35 ideas
16554 | Activities have place, rate, duration, entities, properties, modes, direction, polarity, energy and range [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: Activities can be identified spatiotemporally, and individuated by rate, duration, and types of entity and property that engage in them. They also have modes of operation, directionality, polarity, energy requirements and a range. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
A reaction: This is their attempt at making 'activity' one of the two central concepts of ontology, along with 'entity'. A helpful analysis. It just seems to be one way of slicing the cake. |
3523 | Shadows are supervenient on their objects, but not reducible [Maslin] |
Full Idea: Shadows are distinct from the physical objects casting the shadows and irreducible to them; any attempt at reduction would be incoherent, as it would entail identifying a shadow with the object of which it is a shadow. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 6.3) | |
A reaction: Another failure to find a decent analogy for what is claimed in property dualism. A 'shadow' is a reification of the abstract concept of an absence of light. Objects lose their shadows at dusk, but the object itself doesn't change. |
3517 | 'Ontology' means 'study of things which exist' [Maslin] |
Full Idea: The word 'ontology' is derived from the Greek word 'ontia', which means 'things which exist'. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 1.1) |
16556 | Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: It is not the penicillin that causes the pneumonia to disappear, but what the penicillin does. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.1) | |
A reaction: This is a very neat example for illustrating how we slip into 'entity' talk, when the reality we are addressing actually concerns processes. Without the 'what it does', penicillin can't participate in causation at all. |
16562 | We understand something by presenting its low-level entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: The intelligibility of a phenomenon consists in the mechanisms being portrayed in terms of a field's bottom out entities and activities. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
A reaction: In other words, we understand complex things by reducing them to things we do understand. It would, though, be illuminating to see a nest of interconnected activities, even if we understood none of them. |
16563 | The explanation is not the regularity, but the activity sustaining it [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: It is not regularities that explain but the activities that sustain the regularities. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
A reaction: Good, but we had better not characterise the 'activities' in terms of regularities. |
16555 | Functions are not properties of objects, they are activities contributing to mechanisms [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: It is common to speak of functions as properties 'had by' entities, …but they should rather be understood in terms of the activities by virtue of which entities contribute to the workings of a mechanism. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
A reaction: I'm certainly quite passionately in favour of cutting down on describing the world almost entirely in terms of entities which have properties. An 'activity', though, is a bit of an elusive concept. |
16528 | Mechanisms are not just push-pull systems [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: One should not think of mechanisms as exclusively mechanical (push-pull) systems. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
A reaction: The difficulty seems to be that you could broaden the concept of 'mechanism' indefinitely, so that it covered history, mathematics, populations, cultural change, and even mathematics. Where to stop? |
16530 | A mechanism explains a phenomenon by showing how it was produced [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: To give a description of a mechanism for a phenomenon is to explain that phenomenon, i.e. to explain how it was produced. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
A reaction: To 'show how' something happens needs a bit of precisification. It is probably analytic that 'showing how' means 'revealing the mechanism', though 'mechanism' then becomes the tricky concept. |
16529 | Mechanisms are systems organised to produce regular change [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: Mechanisms are entities and activities organized such that they are productive of regular change from start or set-up to finish or termination conditions. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 1) | |
A reaction: This is their initial formal definition of a mechanism. Note that a mere 'activity' can be included. Presumably the mechanism might have an outcome that was not the intended outcome. Does a random element disqualify it? Are hands mechanisms? |
16553 | Our account of mechanism combines both entities and activities [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: We emphasise the activities in mechanisms. This is explicitly dualist. Substantivalists speak of entities with dispositions to act. Process ontologists reify activities and try to reduce entities to processes. We try to capture both intuitions. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3) | |
A reaction: [A quotation of selected fragments] The problem here seems to be the raising of an 'activity' to a central role in ontology, when it doesn't seem to be primitive, and will typically be analysed in a variety of ways. |
16559 | Descriptions of explanatory mechanisms have a bottom level, where going further is irrelevant [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: Nested hierachical descriptions of mechanisms typically bottom out in lowest level mechanisms. …Bottoming out is relative …the explanation comes to an end, and description of lower-level mechanisms would be irrelevant. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to me exactly the right story about mechanism, and it is a story I am associating with essentialism. The relevance is ties to understanding. The lower level is either fully understood, or totally baffling. |
16564 | There are four types of bottom-level activities which will explain phenomena [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: There are four bottom-out kinds of activities: geometrico-mechanical, electro-chemical, electro-magnetic and energetic. These are abstract means of production that can be fruitfully applied in particular cases to explain phenomena. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 7) | |
A reaction: I like that. It gives a nice core for a metaphysics for physicalists. I suspect that 'mechanical' can be reduced to something else, and that 'energetic' will disappear in the final story. |
3538 | Analogy to other minds is uncheckable, over-confident and chauvinistic [Maslin] |
Full Idea: The argument from analogy makes it impossible to check my inductive inferences because of the privacy of other minds; it also seems irresponsible to generalise from a single case; and it seems like a case of human chauvinism. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 8.2) | |
A reaction: Privacy of other minds need not imply scepticism about them. I'm a believer, so I have no trouble checking my theories. Solipsists can't 'check' anything. It isn't 'irresponsible' to generalise from one case if that is all you have. |
16561 | We can abstract by taking an exemplary case and ignoring the detail [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: Abstractions may be constructed by taking an exemplary case or instance and removing detail. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 5.3) | |
A reaction: I love 'removing detail'. That's it. Simple. I think this process is the basis of our whole capacity to formulate abstract concepts. Forget Frege - he's just describing the results of the process. How do we decide what is 'detail'? Essentialism! |
3540 | If we are brains then we never meet each other [Maslin] |
Full Idea: If I am my brain this leads to the odd result that you have never met me because you have never seen my brain. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 10.7) | |
A reaction: 'Star Trek' is full of aliens who appear beautiful, and turn out to be ugly grey lumps. 'I am my face' would be just as odd, particularly if I were in a coma, or dead. |
3518 | I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths [Maslin] |
Full Idea: I may be the final authority on whether my shoe pinches, but I am manifestly not the final authority on whether I understand some mathematical theorem. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
A reaction: However, it doesn't follow that his teachers are the final authority either, because he may get correct answers by an algorithm, and bluff his way when demonstrating his understanding. Who knows whether anyone really understands anything? |
3530 | Denial of purely mental causation will lead to epiphenomenalism [Maslin] |
Full Idea: If mental events are causally efficacious only by virtue of their physical features and not their mental ones, …then anomalous monism leads straight to ephiphenomenalism. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.6) | |
A reaction: As epiphenomenalism strikes me as being incoherent (see Idea 7379), what this amounts to is that either mental effects are causally efficacious, or they are not worth mentioning. I take them to be causally efficacious because they are brain events. |
3520 | Token-identity removes the explanatory role of the physical [Maslin] |
Full Idea: In token-identity mental and physical features seem as unrelated as colour and shape, which is very weak physicalism because it does not allow physical states an explanatory role in accounting for mental states. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 3.8.6) | |
A reaction: Colour and shape are not totally unrelated, as they can both be totally explained by a full knowledge of the physical substance involved. ...But maybe if we fully understood Spinoza's single substance...? See Idea 4834. |
7352 | Jesus said learning was unnecessary, and only the spirit of the Law was needed [Jesus, by Johnson,P] |
Full Idea: Jesus was a learned Jew who said that learning was not necessary, who took the spirit and not the letter as the essence of the Law. | |
From: report of Jesus (reports [c.32]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II | |
A reaction: This seems to me the perfect opposite of Socrates's intellectualism, offering the essence of morality as 'purity of heart', rather than careful thought about virtue or principles. On the whole I am with Socrates, but the idea is interesting. |
6289 | Love your enemies [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Love your enemies. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.44 | |
A reaction: The germ of this idea had been around for several hundred years, but this very forceful statement is perhaps Jesus' most distinctive contribution to moral thought. It has the same clarion call as the Stoic demand for pure virtue. What about deserving? |
6292 | Love thy neighbour as thyself [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Love thy neighbour as thyself. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.19 | |
A reaction: It would be stronger and better to say 'Love your neighbour, even if you don't love yourself'. Self-loathing and vicious hatred often go together. For once Jesus does not attach an instant heavenly reward to obedience of the command. |
5356 | Treat others as you would have them treat you [Jesus] |
Full Idea: All things whatsoever ye would that men should do to you, so ye even so to them: for this is the law and the prophets. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 07.12 | |
A reaction: A problem which probably didn't occur to Jesus and the prophets is that of masochists. Personally I like buying philosophy books, but most people have no such desire. The Rule needs restricting to the basics of pleasure and pain. |
6286 | Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Blessed are the merciful: for they shall obtain mercy. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.07 | |
A reaction: This appears to be a straightforward application of social contract morality, with God playing the role of Hobbes' absolute monarch. It highlights the uncomfortable fact at the heart of Christian morality, that the motivation for altruism is selfish. |
6290 | Except ye become as little children, ye shall not enter heaven [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Except ye be converted, and become as little children, ye shall not enter into the kingdom of heaven. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 18.03 | |
A reaction: The appeal of such purity of heart is undeniable, but essentially I dislike this remark. It is the opponent of education, reason, autonomy, responsibility, democracy and maturity. It confirms the view that religion is the opium of the people. |
6287 | If you lust after a woman, you have committed adultery [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Whosoever look on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.28 | |
A reaction: Compare Democritus, Idea 503. Literally this idea seems absurd, but it is also at the heart of Greek virtue theory. Aristotle (Idea 34) defines virtue as an activity 'of the soul', not an action in the world. Excellence has become purity of soul. |
6285 | Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Blessed are the meek; for they shall inherit the earth. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.05 | |
A reaction: If they are truly meek, why would they want to inherit the earth? This is the classic statement of Nietzsche's 'inversion of values', where the qualities of a good slave are elevated above those of the greatest human beings. |
6288 | Don't resist evil, but turn the other cheek [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Ye have heard it said, An eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth; But I say unto you, That ye resist not evil, but whosoever shall smite thee on thy right cheek, turn to him the other also. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 05.38-9 | |
A reaction: Compare Socrates, Idea 346. The viciousness of many Hollywood movies is that they set up a character as thoroughly evil so that we can have the pleasure of watching him pulverised. On the whole, Jesus gives bad advice. 'Doormats' in game theory. |
6293 | It is almost impossible for the rich to go to heaven [Jesus] |
Full Idea: It is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle, than for a rich man to enter into the kingdom of God. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.24 | |
A reaction: Aristotle and others (Margaret Thatcher) have observed that you cannot practise charity if you are poor. Jesus implies that the human race should remain in poverty. No wonder autocratic medieval rulers taught Christianity to peasants. Cf. Matt 25.30. |
3528 | Causality may require that a law is being followed [Maslin] |
Full Idea: The principle of nomological causality says that if two events are intrinsically causally related, there must be a strict physical law under which they can be subsumed. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.5) |
3525 | Strict laws make causation logically necessary [Maslin] |
Full Idea: 'Deductive-nomological' explanation consists of two premises - a strict law with no exceptions and supporting deterministic counterfactuals, and a statement of an event which falls under the law - which together logically require the effect. | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.4) |
3527 | Strict laws allow no exceptions and are part of a closed system [Maslin] |
Full Idea: 'Strict' laws of nature contain no ceteris paribus clauses ('all things being equal'), and are part of a closed system (so that whatever affects the system must be included within the system). | |
From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.5) |
16558 | Laws of nature have very little application in biology [Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: The traditional notion of a law of nature has few, if any, applications in neurobiology or molecular biology. | |
From: Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C (Thinking About Mechanisms [2000], 3.2) | |
A reaction: This is a simple and self-evident fact, and bad news for anyone who want to build their entire ontology around laws of nature. I take such a notion to be fairly empty, except as a convenient heuristic device. |
6291 | No one is good except God [Jesus] |
Full Idea: Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God. | |
From: Jesus (reports [c.32]), quoted by St Matthew - 01: Gospel of St Matthew 19.17 | |
A reaction: This remark raises the problem that if God is good, there must be some separate moral standard by which he can be judged good. What is that standard? It is related to the problem of whether Plato's Form of the Beautiful is itself beautiful. |
7351 | Jesus turned the ideas of Hillel into a theology reduced to its moral elements [Jesus, by Johnson,P] |
Full Idea: Jesus was a member of the school of Hillel the Elder, and may have sat under him. He repeated some of the sayings of Hillel, ...and turned his ideas into a moral theology, stripping the law of all but its moral and ethical elements. | |
From: report of Jesus (reports [c.32]) by Paul Johnson - The History of the Jews Pt II | |
A reaction: The crucial move, it seems to me, is to strip Judaism of its complexity, and reduce it to very simple moral maxims, which means that ordinary illiterate people no longer need priests to understand and follow it. Jesus was, above all, a great teacher. |