27 ideas
| 17377 | All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Classification pervades any descriptive use of language whatever. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is because, as Aristotle well knew, language consists almost entirely of universals (apart from the proper names). Language just is classification. |
| 17376 | We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The most important desideratum of a classificatory scheme is that assigning an object to a particular classification tell us as much as possible about that object. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: We should probably say that the aim is a successful explanation, rather than a heap of information. If we are totally baffled by a particular type of object, it is presumably important to group the instances together, to focus the bafflement. |
| 17390 | Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The importance of natural kinds for explanation does not depend on a doctrine of essences. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 3) | |
| A reaction: He suggest as the alternative that laws do the explaining, employing natural kinds. He allows that individual essences might be explanatory. |
| 17389 | A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Contradicting one of the main points of essentialism, there is no reason in principle why a species should not survive the demise of its current genetic mechanisms (some other species coherence gradually taking over). | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: I would say that this meant that the species had a new essence, because I don't take what is essential to be the same as what is necessary. The new genetics would replace the old as the basic explanation of the species. |
| 17388 | It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: It is widely agreed among biologists that no essential property can be found to demarcate species, so that if an essential property is necessary for a natural kind, species are not natural kinds. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: This uses 'essential' to mean 'necessary', but I would use 'essential' to mean 'deeply explanatory'. Biological species are, nevertheless, dubious members of an ontological system. Vegetables are the problem. |
| 17374 | The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Determinism is the metaphysical underlay of the possibility of prediction. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Not convinced. There might be micro-indeterminacies which iron out into macro-regularities. |
| 17378 | Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: It is surely the absence of experiences like the one Putnam describes that makes it reasonable to attach to molecular structure at least most of the importance that Putnam ascribes to it. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: That is, whenever we experience water-like stuff, it always turns out to have the same molecular structure. Twin Earth is a nice thought experiment, except that XZY is virtually inconceivable. |
| 7127 | If men are good you should keep promises, but they aren't, so you needn't [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: If all men were good, promising-breaking would not be good, but because they are bad and do not keep their promises to you, you likewise do not have to keep yours to them. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.18) | |
| A reaction: A rather depressing proposal to get your promise-breaking in first, based on the pessimistic view that people cannot be improved. The subsequent history of ethics in Europe showed Machiavelli to be wrong. Gentlemen began to keep their word. |
| 6309 | The principle foundations of all states are good laws and good armies [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: The principle foundations of all states are good laws and good armies. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: We may be wondering, since 1945, whether a good army is any longer essential, but it would be a foolish modern state which didn't at least form a strong alliance with a state which had a strong army. Fertile land is a huge benefit to a state. |
| 6306 | People are vengeful, so be generous to them, or destroy them [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: Men should be either treated generously or destroyed, because they take revenge for slight injuries. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like good advice, and works quite well in school teaching too. It seems like advice drawn from the growth of the Roman Empire, rather than from dealing with sophisticated and educated people. |
| 6305 | To retain a conquered state, wipe out the ruling family, and preserve everything else [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: If a ruler acquires a state and is determined to keep it, he observes two cautions: he wipes out the family of their long-established princes; and he does not change either their laws or their taxes; in a short time they will unite with his old princedom. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This nicely illustrates the firmness of purpose for which Machiavelli has become a byword. The question is whether Machiavelli had enough empirical evidence to support this induction. The British in India seem to have been successful without it. |
| 6308 | A sensible conqueror does all his harmful deeds immediately, because people soon forget [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: A prudent conqueror makes a list of all the harmful deeds he must do, and does them all at once, so that he need not repeat them every day, which then makes men feel secure, and gains their support by treating them well. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: This might work for a new government in a democracy, or a new boss in a business. It sounds horribly true; dreadful deeds done a long time ago can be completely forgotten, as when reformed criminals become celebrities. |
| 21006 | If women share rights with men, they will exhibit similar virtues [Wollstonecraft] |
| Full Idea: Let woman share the rights and she will emulate the virtues of man; for she must grow more perfect when emancipated, or justify that authority that chains such a weak being to her duty. | |
| From: Mary Wollstonecraft (Vindication of the Rights of Women [1792], p.294), quoted by Amartya Sen - The Idea of Justice 18 'Wrath' | |
| A reaction: Presumably this implies that if emancipation led to women exceeding men in such virtues, there would be some justification for imposing the chains on the men rather than the women. Consider wars. Probably best to just abandon chains. |
| 6307 | A desire to conquer, and men who do it, are always praised, or not blamed [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: It is very natural and normal to wish to conquer, and when men do it who can, they always will be praised, or not blamed. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This view seems shocking to us, but it seems to me that this was a widely held view up until the time of Nietzsche, but came to a swift end with the invention of the machine gun in about 1885, followed by the heavy bomber and atomic bomb. |
| 7486 | Machiavelli emancipated politics from religion [Machiavelli, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: Machiavelli emancipated politics from religion. | |
| From: report of Niccolo Machiavelli (The Prince [1513]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.24 | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, he seems to have done it by saying that ideals are irrelevant to politics, but gradually secular ideals crept back in (sometimes disastrously). A balance needs to be struck on idealism. |
| 19813 | All legislators invoke God in support of extraordinary laws, because their justification is not obvious [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: There has never been a single legislator who, in proposing extraordinary laws, did not have recourse to God, for otherwise they would not be accepted, since many benefits known to a prudent man do not have evident persuasive reasons. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Discourses [1520], 1.11), quoted by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (tr Cress) II.7 n8 | |
| A reaction: It does seem to be an important role for God and state religion, to give support to decisions and laws which might not be intrinsically popular. |
| 7126 | Rulers should preserve the foundations of religion, to ensure good behaviour and unity [Machiavelli] |
| Full Idea: It is the duty of the rulers of a republic or a kingdom to preserve the foundations of the religion they hold; if they do this, it will be an easy thing for them to keep their state religious, and consequently good and united. | |
| From: Niccolo Machiavelli (The Discourses [1520], I.12) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of Marx's view, that the sole role of religion is political, as a tool used by the ruling classes to keep the populace in their place. The same idea can be found in Critias (Idea 542). But what is wrong with some central moral guidance? |
| 17381 | Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The phylogenetic conception of classification reflects the facts of evolutionary history. Cladism insists that every taxonomic distinction should reflect an evolutionary event of lineage bifurcation. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: Devitt attacks cladism nicely. It rules out species change without bifurcation, and it insists on species change even in a line which remains unchanged after a split. |
| 17385 | Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: A kind, being an abstract object, cannot do anything, including evolve. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: Maybe. We might have an extensional view of the kind, so that 'gold' is the set of extant gold atoms. But possible gold atoms are also gold, and defunct ones too. Virtually every word in English is abtract if you think about it long enough. |
| 17375 | Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The question of which natural kind a thing belongs to ....can be answered only in relation to some specification of the goal underlying the intent to classify the object. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I believe this. The situation is complex, and our intents are relevant, but to find an intent which no longer classifies tigers into the same category is wilful silliness. |
| 17379 | Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The richest source of illustrations is the vegetable kingdom, where specific differences tend to be much less clear than among animals, and considerable developmental plasticity is the rule. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Just as the idea that laws of nature are mathematical suits physics, but founders on biology, so natural kinds founder in an area of biology to which we pay less attention. He cites prickly pears and lilies. I'm thinking oranges, satsumas etc. |
| 17384 | Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Even if we claim that it is really isotopes not atoms that are the natural kinds (thus divorcing chemistry from ordinary language), atoms are said to differ with respect to such features as energy levels of the electrons. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: So we can't just pick out the features of one atom, and say that is the essence. Essence always involves some selection. I say the essence arises from the explanation of the atom's behaviour. |
| 17387 | Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: To the extent that the occupants of a particular niche do not coincide with the members of a particular genealogical line, a possibility widely acknowledged to occur, ecologists must favour a method of classification lacking genealogical grounding. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: Zoo keepers probably classify by cages, or which zoo owns what, but that doesn't mean that they reject genealogy. Don't assume ecologists are rejecting any underlying classification that differs from theirs. Compare classification by economists. |
| 17382 | Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: It would be a severe culinary misfortune if no distinction were drawn between garlic and onions, a distinction that is not reflected in scientific taxonomy. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: Not every persuasive. We distinguish some cows from others because they taste better, but no one thinks that is a serious way in which to classify cows. |
| 17380 | Wales may count as fish [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: The claim that whales are not fish is a debatable one | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
| A reaction: A very nice challenge to an almost unquestioned orthodoxy. |
| 17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Species are, by definition, the lowest-level classificatory unit, or basal taxonomic unit, for biological organisms. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the 'infima species' for Aristotelians. What about 'male' and 'female' in each species? |
| 17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |
| Full Idea: Species are what the theory of evolution is centrally about. | |
| From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) |