39 ideas
| 4456 | Epistemological Ockham's Razor demands good reasons, but the ontological version says reality is simple [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Ockham's Razor has an epistemological version, which says we should not multiply existences or explanations without adequate reason, and an ontological version, which says reality is simple, and so a simpler ontology represents it more accurately. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice distinction. Is it reality which is simple, or us? One shouldn't write off the ontological version. If one explanation is simpler than the others, there may be a reason in nature for that. |
| 18915 | If facts are the truthmakers, they are not in the world [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: If there are such things as truthmakers (facts), they are not to be found in the world. As Strawson would say to Austin: there is the cat, there is the mat, but where in the world is the fact that the cat is on the mat? | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: He cites Strawson, Quine and Davidson for this point. |
| 18919 | There are no 'falsifying' facts, only an absence of truthmakers [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: A false proposition is not made false by anything like a 'falsifying' fact. A false proposition simply fails to be made true by any fact. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. In truthmaker theory, one truth-value (T) is 'made', but the other one is not, so there is no symmetry between the two. Better to talk of T and not-T? See ideas on Excluded Middle. |
| 18913 | Traditional term logic struggled to express relations [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: The greatest challenge for traditional term logicians was the proper formulation and treatment of relational expressions. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005]) | |
| A reaction: The modern term logic of Fred Sommers claims to have solved this problem. |
| 18907 | Term logic rests on negated terms or denial, and that propositions are tied pairs [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: That terms can be negated, that such negation is distinguishable from denial, and that propositions can be construed syntactically as predicationally tied pairs of terms, are important for the tree theory of predication, and for term logic. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 2) |
| 18912 | Was logic a branch of mathematics, or mathematics a branch of logic? [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Nineteenth century logicians debated whether logic should be treated simply as a branch of mathematics, and mathematics could be applied to it, or whether mathematics is a branch of logic, with no mathematics used in formulating logic. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 3) | |
| A reaction: He cites Boole, De Morgan and Peirce for the first view, and Frege and Russell (and their 'logicism') for the second. The logic for mathematics slowly emerged from doing it, long before it was formalised. Mathematics is the boss? |
| 18922 | Logical syntax is actually close to surface linguistic form [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: The underlying logical syntax of language is close to the surface syntax of ordinary language. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the boast of the Term logicians, in opposition to the strained and unnatural logical forms of predicate logic, which therefore don't give a good account of the way ordinary speakers reason. An attractive programme. 'Terms' are the key. |
| 18905 | Propositions can be analysed as pairs of terms glued together by predication [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Sommers's 'tree theory' of predication assumes that propositions can be analysed as pairs of terms joined by some kind of predicational glue. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is the basis of Sommers's upgraded Aristotelian logic, known as Term Logic. The idea of reasoning with 'terms', rather than with objects, predicates and quantifiers, seems to me very appealing. I think I reason more about facts than about objects. |
| 18908 | Standard logic only negates sentences, even via negated general terms or predicates [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Standard logic recognises only one kind of negation: sentential negation. Consequently, negation of a general term/predicate always amounts to negation of the entire sentence. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 3) |
| 10855 | Actual infinities are not allowed in mathematics - only limits which may increase without bound [Gauss] |
| Full Idea: I protest against the use of an infinite quantity as an actual entity; this is never allowed in mathematics. The infinite is only a manner of speaking, in which one properly speaks of limits ...which are permitted to increase without bound. | |
| From: Carl Friedrich Gauss (Letter to Shumacher [1831]), quoted by Brian Clegg - Infinity: Quest to Think the Unthinkable Ch.7 |
| 18917 | Existence and nonexistence are characteristics of the world, not of objects [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Existence and nonexistence are not primarily properties of individual objects (dogs, unicorns), but of totalities. To say that some object exists is just to say that it is a constituent of the world, which is a characteristic of the world, not the object. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: This has important implications for the problem of truthmakers for negative existential statements (like 'there are no unicorns'). It is obviously a relative of Armstrong's totality facts that do the job. Not sure about 'a characteristic of'. |
| 4474 | Existence theories must match experience, possibility, logic and knowledge, and not be self-defeating [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: A theory of existence should 1) be consistent with what actually exists, 2) be consistent with what could exist, 3) not make existence impossible (e.g. in space-time), 4) not violate logic, 5) make knowing the theory possible. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: A nice bit of metaphilosophical analysis. I still doubt whether a theory of existence is possible (something has to be 'given' a priori), but this is a good place to start the attempt. |
| 18916 | Facts are not in the world - they are properties of the world [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Facts must be viewed as properties of the world - not as things in the world. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I'm happy with either of these. Do animals grasp facts? If not, are they (as Strawson said) just the truths expressed by true sentences? That is not a clear idea either, given that facts are not the sentences themselves. Facts overlap. |
| 18921 | Individuals are arranged in inclusion categories that match our semantics [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: The natural categories of individuals are arranged in a hierarchy of inclusion relations that is isomorphic with the linguistic semantic structure. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is the conclusion of a summary of modern Term Logic. The claim is that Sommers discerned this structure in our semantics (via the study of 'terms'), and was pleasantly surprised to find that it matched a plausible structure of natural categories. |
| 4461 | Tropes are like Hume's 'impressions', conceived as real rather than as ideal [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Tropes are (says Campbell) substances (in Hume's sense), and indeed resemble his impressions conceived realistically rather than idealistically. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: An interesting link. It doesn't get rid of the problem Hume has, of saying when two impressions are the same. Are they types or tokens? Trope-theory claims they are tokens. Hume's ontology includes 'resemblance'. |
| 4462 | A colour-trope cannot be simple (as required), because it is spread in space, and so it is complex [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: A property-instance must be spread out in space, or it is not clear how a colour nature can be present, but then it has to be a complex entity, and tropes are supposed to be simple entities. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Seems a fair point. Nothing else in reality can be sharply distinguished, so why should 'simple' and 'complex'? |
| 4463 | In 'four colours were used in the decoration', colours appear to be universals, not tropes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If a decorator says that they used four colours to decorate a house, four tropes is not what was meant, and the statement seems to view colours as universals. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Although I am suspicious of using language to deduce ontology, you have to explain why certain statements (like this) are even possible to make. |
| 4451 | If properties are universals, what distinguishes two things which have identical properties? [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If properties are universals, what account can be given of the individuation of two entities that have all their pure properties in common? | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Is this a big problem? Maybe only a space-time location can do it. Or, in the nice case where the universe is just two identical spheres, it may be impossible. |
| 4453 | One realism is one-over-many, which may be the model/copy view, which has the Third Man problem [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: One version of realism says that the universal does not enter into the being of its instances, and thus is a One-Over-Many. One version of this is the model/copy view, but this is not widely held, because of difficulties such as the Third Man Argument. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This presumably arises if the model is held to have the properties of the copy (self-predication), and looks like a bad theory |
| 4464 | Realists see properties as universals, which are single abstract entities which are multiply exemplifiable [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Traditional realism is the view that a property is a universal construed as a multiply exemplifiable abstract entity that is a numerically identical constituent in each of its instances. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, it seems hard to commit oneself fully to realism. How can two red buses contain one abstract object spread out between them. Common sense says there are two 'rednesses' which resemble one another, which is a version of nominalism. |
| 4449 | Evidence for universals can be found in language, communication, natural laws, classification and ideals [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Those who believe in universals appeal to the meaningfulness of language, the lawlike nature of causation, the inter-subjectivity of thinking, our ability to classify new entities, gradation, and the need for perfect standards or paradigms. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Of these, language and communication ought to be explicable by convention, but classification and natural laws look to me like the best evidence. |
| 4450 | The traditional problem of universals centres on the "One over Many", which is the unity of natural classes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Historically the problem of universals has mainly been about the "One over Many", which involves giving an account of the unity of natural classes. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This still strikes me as the main problem (rather than issues of language). If universals are not natural, they must be analysed as properties, which break down into causation, which is seen as a human convention. |
| 4454 | The One-In-Many view says universals have abstract existence, but exist in particulars [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Another version of realism says is One-In-Many, where the universal is not another particular, but is literally in the instances. The universal is an abstract entity, in the instances by means of a primitive non-spatiotemporal tie of predication. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like Aristotle (and is Loux's view of properties and relations). If they are abstract, why must they be confined to particulars? |
| 4468 | How could 'being even', or 'being a father', or a musical interval, exist naturally in space? [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Many properties (being even) and relations (musical intervals, being a father) are such that it is not clear what it would mean to take them as natural things existing in space. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: 'Being even' certainly seems to be a property, and it is a struggle to see how it could exist in space, unless it is a set of actual or potential brain states. |
| 4452 | Maybe universals are real, if properties themselves have properties, and relate to other properties [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Realism about universals is supported by the phenomenon of abstract reference - that is the fact that properties themselves have properties ('red is a colour'), and stand in relation to other properties ('red is more like orange than like blue'). | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: While a property may be an obviously natural feature, properties of properties seem more likely to be the produce of human perception and convention. It is a good argument, though. |
| 4467 | A naturalist and realist about universals is forced to say redness can be both moving and stationary [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If a property is held to be at the location of the particular, then if there are two objects having the same property, and one object is stationary and the other is moving, the realist is forced to say that the universal is both moving and at rest. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The target of this comment is D.M.Armstrong. The example nicely illustrates the problem of trying to combine science and metaphysics. It pushes you back to Platonism, but that seems wrong too… |
| 4469 | There are spatial facts about red particulars, but not about redness itself [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: When one attends to something existing in space, one attends to an instance of redness, not to redness itself (which is a colour, which resembles orange). The facts about red itself are not spatial facts, but are traditionally seen as a priori synthetic. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the fact that properties can themselves have properties (and so on?), which seems to take us further and further from the natural world. |
| 4472 | Redness is independent of red things, can do without them, has its own properties, and has identity [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Four arguments for Platonism: 1) there are truths about redness (it's a colour) even if nothing red exists, 2) redness does not depend on particulars, 3) most universals are at some time not exemplified, 4) universals satisfy the criteria of existence. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This adds up to quite a good case, particularly the point that things can be said about redness which are independent of any particular, but the relationships between concepts and the brain seems at the heart of the problem. |
| 4459 | Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Moderate nominalism attempts to embrace the existence of properties while avoiding universals. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Clearly there is going to be quite a struggle to make sense of 'exists' here (Russell tries 'subsists). Presumably each property must be a particular? |
| 4458 | Unlike Class Nominalism, Resemblance Nominalism can distinguish natural from unnatural classes [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Resemblance Nominalism is clearly superior to Class Nominalism, since the former offers a clear ground for distinguishing between natural and unnatural classes. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Important. It seems evident to me that there are natural classes, and the only ground for this claim would be either the resemblance or the identity of properties. |
| 4457 | There can be predicates with no property, and there are properties with no predicate [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Linguistic predicates are neither sufficient nor necessary for specifying a property. Predicates can be contrived which express no property, properties are far more numerous than linguistic predicates, and properties are what make predicates apply. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me conclusive, and is a crucial argument against anyone who thinks that our metaphysics can simply be inferred from our language. |
| 4471 | We should abandon the concept of a property since (unlike sets) their identity conditions are unclear [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Some argue that compared to sets, the identity conditions for properties are obscure, and so properties, including realist depictions of them, should be rejected. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I have never thought that difficulty in precisely identifying something was a good reason for denying its existence. Consider low morale in a work force. 2nd thoughts: I like this! |
| 4476 | Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers think that the identity of indiscernibles is false. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to the generally accepted 'indiscernibility of identicals'. 'Discernment' is an epistemological concept, and 'identity' is an ontological concept. |
| 4460 | Abstractions are formed by the mind when it concentrates on some, but not all, the features of a thing [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: If something is 'abstract' it is got before the mind by an act of abstraction, that is, by concentrating attention on some (but not all) of what is presented. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it usually involves picking out the behavioural or causal features, and leaving out the physical features - though I suppose it works for physical properties too… |
| 4455 | It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: It is always open to a philosopher to claim that some entity or other is unanalysable. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: For example, Davidson on truth. There is an onus to demonstrate why all attempted analyses fail. |
| 18918 | Terms denote objects with properties, and statements denote the world with that property [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: In term logic, what a term denotes are the objects having the property it signifies. What a statement denotes is the world, that which has the constitutive property it signifies. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) |
| 18920 | 'Socrates is wise' denotes a sentence; 'that Socrates is wise' denotes a proposition [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: Whereas 'Socrates is wise' denotes a sentence, 'that Socrates is wise' denotes a proposition. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 4) | |
| A reaction: In traditional parlance, 'reported speech' refers to the underlying proposition, because it does not commit to the actual words being used. As a lover of propositions (as mental events, not mysterious abstract objects), I like this. |
| 18906 | Negating a predicate term and denying its unnegated version are quite different [Engelbretsen] |
| Full Idea: There is a crucial distinction in term logic between affirming a negated predicate term of some subject and denying the unnegated version of that term of that same subject. We must distinguish 'X is non-P' from 'X is not P'. | |
| From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 2) | |
| A reaction: The first one affirms something about X, but the second one just blocks off a possible description of X. 'X is non-harmful' and 'X is not harmful' - if X had ceased to exist, the second would be appropriate and the first wouldn't? I'm guessing. |
| 4473 | 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists [Moreland] |
| Full Idea: 'Presentism' is the view that only the present moment exists. | |
| From: J.P. Moreland (Universals [2001], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: And Greek scepticism doubted even the present, since there is no space between past and future. It is a delightfully vertigo-inducing idea. |