects the facts of evolutionary history. Cladism insists that every taxonomic distinction should reflect an evolutionary event of lineage bifurcation.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: Devitt attacks cladism nicely. It rules out species change without bifurcation, and it insists on species change even in a line which remains unchanged after a split.
Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré]
     Full Idea: A kind, being an abstract object, cannot do anything, including evolve.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: Maybe. We might have an extensional view of the kind, so that 'gold' is the set of extant gold atoms. But possible gold atoms are also gold, and defunct ones too. Virtually every word in English is abtract if you think about it long enough.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 7. Critique of Kinds
Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The question of which natural kind a thing belongs to ....can be answered only in relation to some specification of the goal underlying the intent to classify the object.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro)
     A reaction: I don't think I believe this. The situation is complex, and our intents are relevant, but to find an intent which no longer classifies tigers into the same category is wilful silliness.
Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The richest source of illustrations is the vegetable kingdom, where specific differences tend to be much less clear than among animals, and considerable developmental plasticity is the rule.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: Nice. Just as the idea that laws of nature are mathematical suits physics, but founders on biology, so natural kinds founder in an area of biology to which we pay less attention. He cites prickly pears and lilies. I'm thinking oranges, satsumas etc.
Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Even if we claim that it is really isotopes not atoms that are the natural kinds (thus divorcing chemistry from ordinary language), atoms are said to differ with respect to such features as energy levels of the electrons.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: So we can't just pick out the features of one atom, and say that is the essence. Essence always involves some selection. I say the essence arises from the explanation of the atom's behaviour.
Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré]
     Full Idea: To the extent that the occupants of a particular niche do not coincide with the members of a particular genealogical line, a possibility widely acknowledged to occur, ecologists must favour a method of classification lacking genealogical grounding.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: Zoo keepers probably classify by cages, or which zoo owns what, but that doesn't mean that they reject genealogy. Don't assume ecologists are rejecting any underlying classification that differs from theirs. Compare classification by economists.
Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré]
     Full Idea: It would be a severe culinary misfortune if no distinction were drawn between garlic and onions, a distinction that is not reflected in scientific taxonomy.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: Not every persuasive. We distinguish some cows from others because they taste better, but no one thinks that is a serious way in which to classify cows.
Wales may count as fish [Dupré]
     Full Idea: The claim that whales are not fish is a debatable one
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1)
     A reaction: A very nice challenge to an almost unquestioned orthodoxy.
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 5. Species
Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Species are, by definition, the lowest-level classificatory unit, or basal taxonomic unit, for biological organisms.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)
     A reaction: I think this is the 'infima species' for Aristotelians. What about 'male' and 'female' in each species?
The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré]
     Full Idea: Species are what the theory of evolution is centrally about.
     From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2)