Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Hermarchus, David Fair and Fabrice Correia

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5 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives

16974	The nature of each logical concept is given by a collection of inference rules [Correia]
	Full Idea: The view presented here presupposes that each logical concept is associated with some fixed and well defined collection of rules of inference which characterize its basic logical nature.
	From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 4)
	A reaction: [He gives Fine's 'Senses of Essences' 57-8 as a source] He seems to have in mind natural deduction, where the rules are for the introduction and elimination of the concepts.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity

16973	Explain logical necessity by logical consequence, or the other way around? [Correia]
	Full Idea: One view is that logical consequence is to be understood in terms of logical necessity (some proposition holds necessarily, if some group of other propositions holds). Alternatively, logical necessity is a logical consequence of the empty set.
	From: Fabrice Correia (On the Reduction of Necessity to Essence [2012], 3)
	A reaction: I think my Finean preference is for all necessities to have a 'necessitator', so logical necessity results from logic in some way, perhaps from logical consequence, or from the essences of the connectives and operators.

25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 6. Animal Rights

6005	Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley]
	Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us.
	From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus
	A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts?

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation

8326	Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
	Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
	A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.

10379	Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
	From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
	A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.