18 ideas
8766 | In much wisdom is much grief [Anon (Ecc)] |
Full Idea: In much wisdom is much grief. | |
From: Anon (Ecc) (21: Book of Ecclesiastes [c.200 BCE], 01.18) | |
A reaction: If this is true, then the question is of what there is in wisdom that will compensate for the grief. Personally I doubt the whole claim. Some wisdom involves grief, but most of it involves pleasure, even when understanding of evil is the target. |
7494 | Laughter is mad; of mirth, what doeth it? [Anon (Ecc)] |
Full Idea: I said of laughter, It is mad: and of mirth, what doeth it? | |
From: Anon (Ecc) (21: Book of Ecclesiastes [c.200 BCE], 02.02) | |
A reaction: Not much of an argument, but an interesting support for the extreme anti-hedonistic puritanical view. Most people would praise laughter as an end in itself, so 'what doeth it?' seems to miss the point. |
8767 | Sorrow is better than laughter [Anon (Ecc)] |
Full Idea: Sorrow is better than laughter: for by the sadness of the countenance the heart is made better. | |
From: Anon (Ecc) (21: Book of Ecclesiastes [c.200 BCE], 07.03) | |
A reaction: This writer fails to see the good in laughter. If he did, he would have a more balanced view, and we could take this opinion more seriously. Theatre audiences always seem keen to hunt out jokes where none are intended. |
17302 | Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8) | |
A reaction: [It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed] |
17292 | Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out. |
17295 | Ground relations depend on the properties [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: On my view, grounding relations depend on the natures of the properties involved in them. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: I'm cautious about this if we don't find out more exactly what properties are (and they had better not just be predicates). Maybe properties are the only apparatus we have here, though I prefer 'powers' for the fundamentals. |
17297 | A ball's being spherical non-causally determines its power to roll [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: The fact that a given thing is spherical non-causally determines the fact that it has the power to roll. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Quine won't accept this, because you have added something called a 'power' to the ball (intrinsically, it seems), over and above its observable sphericity. Does being a ball 'determine' that it can't be in two places at once? Order of explanation? |
17303 | The best critique of grounding says it is actually either identity or elimination [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: I think the most promising skeptical strategy is to insist on either identity or elimination wherever grounding is alleged to hold. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.9) | |
A reaction: This comes after an assessment of the critiques of grounding by Oliver, Hofweber and Daly. So we don't say chemistry grounds biology, we either say biology is chemistry, or that there is no biology. Everything is just simples. Not for me. |
17294 | Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry. |
17300 | If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4) | |
A reaction: It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding. |
17296 | We must accept grounding, for our important explanations [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: The reason we must countenance grounding is that it is indispensible to certain important explanations. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: I like this a lot. The first given of all philosophy is the drive to exlain. However, we mustn't go inventing features of the world, simply to give us the possibility of explaining it. The objective fact seems to be the without-which-not relation. |
17301 | Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5) | |
A reaction: Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven. |
17293 | Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: The 'worldly' view of facts says they are obtaining states of affairs, individuated by their constituents and their combination. On the 'conceptual' view, facts will differ if they pick out an object or property via different concepts. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
A reaction: Might it be that conceptual differences between facts are supervenient on worldly differences (with the worldly facts in charge)? |
17298 | Two things being identical (like water and H2O) is not an explanation [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: If there is identity between water and H2O, we have neither the asymmetry nor the irreflexivity that explanations require. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Once you realise it is H2O, you understand its deeper features, which will open up new explanations. He's right, though. |
17299 | There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P] |
Full Idea: There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological. | |
From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
A reaction: Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding. |
20653 | 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? |
8765 | All is vanity, saith the Preacher [Anon (Ecc)] |
Full Idea: Vanity of vanities, saith the Preacher, vanity of vanities; all is vanity. | |
From: Anon (Ecc) (21: Book of Ecclesiastes [c.200 BCE], 01.02) | |
A reaction: If we are swamped by vanity, then there is presumably no hope for the other virtues. A more balanced view would say that we should aim for a mean on the scale of self-esteem, which probably requires an effort to be objective about ourselves. |
8768 | Books are endless, and study is wearisome [Anon (Ecc)] |
Full Idea: Of making many books there is no end; and much study is weariness of the flesh. | |
From: Anon (Ecc) (21: Book of Ecclesiastes [c.200 BCE], 12.12) | |
A reaction: Does anyone share my occasional sinking heart on entering a large library or bookshop? I truly believe that there is nothing better in the world than books. And yet, and yet... |