Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, Alexander Bird and Stephen Mumford

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172 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 6. Hopes for Philosophy
Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Science deals with the phenomena, ..but it is metaphysics, and only metaphysics, that tells us what ultimately exists.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.2)
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
Instrumentalists say distinctions between observation and theory vanish with ostensive definition [Bird]
     Full Idea: Instrumentalists treat the theoretical/non-theoretical and the observational/non-observational distinctions as the same, ..because they think words get their meaning by way of ostensive definition.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: To be honest, I'm not sure I quite understand this, but it sounds interesting... Ostensive definition seems to match the pragmatic spirit of instrumentalism (for which, see Idea 6778). Bird explains it all more fully.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford]
     Full Idea: There are many forms of reasoning - extrapolation, interpolation, and other arguments from analogy - that are useful but deductively invalid.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.4)
     A reaction: [He cites Molnar for this]
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 7. Barcan Formula
The plausible Barcan formula implies modality in the actual world [Bird]
     Full Idea: Modality in the actual world is the import of the Barcan formula, and there are good reasons for accepting the Barcan formula.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 1.2)
     A reaction: If you thought logic was irrelevant to metaphysics, this should make you think twice.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence
For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford]
     Full Idea: For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.6)
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird]
     Full Idea: If one says that 'everything that exists is causally active', that rules out abstracta (notably sets and numbers), and it rules out objects that are causally isolated.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5)
     A reaction: I like the principle. I take abstracta to be brain events, so they are causally active, within highly refined and focused brains, and if your physics is built on the notion of fields then I would think a 'causally isolated' object incoherent.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
     A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience
If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
     A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird]
     Full Idea: If one's naturalistic principles are formulated in terms of supervenience, then necessary entities are left untouched.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5)
     A reaction: I take this to be part of the reason why some people like supervenience - that it leaves a pure 'space of reasons' which is unreachable from the flesh and blood inside a cranium. Personall I like the space of reasons, but I drop the 'pure'.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The claim of modest realism is that there is a subject-independent reality; the presumptuous claim is that we are capable of describing that reality accurately.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.1)
     A reaction: And the super-presumptuous claim is that there only exists one ultimate accurate description of reality. I am happy to call myself a Modest Realist on this one.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The anti-realist declines to permit that all statements have truth-values. ...The essence of the anti-realist position is that evidence and ontology cannot be separated.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.6)
     A reaction: [second half on p.51] The idea that evidence and ontology are 'inseparable' strikes me as an absurd idea. The proposal that you should not speculate about ontology without some sort of evidence is, of course, not unreasonable.
Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird]
     Full Idea: There is anti-realism with regard to unobservable entities and the theories that purport to mention them, but the more plausible version attaches to theories concerning what laws of nature are.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This sounds right. I certainly find anti-realism about the entities of science utterly implausible. I also doubt whether there is any such thing as a law, above and beyond the behaviour of matter. Theories float between the two.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B)
     A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism.
The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow]
     Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property.
     From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11)
     A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird]
     Full Idea: The thought that there might be just one fundamental natural property is not that strange.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 6.3)
     A reaction: A nice variation on the Parmenides idea that only the One exists. Bird's point would refer to a possible unification of modern physics. We see, for example, the forces of electricity and of magnetism turning out to be the same force.
Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The dispositional and the categorical are correctly understood just as two modes of presentation of the same instantiated properties.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.6)
     A reaction: This is Mumford's own conclusion, after discussing the views of Armstrong. How about 'a disposition is the modal profile' of a categorical property?
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford]
     Full Idea: A predicate which is conceptually connected to no function ... is a categorical predicate.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.7)
     A reaction: This is an expansion of Mumford's own theory of dispositions, as functional. Does a cork in a wine bottle have a function, but without doing anything? It seems to achieve its function purely through its structure.
Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Though categorical properties provide explanations for dispositions, categorical properties are also explained by dispositions; hence neither category uniquely explains the other.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.3)
     A reaction: The conclusion doesn't seem to follow. It depends which one is found at the bottom level. It can go up from a basic disposition, to a categorical property, to another disposition - or the other way around.
There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Four reasons for reducing everything to the categorical are: categorical predicates have wider scope; dispositions are variably realised by the categorical; categorical is 1st order, dispositions 2nd; categorical properties are explanatorily basic.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.5)
     A reaction: I particularly reject the fourth reason, as I take categorical properties as still in need of explanation. The categorical view is contingent (and Humean), but I take the categorical properties to be necessitated by the underlying powers.
Categorical properties are not modally fixed, but change across possible worlds [Bird]
     Full Idea: Categorical properties do not have their dispositional characters modally fixed, but may change their dispositional characters (and their causal and nomic behaviour more generally) across different worlds.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1)
     A reaction: This is the key ground for Bird's praiseworth opposition to categorical propertie. I take it to be a nonsense to call the category in which we place something a 'property' of that thing. A confusion of thought with reality.
The categoricalist idea is that a property is only individuated by being itself [Bird]
     Full Idea: In the categoricalist view, the essential properties of a natural property are limited to its essentially being itself and not some distinct property.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.1)
     A reaction: He associates this view with Lewis (modern regularity view) and Armstrong (nomic necessitation), and launches a splendid attack against it. I have always laughed at the idea that 'being Socrates' was one of the properties of Socrates.
If we abstractly define a property, that doesn't mean some object could possess it [Bird]
     Full Idea: The possibility of abstract definition does not show that we have defined a property that we can know, independently of any theory, that it is physically possible for some object to possess.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.3.1)
     A reaction: This is a naturalist resisting the idea that there is no more to a property than set-membership. I strongly agree. We need a firm notion of properties as features of the actual world; anything else should be called something like 'categorisations'.
Categoricalists take properties to be quiddities, with no essential difference between them [Bird]
     Full Idea: The categoricalist conception of properties takes them to be quiddities, which are primitive identities between fundamental qualities, having no difference with regard to their essence.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.5)
     A reaction: Compare 'haecceitism' about indentity of objects, though 'quidditism' sounds even less plausible. Bird attributes this view to Lewis and Armstrong, and makes it sound well daft.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties
A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Though lead is said to be composed of molecules of lead, these molecules are not leaden in the everyday sense of the word. This suggests that a property need not be present at the microscopic level in order to be present at the macroscopic level.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 02.3)
     A reaction: [He quotes Joske] This strikes me as a key principle to grasp about properties. One H2O molecule is not water, any more than a brick is a house! Nearly all properties (or all?) are 'emergent' (in the sensible, non-mystical use of that word).
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
To name an abundant property is either a Fregean concept, or a simple predicate [Bird]
     Full Idea: It isn't clear what it is to name an abundant property. One might reify them, as akin to Fregean concepts, or it might be equivalent to a simple predication.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 7.1.2)
     A reaction: 'Fregean concepts' would make them functions that purely link things (hence relational?). One suspects that people who actually treat abundant properties as part of their ontology (Lewis) are confusing natural properties with predicates.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: Bird says only real powers are fundamental.
     From: report of Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007]) by S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum - Getting Causes from Powers 1.5
     A reaction: They disagree, and want higher-level properties in their ontology. I'm with Bird, except that something must exist to have the powers. Powers are fundamental to all the activity of nature, and are intrinsic to the stuff which constitutes nature.
Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The view of properties I find most attractive is one in which they are natural clusters of, and exhausted by, powers (plus other connections to other properties).
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6)
Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Dispositions are attacked as either just saying how something will behave (logical fictions about regularities of events), or as primitive pre-scientific terms like 'phlogiston', place-holders used when we are ignorant of real properties.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1)
     A reaction: [compressed] The first view he calls the Ryle-Wittgenstein view, which seems to track back to Hume.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford]
     Full Idea: A dispositional property is the classification of a property according to its functional role....[p.85] What is essential to a disposition - its identity condition - is its functional role.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.5)
     A reaction: This is Mumford's view of dispositions. I am wary of any proposal to define something according to its role, because it must have an intrinsic nature which equips it to have that role.
I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The view I promote is one where the categorical base is a cause of the disposition manifestation.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.5)
     A reaction: It seems to me (I think) that the most basic thing has to be a power, whose nature is intrinsically beyond our grasp, and that categorical properties are the result of these powers. Powers are dispositional in character.
If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford]
     Full Idea: We might claim that dispositions are variably realized by a number of categorical bases; therefore they must be distinct from those bases.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.4)
     A reaction: Cars can be realised by a variety of models, therefore models are not cars? This might work if dispositions are only characterised functionally, as Mumford proposes, but I'm not convinced.
If all properties are potencies, and stimuli and manifestation characterise them, there is a regress [Bird]
     Full Idea: Potencies are characterized in terms of their stimulus and manifestation properties, then if potencies are the only properties then these properties are also potencies, and must be characterized by yet further properties, leading to a vicious regress.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 1.2)
     A reaction: This is cited as the most popular objection to the dispositional account of properties.
The essence of a potency involves relations, e.g. mass, to impressed force and acceleration [Bird]
     Full Idea: The essence of a potency involves a relation to something else; if inertial mass is a potency then its essence involves a relation to a stimulus property (impressed force) and a manifestation property (acceleration).
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.3.3)
     A reaction: It doesn't seem quite right to say that the relations are part of the essence, if they might not occur, but some other relations might happen in their place. An essence is what makes a relation possible (like being good-looking).
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 5. Powers and Properties
All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It seems that every property must be a causal power, since every property must be causally potent (as a necessary condition of its very existence).
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7)
     A reaction: Mumford cautiously endorses this idea, which seems to rest on the thesis that 'to exist is to have causal powers'. I think I am even keener on it than Mumford is. Powers and properties need to be disentangled, however.
Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Understanding intrinsic properties as being causal powers is likely to be most profitable, and, if true, renders the causal criterion of property existence true analytically.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.2)
     A reaction: [He cites E.Fales on this] I'm inclined to think that in the ultimate ontology the notion of a 'property' drops out. There are true causal powers, and then conventional human ways of grouping such powers together and naming them.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Dispositions are ascribed to at least three distinguishable classes of things: objects, substances, and persons.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1)
     A reaction: Are dispositions not also ascribed to properties? Magnetism has a disposition to attract iron filings?
Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The idea of a disposition occupying a different causal role involves a conceptual confusion, ...but there is no conceptual or logical absurdity in a categorical base occupying a different causal role.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.3)
     A reaction: This is the core of Mumford's theory of dispositions. I'm beginning to think that dispositions are merely ways we have of describing and labelling functional mechanisms, and so 'dispositions' drop out of the final story.
Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford]
     Full Idea: For some the notion of a disposition is contrasted with the notion of an occurrence; for others, it is contrasted with that of a categorical property.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6)
     A reaction: I vote for dispositions over the other two, but I take the categorical properties to be the main rival.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers
If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The realist says that disposition ascriptions are ascriptions of real powers. This leaves unanswered the question, 'power to do what?' The problem of background conditions means that the realist cannot say what it is that a power is a power to do.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.9)
     A reaction: It is hard to say what a disposition will do, under any other account of dispositions. I would take a power to be defined by a 'modal profile', rather than an actual account of what it will lead to.
Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Dispositions can regain the metaphysical role traditionally ascribed to real powers: the that-in-virtue-of-which-something-will-G, if F.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.9)
     A reaction: The attraction is that dispositions can be specified a little more clearly (especially in Mumford's functional version) whereas there may be no more to say about a power once it has been located and named.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional
Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The orthodox realist view has it that what makes an ascription a disposition ascription is not that it is equivalent to a conditional proposition but that it entails one.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7)
     A reaction: Mumford says that Martin has shown that dispositions need not entail conditionals (when a 'fink' is operating, something which intervenes between disposition and outcome).
A disposition is finkish if a time delay might mean the manifestation fizzles out [Bird]
     Full Idea: Finkish dispositions arise because the time delay between stimulus and manifestation provides an opportunity for the disposition to go out of existence and so halt the process that would bring about the manifestation.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 2.2.3)
     A reaction: This is a problem for the conditional analysis of dispositions; there may be a disposition, but it never reaches manifestation. Bird rightly points us towards actual powers rather than dispositions that need manifestation.
A robust pot attached to a sensitive bomb is not fragile, but if struck it will easily break [Bird]
     Full Idea: If a robust iron pot is attached to a bomb with a sensitive detonator. If the pot is struck, the bomb will go off, so they counterfactual 'if the pot were struck it would break' is true, but it is not a fragile pot. This is a 'mimic' of the disposition.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 2.2.5.1)
     A reaction: A very nice example, showing that a true disposition would have to be an internal feature (a power) of the pot itself, not a mere disposition to behave. The problem is these pesky empiricists, who want to reduce it all to what is observable.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent
Megarian actualists deny unmanifested dispositions [Bird]
     Full Idea: The Megarian actualist denies that a disposition can exist without being manifested.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.4)
     A reaction: I agree with Bird that this extreme realism seems wrong. As he puts it (p.109), "unrealized possibilities must be part of the actual world". This commitment is beginning to change my understanding of the world I am looking at.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / e. Dispositions as potential
Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Dispositions should correctly be understood as more than mere possibilities. To say something has a disposition is to say something about how it is actually.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], Pref)
     A reaction: To me this is a basic axiom of metaphysics. The word 'power' serves well for the actual embodiment of a disposition. A power gives rise to one or more dispositions. Or one or more powers give rise to a disposition?
There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It seems plausible that a disposition could be possessed though no manifestation events occur.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6)
     A reaction: It is more than 'plausible' - it is screamingly obvious to everybody, apart from a few philosophers. "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest" (Gray's Elegy).
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers
If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Given any event, and the assumption that every event has a cause, then some power can always be invented as the cause of that event.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.6)
     A reaction: This is a useful warning, and probably explains why 'powers' fell out of fashion in scientifice theorising. They seem to make a return, though, as an appropriate term for the bottom level of each of our explanations.
Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford]
     Full Idea: In the old-fashioned sense, 'powers' are real potentialities that initiate changes but seem to have a mysterious existence in between those changes.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.10)
     A reaction: What is a person when they are asleep? What is a dishwasher when it isn't running? What is gunpowder when it doesn't explode? We all understand latent powers. To see them as a 'mystery' is to want to know too much.
Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The categorical eliminativist claims that there are no dispositional properties. All properties must be conceived of as categorical states or mechanisms, in the spirit of Boyle's explanation of powers.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.3A)
     A reaction: What is the difference between a structure and a mechanism? How do we distinguish an active from an inactive mechanism? Without powers or dispositions, nature is dead junk.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 3. Instantiated Universals
Why should a universal's existence depend on instantiation in an existing particular? [Bird]
     Full Idea: An instantiation condition seems to be a failure of nerve as regards realism about universals. If universals really are entities in their own right, why should their existence depend upon a relationship with existing particulars?
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.2.2)
     A reaction: I like this challenge, which seems to leave fans of universals no option but full-blown Platonism, which most of them recognise as being deeply implausible.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism
A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford]
     Full Idea: A 'porridge' nominalist denies natural kinds, and thinks there are no objective divisions in reality, so concepts or words can be used by a community to divide the world up in any way that suits their purposes.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.3)
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If a cluster of ten powers exhausts property F, and property G differs in respect of just one power, this might explain why properties can resemble other properties and in different degrees.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6)
     A reaction: I love this. The most intractable problem about properties and universals is that of abstract reference - pink resembles red more than pink resembles green. If colours are clusters of powers, red and pink share nine out of ten of them.
Resemblance itself needs explanation, presumably in terms of something held in common [Bird]
     Full Idea: The realist view of resemblance nominalism is that it is resemblance that needs explaining. When there is resemblance it is natural to want to explain it, in terms of something held in common. Explanations end somewhere, but not with resemblance.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 2.1.2)
     A reaction: I smell a regress. If a knife and a razor resemble because they share sharpness, you have to see that the sharp phenomenon falls within the category of 'sharpness' before you can make the connection, which is spotting its similarity.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Substances can survive a change in their parts in a way that a mere aggregate of parts.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 3)
     A reaction: A simple but very important idea. If we then distinguish between 'substances' and 'aggregates' we get a much clearer grip on things. Is the Ship of Theseus a substance or an aggregate? There is no factual answer to that. What do you want to explain?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 11. Essence of Artefacts
Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Thermostats, thermometers, axes, spoons, and batteries have dispositional essences, which make them what they are.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.2 iv)
     A reaction: I would have thought that we could extend this proposal well beyond artefacts, but it certainly seems particularly clear in artefacts, where a human intention seems to be inescapably involved.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Essentialists fail to show how we ascend from being a property universally possessed, by all kind members, to the status of being an essential property.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5)
     A reaction: This is precisely where my proposal comes in - the essential properties, as opposed to the accidentaly universals, are those which explain the nature and behaviour of each kind of thing (and each individual thing).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
If the laws necessarily imply p, that doesn't give a new 'nomological' necessity [Bird]
     Full Idea: It does not add to the kinds of necessity to say that p is 'nomologically necessary' iff (the laws of nature → p) is metaphysically necessary. That trick of construction could be pulled for 'feline necessity' (true in all worlds that contain cats).
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1.2)
     A reaction: I love it! Bird seems to think that the only necessity is 'metaphysical' necessity, true in all possible worlds, and he is right. The question arises in modal logic, though, of the accessibility between worlds (which might give degrees of necessity?).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Logical necessitation is not a kind of necessity; George Orwell not being Eric Blair is not a real possibility [Bird]
     Full Idea: I do not regard logical necessitation as a kind of necessity. It is logically possible that George Orwell is not Eric Blair, but in what sense is this any kind of possibility? It arises from having two names, but that confers no genuine possibility.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1.2)
     A reaction: How refreshing. All kinds of concepts like this are just accepted by philosophers as obvious, until someone challenges them. The whole undergrowth of modal thinking needs a good flamethrower taken to it.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 3. Combinatorial possibility
Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It has been suggested that we could think of possibilities as recombinations of all the existing elements of reality.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8)
     A reaction: [Armstrong 1989 is the source] The obvious problem would be that the existence of an entirely different reality would be impossible, if this was all possibility could be. It seems to cramp the style of the possible too much. Are properties elements?
Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The combinatorial account only works if you allow that the elements are recombinable. ...But could Lincoln really have been green? It seems possible that you could jump to the moon, unless we impose some restrictions.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8)
     A reaction: Mumford suggests different combination rules for logical and natural possibility. The general objection is that combinatorial possibility is too permissive - which it clearly is.
Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Can combinatorial possibility deliver enough possibilities? It uses the existing elements, but there might have been one more particular or one more property. Even extended over time, the elements seem finite, yet there could have been more.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8)
     A reaction: [compressed] One objection is that the theory allows too much, and now the objection is that it allows too little. Both objections are correct, so that's the end of that. But I admire the attempt to base modality on actuality.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 6. Probability
Subjective probability measures personal beliefs; objective probability measures the chance of an event happening [Bird]
     Full Idea: Subjective probability measures a person's strength of belief in the truth of a proposition; objective probability concerns the chance a certain sort of event has of happening, independently of whether anyone thinks it is likely to occur or not.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: The challenge to the second one is that God would know for certain whether a meteor will hit the Earth next week. The impact looks like 'bad luck' to us, but necessary to one who really knows.
Objective probability of tails measures the bias of the coin, not our beliefs about it [Bird]
     Full Idea: In tossing a coin, the objective probability of tails is a measure of the bias of the coin; the bias and the probability are objective features of the coin, like its mass and shape; these properties have nothing to do with our beliefs about the coin.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: Despite my reservation that God would not seem to be very interested in the probabilities of coin-tossing, since he knows each outcome with certaintly, this is fairly convincing. God might say that the coin has a 'three-to-two bias'.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / c. Truth-function conditionals
Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If a conditional remains truth-functional it is incapable of expressing the fact that the connection between antecedent and consequent in the conditional is a causal one rather than merely accidental
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.8)
     A reaction: This is the first step towards an account of conditionals which will work in real life rather than merely in classical logic.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / d. Non-truthfunction conditionals
Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The conclusion that disposition ascriptions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals is largely to be accepted.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7)
     A reaction: [he attributes the view to C.B.Martin 1994] It is hard to see how to describe a disposition in anything other than conditional terms. Mumford's 'functional role' probably has to be described conditionally. It is how the conditional cashes out.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / a. Conceivable as possible
Empiricist saw imaginability and possibility as close, but now they seem remote [Bird]
     Full Idea: Whereas the link between imaginability and possibility was once held, under the influence of empiricism, to be close, it is now widely held to be very remote.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 8)
     A reaction: Tim Williamson nicely argues the opposite - that assessment of possibility is an adjunct of our ability to think counterfactually, which is precisely an operation of the imagination. Big error is possible, but how else could we do it?
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism
Haecceitism says identity is independent of qualities and without essence [Bird]
     Full Idea: The core of haecceitism is the view that the transworld identity of particulars does not supervene on their qualitative features. ...The simplest expression of it is that particulars lack essential properties.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.1)
     A reaction: This seems to be something the 'bare substratum' account of substance (associated with Locke). You are left with the difficulty of how to individuate an instance of the haecceity, as opposed to the bundle of properties attached to it.
13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / b. Need for justification
Many philosophers rate justification as a more important concept than knowledge [Bird]
     Full Idea: Many philosophers take the notion of justification to be more important or more basic than the concept of knowledge.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.7)
     A reaction: Intriguing. Given the obvious social and conventional element in 'knowledge' ("do we agree that the candidate really knows the answer?"), justification may well be closer to where the real action is. 'Logos', after all, is at the heart of philosophy.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
As science investigates more phenomena, the theories it needs decreases [Bird]
     Full Idea: A remarkable fact about modern science is that as the number of phenomena which science has investigated has grown, the number of theories needed to explain them has decreased.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This rebuts the idea that theories are probably false because we are unlikely to have thought of the right one (Idea 6784). More data suggests more theories, yet we end up with fewer theories. Why is simplification of theories possible?
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 1. Observation
If theories need observation, and observations need theories, how do we start? [Bird]
     Full Idea: If we cannot know the truth of theories without observation, and we cannot know the truth of observations without theories, where do we start?
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: See Idea 6793. You make a few observations, under the illusion that they are objective, then formulate a promising theory, then go back and deconstruct the observations, then tighten up the theory, and so on.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 4. Prediction
Explanation predicts after the event; prediction explains before the event [Bird]
     Full Idea: Explanation is prediction after the event and prediction is explanation before the event.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: A nice slogan, fitting Hempel's 'covering law' view of explanation. It doesn't seem quite right, because explanations and predictions are couched in very different language. Prediction implies an explanation; explanation implies a prediction.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Realists say their theories involve truth and the existence of their phenomena [Bird]
     Full Idea: A realist says of their theories that they can be evaluated according to truth, they aim at truth, their success favours their truth, their unobserved entities probably exist, and they would explain the observable phenomena.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: This seems to me to be the only sensible attitude towards scientific theories, even if they do become confusing down at the level of quantum theory. Theories aim to be true explanations.
There is no agreement on scientific method - because there is no such thing [Bird]
     Full Idea: I find little concurrence as to what scientific method might actually be - the reason being, I conclude, that there is no such thing.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8)
     A reaction: I take the essence of science to be two things: first, becoming very fussy about empirical evidence; second, setting up controlled conditions to get at the evidence that seems to be needed. I agree that there seems to be no distinctive way of thinking.
Relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity [Bird]
     Full Idea: The theories of relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998])
     A reaction: This nicely demonstrates that simplicity is not essential, even if it is desirable. The point applies to the use of Ockham's Razor (Idea 6806), and to Hume's objection to miracles (Idea 2227), where strange unnatural events may be the truth.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 3. Instrumentalism
Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant [Bird]
     Full Idea: Instrumentalism is so called because it regards theories not as attempts to describe or explain the world, but as instruments for making predictions; for the instrumentalist, asking about the truth of a theory is a conceptual mistake.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: It cannot be denied that theories are used to make predictions, and there is nothing wrong with being solely interested in predictions. I cannot make head or tail of the idea that truth is irrelevant. Why is a given theory so successful?
14. Science / C. Induction / 2. Aims of Induction
Induction is inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law [Bird]
     Full Idea: Induction can be seen as inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: I like this. I increasingly think of explanation as central to rational thought, as the key route for empiricists to go beyond their immediate and verifiable experience. Laws can be probabilistic.
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
If Hume is right about induction, there is no scientific knowledge [Bird]
     Full Idea: If Hume is right about induction then there is no scientific knowledge.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: The first step is to recognise that induction is not deductively valid, but that does not make it irrational. If something happens five times, get ready for the sixth. If we discover the necessary features of nature, we can predict the future.
Anything justifying inferences from observed to unobserved must itself do that [Bird]
     Full Idea: Whatever could do the job of justifying an inference from the observed to the unobserved must itself be an inference from the observed to the unobserved.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: We must first accept that the unobserved might not be like the observed, no matter how much regularity we have, so it can't possibly be a logical 'inference'. Essences generate regularities, but non-essences may not.
14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / a. Grue problem
Any conclusion can be drawn from an induction, if we use grue-like predicates [Bird]
     Full Idea: It looks as if any claim about the future can be made to be a conclusion of an inductive argument from any premises about the past, as long as we use a strange enough grue-like predicate.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Intro)
     A reaction: So don't use strange grue-like predicates. If all our predicates randomly changed their reference each day, we would be unable to talk to one another at all. Emeralds don't change their colour-properties, so why change the predicates that refer to them?
Several months of observing beech trees supports the deciduous and evergreen hypotheses [Bird]
     Full Idea: If someone were to observe beech trees every day over one summer they would have evidence that seems to support both the hypothesis that beech trees are deciduous and the hypothesis that they are evergreens.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Intro)
     A reaction: Bird offers this to anyone who (like me) is tempted to dismiss the 'grue' problem as ridiculous. Obviously he is right; 'deciduous' works like 'grue'. But we invented the predicate 'deciduous' to match an observed property.
We normally learn natural kinds from laws, but Goodman shows laws require prior natural kinds [Bird]
     Full Idea: We know what natural kinds there are by seeing which properties appear in the laws of nature. But one lesson of Goodman's problem is that we cannot identify the laws of nature without some prior identification of natural kinds.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.7)
     A reaction: For Goodman's problem, see Idea 4783. The essentialist view is that the natural kinds come first, and the so-called 'laws' are just regularities in events that arise from the interaction of stable natural kinds. (Keep predicates and properties separate).
14. Science / C. Induction / 6. Bayes's Theorem
Bayesianism claims to find rationality and truth in induction, and show how science works [Bird]
     Full Idea: Keen supporters of Bayesianism say it can show how induction is rational and can lead to truth, and it can reveal the underlying structure of actual scientific reasoning.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6)
     A reaction: See Idea 2798 for Bayes' Theorem. I find it intuitively implausible that our feeling for probabilities could be reduced to precise numbers, given the subjective nature of the numbers we put into the equation.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / a. Explanation
The objective component of explanations is the things that must exist for the explanation [Bird]
     Full Idea: There is an 'objective', non-epistemic component to explanations, consisting of the things that must exist for A to be able to explain B, and the relations those things have to one another.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: There seems to be some question-begging here, in that you have to decide what explanation you are after before you can decide which existences are of interest. There are objective facts, though, about what causally links to what.
We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things [Bird]
     Full Idea: We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: An important point, and it is the job of philosophers to pull the two apart. How we talk does not necessarily show how it is. The concept of explanation is irrelevant in a universe containing no minds, or one containing only God. People seek the facts.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
We can't reject all explanations because of a regress; inexplicable A can still explain B [Bird]
     Full Idea: Some regard the potential regress of explanations as a reason to think that the very idea of explanation is illusory. This is a fallacy; it is not a necessary condition on A's explaining B that we have an explanation for A also.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.2.4)
     A reaction: True, though to say 'B is explained by A, but A is totally baffling' is not the account we are dreaming of. And the explanation would certainly fail if we could say nothing at all about A, apart from naming it.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford]
     Full Idea: A nomothetic explanation appeals to laws where the explanandum is shown to be an instance of a general law. ...The alternative is a structural explanation, which postulates a mechanism, opening up a hidden world.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4)
     A reaction: [He cites E.McMullin 1978] I am very much in favour of structural explanations, and opposed to nomothetic ones. That is, nomothetic accounts are only the first step towards an explanation - perhaps a mere identification of the explanandum.
Explanations are causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian or functional [Bird]
     Full Idea: Explanations can be classified as causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian and functional.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: These could be subdivided, perhaps according to different types of cause. Personally, being a reductionist (like David Lewis, see Idea 3989), I suspect that all of these explanations could be reduced to causation. Essences explain causes.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / b. Contrastive explanations
Contrastive explanations say why one thing happened but not another [Bird]
     Full Idea: A 'contrastive explanation' explains why one thing happened but not another.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: If I explain why the ship sank, is this contrastive, or just causal, or both? Am I explaining why it sank rather than turned into a giraffe? An interesting concept, but I can't see myself making use of it.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Laws, qua true generalities, if they exist at all, are ontologically parasitic upon the capacities of particulars, rather than the other way round.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6)
     A reaction: Quite so. And hence trying to explain a particular behaviour by saying that it falls under a law is absurdly circular and vacuous.
'Covering law' explanations only work if no other explanations are to be found [Bird]
     Full Idea: The fact that something fits the 'covering law' model of explanation is no guarantee that it is an explanation, for that depends on what other explanations are there to be found.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: He gives Achinstein's example of a poisoned man who is run over by a bus. It has to be a basic requirement of explanations that they are the 'best', and not just something that fits a formula.
Livers always accompany hearts, but they don't explain hearts [Bird]
     Full Idea: All animals with a liver also have a heart; so we can deduce from this plus the existence of Fido's liver that he also has a heart, but his liver does not explain why he has a heart.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This is a counterexample to Hempel's deductive-nomological view of explanation. It seems a fairly decisive refutation of any attempt to give a simple rule for explaining things. Different types of explanation compete, and there is a subjective element.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If fragile means nothing more than 'breaks when dropped', then it is no explanation of why something breaks when dropped.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.5)
     A reaction: His point is that you have to unpack the notion of fragile, which presumably cites underlying mechanisms. This is the 'virtus dormitiva' problem - but that explanation of opium's dormitive powers is not entirely stupid.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / l. Probabilistic explanations
Probabilistic-statistical explanations don't entail the explanandum, but makes it more likely [Bird]
     Full Idea: The probabilistic-statistical view of explanation (also called inductive-statistical explantion) is similar to deductive-nomological explanation, but instead of entailing the explanandum a probabilistic-statistical explantion makes it very likely.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: If people have umbrellas up, does that explain rain? Does the presence of a psychopath in the audience explain why I don't go to a rock concert? Still, it has a point.
An operation might reduce the probability of death, yet explain a death [Bird]
     Full Idea: An operation for cancer might lead to a patient's death, and so it explains the patient's death while at the same time reducing the probability of death.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This attacks Hempel's 'covering law' approach. Increasing probability of something clearly does not necessarily explain it, though it often will. Feeding you contaminated food will increase the probability of your death, and may cause it.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / a. Best explanation
Inference to the Best Explanation is done with facts, so it has to be realist [Bird]
     Full Idea: Explanation of a fact is some other fact or set of facts. And so Inference to the Best Explanation is inference to facts; someone who employs it cannot but take a realist attitude to a theory which is preferred on these grounds.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: So my personal commitment to abduction is entailed by my realism, and my realism is entailed by my belief in the possibility of abduction. We can't explain the properties of a table just by referring to our experiences of tables.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / b. Ultimate explanation
Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford]
     Full Idea: I will consider the case for an ontology of real dispositions replacing the so-called laws of nature as the basic building blocks of explanation.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.1)
     A reaction: This precisely summarises the view I am exploring, with a particular focus on real essences. I certainly think the 'laws of nature' must go. See Mumford's second book on this.
To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The nature of explanation is such that ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited in order to avoid a regress of explanation.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6)
     A reaction: This seems to be right, but leaves it open to mock the proposals as 'virtus dormitiva' - empty place-holders that ground explanations but do no explanatory work. What else can be done, though?
Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The behaviour of subatomic particles cannot be further analysed into structures and this may tempt us to regard these as instances of 'brute' ungrounded dispositions which end any possible regress of explanation.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4)
     A reaction: This seems right, if it is 'structural' explanations we are after (as I think we are) which look for mechanisms. An electron seems to be just three dispositions and no structure, so there is nothing more to say. Ladyman scorns this account.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
Maybe bad explanations are the true ones, in this messy world [Bird]
     Full Idea: It is objected to 'best explanation' that this may well not be the best of all possible worlds - so why think that the best explanation is true? Maybe bad (complicated, unsystematic and weak) explanations are true.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: The only rebuttal of this objection to best explanation seems to be a priori. It would just seem an odd situation if very simple explanations fitted the facts and yet were false, like the points on a graph being a straight line by pure coincidence.
Which explanation is 'best' is bound to be subjective, and no guide to truth [Bird]
     Full Idea: It is objected to 'best explanation' that beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the goodness of possible explanations is subjective, and so the choice of best explanation is also subjective, and hence not a suitable guide to truth.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4)
     A reaction: Explanation is indeed dependent both on the knowledge of the person involved, and on their interests. That doesn't, though, mean that you can choose any old explanation. Causal networks are features of the world.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 4. Explanation Doubts / a. Explanation as pragmatic
Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Nothing about ontology is at stake in questions of explanation, for explanatory success is contingent upon the modes of presentation of explanans and explananda, and relative states of knowledge and ignorance.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.8)
     A reaction: There are real facts about the immediate and unusual causes which immediately precede an event, and these might be candidates for a real explanation. There are also real mechanisms and powers which dictate a things behaviour.
Maybe explanation is so subjective that it cannot be a part of science [Bird]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that explanation is hopelessly subjective, so subjective even that it is should have no part in proper science.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: God requires no explanations, and children require many. If fundamental explanations are causal, then laying bare the causal chains is the explanation, whether you want it or not. God knows all the explanations. See Idea 6752.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 9. Perceiving Causation
Causation seems to be an innate concept (or acquired very early) [Bird]
     Full Idea: There is evidence that the concept of causation is innate, or that we are primed to acquire it very early in life, within months at most.
     From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.167)
     A reaction: Bird doesn't give any references. This is important for our understanding of induction. Creatures seem to learn from a single instance, rather than waiting for habit to be ingrained by many instances. They must infer a cause.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds
Natural kinds are those that we use in induction [Bird]
     Full Idea: Natural kinds are the kinds one should make use of in inductive inference (if that is explanation which leads to laws).
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The problem with this is that it is epistemological rather than ontological. In induction we use superficial resemblences that are immediately obvious, whereas the nature of kinds can be buried deep in the chemistry or physics.
Rubies and sapphires are both corundum, with traces of metals varying their colours [Bird]
     Full Idea: Both rubies (valuable) and sapphires (less valuable) are corundum (Al2O3), differing only in their colours, for which traces of iron, titanium and chomium are responsible.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: A nice example which illustrates how natural kinds determined by nominal essence could be drastically different from those suggested by real essence. It certainly suggests that corundum might be a natural kind, but ruby isn't.
Tin is not one natural kind, but appears to be 21, depending on isotope [Bird]
     Full Idea: If real essences are decided by microstructure, then what we call the element tin is not a natural kind, but a mixture of 21 different kinds, one for each isotope. There also exist two different allotropes of tin - white tin and grey tin.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This example vividly brings out the difficulties of the Kripke-Putnam view. If natural kinds 'overlap', then there would be a very extensive overlap among the 21 isotopes of tin.
Membership of a purely random collection cannot be used as an explanation [Bird]
     Full Idea: One might randomly collect diverse things and give the collection a name, but one would not expect it to explain anything to say that a certain object belonged to this collection.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This is in support of Bird's view that natural kinds are formulated because of their explanatory role. There is, though, an undeniable subjective aspect to explanation, in that explanations arise from the ignorance and interests of persons.
Natural kinds may overlap, or be sub-kinds of one another [Bird]
     Full Idea: It seems clear that in some cases one natural kind may be a subkind of another, while in other cases natural kinds may overlap without one being the subkind of another.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Given the enormous difficulty of pinpointing natural kinds (e.g. Idea 6768), it is hard to know whether the comment is correct or not. Ellis says natural kinds come 'in hierarchies', which would make subkinds normal, but overlapping unlikely.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 2. Defining Kinds
If F is a universal appearing in a natural law, then Fs form a natural kind [Bird]
     Full Idea: The proposal is that if F is a universal appearing in some natural law, then Fs form a natural kind.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Such proposals always invite the question 'What is it about F that enables it to be a universal in a natural law?' Nothing can be ultimately defined simply by its role. The character (essence, even) of the thing makes the role possible.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 3. Knowing Kinds
In the Kripke-Putnam view only nuclear physicists can know natural kinds [Bird]
     Full Idea: In the Kripke-Putnam view, it is very difficult for anyone except nuclear physicists to pick out natural kinds, since everything else is made out of compounds of different isotopes.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The concept of a rigid 'natural kind' does not have to be sacred. Tin might be considered a natural kind, despite having 21 isotopes. What matters is protons, not the neutrons.
Darwinism suggests that we should have a native ability to detect natural kinds [Bird]
     Full Idea: Creatures that are able to recognise natural kinds and laws have a selective advantage, so Darwinism suggests that we should have some native ability to detect natural kinds.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: This seems right, but it makes 'natural kind' a rather instrumental concept, relative to our interests. True natural kinds cut across our interests, as when we discover by anatomy that whales are not fish, or that rubies and sapphires are both corundum.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 4. Source of Kinds
Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Regularities exist because we classify kinds on the basis of their dispositions, not on pre-established divisions of kinds. The dispositions are the basis for the division into kinds, which is why all electrons behave in the same way.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.7)
     A reaction: This strikes me as being so obvious that it is hardly worth saying, and yet an enormous number of philosophers seem to have been led up the garden path by the notion of a 'kind', probably under the influence of Kripke, Putnam and Wiggins.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 5. Reference to Natural Kinds
Nominal essence of a natural kind is the features that make it fit its name [Bird]
     Full Idea: The nominal essence of a natural kind K consists of those features a thing must have to deserve the name 'a K' by virtue of the meaning of that name.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: Some people think 'nominal essence' is the only essence there is, which would make it relative to human languages. The rival view is that there are 'real essences'. I favour the latter view.
Jadeite and nephrite are superficially identical, but have different composition [Bird]
     Full Idea: There might be more than one natural kind that shares the same superficial features, …jade, for example, has two forms, jadeite and nephrite, which are similar in superficial properties, but have different chemical composition and structure.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: It might be questioned whether jadeite and nephrite really are natural kinds, either together or separately.
Reference to scientific terms is by explanatory role, not by descriptions [Bird]
     Full Idea: I propose that reference to scientific terms, such as natural kinds and theoretical terms, is not determined by a sense or description attached to the term, but by its explanatory role.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8)
     A reaction: He gives the example of an electron, which had the same role in electrical theory, despite changes in understanding its nature. One might talk of its 'natural' (causal) role, rather than its 'explanatory' role (which implies a human viewpoint).
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Like Aristotle, the reason we are really interested in causation is because we want to be able to explain change.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian themes [2014], 8)
     A reaction: This pinpoints a very important and simple idea. It raises the question (among others) of whether we have just invented this thing called 'causation', because no explanation of change was visible. Hume certainly couldn't see any explanation.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
The dispositional account explains causation, as stimulation and manifestation of dispositions [Bird]
     Full Idea: The analysis of causation in terms of dispositions provides no conceptual reduction, but it does provide insight into the metaphysics of causation. We then know what causation is - it is the stimulation and manifestation of a disposition.
     From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.167)
     A reaction: I would say that it offers the essence of causation, by giving a basic explanation of it. See Mumford/Lill Anjum on this.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
We should explain causation by powers, not powers by causation [Bird]
     Full Idea: The notion of 'causal power' is not to be analysed in terms of causation; if anything, the relationship is the reverse.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.1 n71)
     A reaction: It is a popular view these days to take causation as basic (as opposed to the counterfactual account), but I prefer this view. If anything is basic in nature, it is the dynamic force in the engine room, which is the active powers of substances.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
Laws are more fundamental in science than causes, and laws will explain causes [Bird]
     Full Idea: I think laws are fundamental and where there is a cause there is always a set of laws that encompasses the cause; identifying a cause will never be the final word in an scientific investigation, but will be open to supplementation by the underlying law.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: I think this is wrong. I would say (from the essentialist angle) that essences have causes, and the laws are the regularities that are caused by the essences. If laws are the lowest level of explanation, why these laws and not others? God?
Singularism about causes is wrong, as the universals involved imply laws [Bird]
     Full Idea: While singularists about causation might think that a particular has its causal powers independently of law, it is difficult to see how a universal could have or confer causal powers without generating what we would naturally think of as a law.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.1 n71)
     A reaction: This is a middle road between the purely singularist account (Anscombe) and the fully nomological account. We might say that a caused event will be 'involved in law-like behaviour', without attributing the cause to a law.
Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford]
     Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5)
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5)
The counterfactual approach makes no distinction between cause and pre-condition [Bird]
     Full Idea: The counterfactual approach makes no distinction between cause and condition, ...but when the smoke sets off the fire alarm, the smoke is the cause, whereas the presence of the alarm is just the condition.
     From: Alexander Bird (Causation and the Manifestation of Powers [2010], p.162)
     A reaction: Bird defends the idea that causes are what stimulate dispositions to act.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties').
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1)
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford]
     Full Idea: In the 'laws' world view, events are the basic ontological unit and properties are parasitic upon them. Properties exist only in virtue of their instantiation in events. Properties are categorical, because they are only manifested in the present.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.2)
     A reaction: Mumford rejects this view, and I am with him all the way. The first requirement is that properties be active, and not inert. See Leibniz on this.
Newton's laws cannot be confirmed individually, but only in combinations [Bird]
     Full Idea: None of Newton's laws individually records anything that can be observed; it is only from combinations of Newton's laws that we can derive the measurable motions of bodies.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This certainly scuppers any traditional positivist approach to how we confirm laws of nature. It invites the possibility that a different combination might fit the same observations. Experiments attempt to isolate laws.
Parapsychology is mere speculation, because it offers no mechanisms for its working [Bird]
     Full Idea: Wegener's theory of continental drift was only accepted when the theory of plate tectonics was developed, providing a mechanism. While some correlations exist for parapsychology, lack of plausible mechanisms leaves it as speculation.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2)
     A reaction: But parapsychology is not even on a par with Wegener's speculation, because his was consistent with known physical laws, whereas parapsychology flatly contradicts them. The so-called correlations are also not properly established.
Existence requires laws, as inertia or gravity are needed for mass or matter [Bird]
     Full Idea: I suspect that what we mean by 'mass' and 'matter' depends on our identifying the existence of laws of inertia and gravity; hence the idea of a world without laws is incoherent, for there to be anything at all there must be some laws and some kinds.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3)
     A reaction: I find this counterintuitive. Reasonably stable existence requires something reasonably like laws. We only understand the physical world because we interact with it. But neither of those is remotely as strong as Bird's claim.
Laws are explanatory relationships of things, which supervene on their essences [Bird]
     Full Idea: The laws of a domain are the fundamental, general explanatory relationships between kinds, quantities, and qualities of that domain, that supervene upon the essential natures of those things.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 10.1)
     A reaction: This is the scientific essentialist view of laws [see entries there, in 'Laws of Nature']. There seems uncertainty between 'kinds' and 'qualities' (with 'quantities' looking like a category mistake). I vote, with Ellis, for natural kinds as the basis.
There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The contenders for the logical form of a law statement are 1) a universally quantified conditional, 2) a second-order relation between first-order universals, 3) a functional equivalence, and 4) a dispositional characteristic of a natural kind.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.3)
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws
Laws are either disposition regularities, or relations between properties [Bird]
     Full Idea: Instead of viewing laws as regular relationships between dispositional properties and stimulus-manifestation, they can be conceived of as a relation between properties.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.4)
     A reaction: Bird offers these as the two main views, with the first coming from scientific essentialism, and the second from Armstrong's account of universals. Personally I favour the first, but Bird suggests that powers give the best support for both views.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 3. Laws and Generalities
Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The problem is how, without general laws, can the dispositionalist explain why generalities in behaviour are true of kinds.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.3)
     A reaction: And the answer is to make kinds depend on individuals, and not vice versa, and then point to the necessary patterns that arise from conjunctions of individual dispositions, given their identity in many individuals.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The improved Dretske/Armstrong regularity view of laws dispenses with the empiricist articulation of them in terms of events, and construes them as singular statements of fact that describe relations between properties.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4)
     A reaction: They then seem to go a bit mystical, by insisting that the properties are 'universals' (even if they have to be instantiated). Universals explain nothing.
'All uranium lumps are small' is a law, but 'all gold lumps are small' is not [Bird]
     Full Idea: 'Uranium lumps have mass of less than 1000 kg' is a law, but 'gold lumps have mass of less than 1000kg' is not a law.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: A nice example. Essentialists talk about the nature of the substances; regularity theorists prefer to talk of nested or connected regularities (e.g. about explosions). In induction, how do you decide what your duty requires you to observe?
There can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental [Bird]
     Full Idea: Bode's non-law (of 1772, about the gaps between the planets) shows that there can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: If Bode's law really were confirmed, even for asteroids and newly discovered planets, it might suggest that an explanation really is required, and there is some underlying cause. How likely is the coincidence? Perhaps we have no way of telling.
A law might have no instances, if it was about things that only exist momentarily [Bird]
     Full Idea: A law might have no instances at all; for example, about the chemical and electrical behaviour of the transuranic elements, which only exist briefly in laboratories.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Nice example. We need to distinguish, though, (as Bird reminds us) between laws and theories. We have no theories in this area, but there are counterfactual truths about what the transuranic elements would do in certain circumstances.
If laws are just instances, the law should either have gaps, or join the instances arbitrarily [Bird]
     Full Idea: For the simple regularity theorist, the function ought to be a gappy one, leaving out values not actually instantiated; …one function would fit the actual points on the graph as well as any other.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: The 'simple' theorist says there is nothing more to a law than its instances. Clearly Bird is right; if the points line up, we join them with a straight line, making counterfactual assumptions about points which were not actually observed.
Where is the regularity in a law predicting nuclear decay? [Bird]
     Full Idea: If a law of nuclear physics says that nuclei of a certain kind have a probability p of decaying within time t, what is the regularity here?
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Hume gives an answer, in terms of regularities observed among previous instances. Nevertheless the figure p given in the law does not itself have any instances, so the law is predicting something that may never have actually happened before.
Laws cannot explain instances if they are regularities, as something can't explain itself [Bird]
     Full Idea: It can be objected that laws cannot do the job of explaining their instances if they are merely regularities, ...because something cannot explain itself.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: A nice point. The objection assumes that a law should explain things, rather than just describing them. I take the model to be smoking-and-cancer; the statistics describe what is happening, but only lung biochemistry will explain it.
There may be many laws, each with only a few instances [Bird]
     Full Idea: It might be that there is a large number of laws each of which has only a small number of instances.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This is a problem for the Ramsey-Lewis view (Idea 6745) that the laws of nature are a simple, powerful and coherent system. We must be cautious about bringing a priori principles like Ockham's Razor (Idea 3667) to bear on the laws of nature.
Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford]
     Full Idea: A regularity-law does not explain its instances, because such laws play no role in determining or governing their instances.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.7)
     A reaction: Good. It has always seemed to me entirely vacuous to explain an event simply by saying that it falls under some law.
It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It is no doubt a true regularity that every time I sneeze, someone, somewhere in the world, immediately coughs.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4)
     A reaction: Not a huge problem for the regularity theory of laws, but the first challenge that it must meet.
That other diamonds are hard does not explain why this one is [Bird]
     Full Idea: The fact that some other diamonds are hard does not explain why this diamond is hard.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.3.2)
     A reaction: A very nice aphorism! It pinpoints the whole error of trying to explain the behaviour of the world by citing laws. Why should this item obey that law? Bird prefers 'powers', and so do I.
Similar appearance of siblings is a regularity, but shared parents is what links them [Bird]
     Full Idea: There may be a regularity of siblings looking similar, but the tie that binds them is not their similarity, but rather their being born of the same parents.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: A nice objection to the regularity view. Regularities, as so often in philosophy (e.g. Idea 1364), may be the evidence or test for a law, rather than the law itself, which requires causal mechanisms, ultimately based (I think) in essences.
We can only infer a true regularity if something binds the instances together [Bird]
     Full Idea: We cannot infer a regularity from its instances unless there is something stronger than the regularity itself binding the instances together.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Spells out the implication of the example in Idea 6748. The reply to this criticism would be that no account can possibly be given of the 'something stronger' than further regularities, at a lower level (e.g. in the physics).
If we only infer laws from regularities among observations, we can't infer unobservable entities. [Bird]
     Full Idea: If the naïve inductivist says we should see well-established regularities among our observations, and take that to be the law or causal connection…this will not help us to infer the existence of unobservable entities.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8)
     A reaction: The obvious solution to this difficulty is an appeal to 'best explanation'. Bird is obviously right that we couldn't survive in the world, let alone do science, if we only acted on what we had actually observed (e.g. many bodies, but not the poison).
Accidental regularities are not laws, and an apparent regularity may not be actual [Bird]
     Full Idea: Many actual regularities are not laws (accidental regularities), and many perceived regularities are not actual ones (a summer's worth of observing green leaves).
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8)
     A reaction: These problems are not sufficient to refute the regularity view of laws. Accidental regularities can only be short-lived, and perceived regularities support laws without clinching them. There is an awful lot of regularity behind laws concerning gravity.
Dispositional essentialism says laws (and laws about laws) are guaranteed regularities [Bird]
     Full Idea: For the regularity version of dispositional essentialism about laws, laws are those regularities whose truth is guaranteed by the essential dispositional nature of one or more of the constituents. Regularities that supervene on such laws are also laws.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1.2)
     A reaction: Even if you accept necessary behaviour resulting from essential dispositions, you still need to distinguish the important regularities from the accidental ones, so the word 'guarantee' is helpful, even if it raises lots of difficulties.
Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford]
     Full Idea: While it might be true that for all x, if Ax then Bx, would we really want to count it as a genuine regularity in nature if only five things were A (and all five were also B)?
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3)
Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It seems that the fewer the instances, the more likely it is that there be a regularity, ..and if there are no cases at all, and no S is P, that is a regularity.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3)
     A reaction: [He attributes the second point to Molnar]
Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Pure regularities are not nearly as common as might have been thought, and are usually only to be found in simplified or idealized conditions.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 05.3)
     A reaction: [He cites Nancy Cartwright 1999 for this view]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If the world really does have its own nomological structure, that a systematization merely describes, why are the laws not to be equated with the nomological structure itself, rather than with the system that describes it?
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4)
The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The best systems theory (of Mill-Ramsey-Lewis) says that laws are not seen as regularities but, rather, as those things from which regularities - or rather, the whole world history including the regularities and everything else - can be derived.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4)
     A reaction: Put this way, the theory invites questions about ontology. Regularities are just patterns in physical reality, but axioms are propositions. So are they just features of human thought, or do these axioms actuallyr reside in reality. Too weak or too strong.
A regularity is only a law if it is part of a complete system which is simple and strong [Bird]
     Full Idea: The systematic (Ramsey-Lewis) regularity theory says that a regularity is a law of nature if and only if it appears as a theorem or axiom in that true deductive system which achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Personally I don't accept the regularity view of laws, but this looks like the best account anyone has come up with. Individual bunches of regularities can't add up to or demonstrate a law, but coherence with all regularities might do it.
With strange enough predicates, anything could be made out to be a regularity [Bird]
     Full Idea: We learned from Goodman's problem that with strange enough predicates anything could be made out to be a regularity.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8)
     A reaction: For Goodman's problem, see Idea 4783. The point, as I see it, is that while predicates can be applied arbitrarily (because they are just linguistic), properties cannot, because they are features of the world. Emeralds are green.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The core of the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong view of the late 70s is that we have a law of nature when we have a relation of natural necessitation between universals. ..The innovation was that laws are about properties, and only indirectly about particulars.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.2)
     A reaction: It sounds as if we should then be able to know the laws of nature a priori, since that was Russell's 1912 definition of a priori knowledge.
Laws cannot offer unified explanations if they don't involve universals [Bird]
     Full Idea: Laws, or what flow from them, are supposed to provide a unified explanation of the behaviours of particulars. Without universals the explanation of the behaviours of things lacks the required unity.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 2.1.2)
     A reaction: Sounds a bit question-begging? Gravity seems fairly unified, whereas the frequency of London buses doesn't. Maybe I could unify bus-behaviour by positing a few new universals? The unity should first be in the phenomena, not in the explanation.
If the universals for laws must be instantiated, a vanishing particular could destroy a law [Bird]
     Full Idea: If universals exist only where and when they are instantiated, this make serious trouble for the universals view of laws. It would be most odd if a particular, merely by changing its properties, could cause a law to go out of existence.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.2.2)
     A reaction: This sounds conclusive. He notes that this is probably why Armstrong does not adopt this view (though Lowe seems to favour it). Could there be a possible property (and concomitant law) which was never ever instantiated?
If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If there are laws that are instantiated in no particulars, then this would seem to favour the theory that laws connect universals rather than particulars.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.4)
     A reaction: There is a dispute here between the Platonic view of uninstantiated universals (Tooley) and the Aristotelian instantiated view (Armstrong). Mumford and I prefer the dispositional account.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / b. Scientific necessity
The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The logical necessity of physical laws is not required by dispositional essentialism. An electron would not be an electron if its behaviour were different from the behaviour it has in the actual world, but this necessity is purely conceptual.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.8)
     A reaction: [He is particularly aiming this at Ellis and Lierse 1994] This may be missing the point. Given those electron dispositions, the electrons necessitate law-like happenings. Whether a variable entity is called an 'electron' is trivial.
Salt necessarily dissolves in water, because of the law which makes the existence of salt possible [Bird]
     Full Idea: We cannot have a world where it is true both that salt exists (which requires Coulomb's Law to be true), and that it fails to dissolve in water (which requires Coulomb's Law to be false). So the dissolving is necessary even if the Law is contingent.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 8.2)
     A reaction: Excellent. It is just like the bonfire on the Moon (imaginable through ignorance, but impossible). People who assert that the solubility of salt is contingent tend not to know much about chemistry.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford]
     Full Idea: If dispositional essentialism is granted, then there is a law of nature wherever there is an essential property of a natural kind; laws are just the havings of essential properties by natural kinds.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.2)
     A reaction: [He is expounding Ellis's view]
Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers [Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
     Full Idea: According to Bird, non-fundamental laws supervene on fundamental laws, and so are ultimately explained by fundamental powers.
     From: report of Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007]) by Friend/Kimpton-Nye - Dispositions and Powers 3.6.1
     A reaction: This looks like the picture I subscribe to. Roughly, fundamental laws are explained by powers, and non-fundamental laws are explained by properties, which are complexes of powers. 'Fundamental' may not be a precise term!
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / d. Knowing essences
Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford]
     Full Idea: It seems reasonable to assume that there are some dispositions of some things of which we are not aware because we have not yet discovered the way to get these dispositions to manifest.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.7)
     A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty good description of what scientists are currently doing when, for example, they build a new particle accelerator.
To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Where properties are possessed by all kind members, we must distinguish the accidental from essential ones by considering all actual and possible kind members.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5)
     A reaction: This is why we must treat possibilities as features of the actual world.
If flame colour is characteristic of a metal, that is an empirical claim needing justification [Bird]
     Full Idea: I might say that flame colours are a characteristic feature of metals, but this is an empirical proposition which is in part about the unobserved, and stands in need of justification.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This draws attention to the fact that essentialism is not just a metaphysical theory, but is also part of the scientific enterprise. Among things to research about metals is the reason why they have a characteristic flame.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 9. Counterfactual Claims
Essentialism can't use conditionals to explain regularities, because of possible interventions [Bird]
     Full Idea: The straightforward dispositional essentialist account of laws by subjunctive conditionals is false because dispositions typically suffer from finks and antidotes.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.4)
     A reaction: [Finks and antidotes intervene before a disposition can take effect] This seems very persuasive to me, and shows why you can't just explain laws as counterfactual or conditional claims. Explanation demands what underlies them.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford]
     Full Idea: The Central Dilemma about laws of nature is that, if they have some governing role, then they must be internal or external to the things governed, and it is hard to give a plausible account of either view.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.2)
     A reaction: This dilemma is the basis of Mumford's total rejection of 'laws of nature'. I think I agree.
You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Laws are a solution to a problem that was misconceived. Only if you think that the world would be otherwise inactive or inanimate, do you have the need to add laws to your ontology.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5)
     A reaction: This is a bold and extreme view - and I agree with it. I consider laws to be quite a useful concept when discussing nature, but they are not part of the ontology, and they don't do any work. They are metaphysically hopeless.
There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Laws do not appear in Aristotle's metaphysics, and it wasn't until Descartes and Newton that laws entered the intellectual mainstream.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5)
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 5470.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / d. Mass
In Newton mass is conserved, but in Einstein it can convert into energy [Bird]
     Full Idea: According to Newton mass is conserved, while in Einstein's theory mass is not conserved but can be converted into and from energy.
     From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998])
     A reaction: Perhaps this is the most fundamental difference between the theories. It certainly suggests that 'mass' was a conventional concept rather than a natural one. Maybe the relative notion of 'weight' is more natural than 'mass'.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time
The relational view of space-time doesn't cover times and places where things could be [Bird]
     Full Idea: The obvious problem with the simple relational view of space and time is that it fails to account for the full range of spatio-temporal possibility. There seem to be times and places where objects and events could be, but are not.
     From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 7.3.2)
     A reaction: This view seems strongly supported by intuition. I certainly don't accept the views of physicists and cosmologists on the subject, because they seem to approach the whole thing too instrumentally.