11 ideas
| 22334 | Analysis must include definitions, search for simples, concept analysis, and Kant's analysis [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Under 'analysis' a minimum would include the Socratic quest for definitions, Descartes' search for simple natures, the empiricists' psychological resolution of complex ideas, and Kant's 'transcendental' analysis of our cognitive capacities. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This has always struck me, and I find the narrow focus on modern logic a very distorted idea of the larger project. The aim, I think, is to understand by taking things apart, in the spirit of figuring out how a watch works. |
| 15148 | Powers give explanations, without being necessary for some class membership [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Powers explain behaviours regardless of whether they are necessary for membership in a particular class of things. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, and is important for driving a wedge between powers and essences. If there are essences, they are not simply some bunch of powers. |
| 15145 | A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: The modern concept of a kind essence is a set of intrinsic properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the membership of something in a class of things, or 'kind'. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I am always struck by the problem that the kind itself is constructed from the individuals, so circularity always seems to loom. |
| 15147 | Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: The fact that members of some cluster kinds are subjects of causal generalizations reflects the degree to which they share causally efficacious properties, not the fact that they may be composed of essence kinds per se. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is right. I am a fan of individual essences, but not of kind essences. I take kinds, and kind explanations, to be straightforward inductive generalisations from individuals. Extreme stabilities give the illusion of a kind essence. |
| 22332 | German and British idealism is not about individual ideas, but the intelligibility of reality [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Neither German nor British Idealism reduced reality to episodes in the minds of individuals. Instsead, they insisted that reality is intelligible only because it is a manifestation of a divine spirit or rational principle. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: They standardly reject Berkeley. Such Idealism seems either to be the design argument for God's existence, or neo-Stoicism (in its claim that nature is rational). Why not just say that nature seems to be intelligible, and stop there? |
| 15144 | Explanation of causal phenomena concerns essential kinds - but also lack of them [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Scientific practices such as prediction and explanation regarding causal phenomena are concerned not merely with kinds having essences, but also with kinds lacking them. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: Not quite clear what he has in mind, but explanation should certainly involve a coherent picture, and not just the citation of some underlying causal mechanism. |
| 22336 | We might say that the family resemblance is just a consequence of meaning-as-use [Glock] |
| Full Idea: Against Wittgenstein's family resemblance view one might evoke his own idea that the meaning of a word is its use, and that diversity of use entails diversity of meaning. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Wittgenstein might just accept the point. Diversity of concepts reflects diversity of usage. But how do you distinguish 'football is a game' from 'oy, what's your game?'. How does usage distinguish metaphorical from literal (if it does)? |
| 22335 | The variety of uses of 'game' may be that it has several meanings, and isn't a single concept [Glock] |
| Full Idea: The proper conclusion to draw from the fact that we explain 'game' in a variety of different ways is that it is not a univocal term, but has different, albeit related, meanings. | |
| From: Hans-Johann Glock (What is Analytic Philosophy? [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Rundle 1990] Potter says Wittgenstein insisted that 'game' is a single concept. 'Game' certainly slides off into metaphor, as in 'are you playing games with me?'. The multivocal view would still meet family resemblance on a narrower range. |
| 20239 | Unlike us, the early Greeks thought envy was a good thing, and hope a bad thing [Hesiod, by Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: Hesiod reckons envy among the effects of the good and benevolent Eris, and there was nothing offensive in according envy to the gods. ...Likewise the Greeks were different from us in their evaluation of hope: one felt it to be blind and malicious. | |
| From: report of Hesiod (works [c.700 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Dawn (Daybreak) 038 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this would be understandable envy, and unreasonable hope. Ridiculous envy can't possibly be good, and modest and sensible hope can't possibly be bad. I suspect he wants to exaggerate the relativism. |
| 15146 | Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Many of the kinds we theorize about and experiment on today simply do not have essences. We can distinguish 'essence kinds', such as electrons, and 'cluster kinds', such as biological species. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is an important point for essentialists. He offers a strict criterion, in Idea 15145, for mind membership, but we might allow species to have essences by just relaxing the criteria a bit, and acknowledging some vagueness, especially over time. |
| 15151 | Many causal laws do not refer to kinds, but only to properties [Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Causal laws often do not make reference to kinds of objects at all, but rather summarize relations between quantitative, causally efficacious properties of objects. | |
| From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: This would only be a serious challenge if it was not possible to translate talk of properties into talk of kinds, and vice versa. |