13 ideas
16062 | 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. |
16061 | 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. |
16060 | 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. |
16064 | 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. |
7401 | Heat and colour don't exist, so cannot mislead about the external world [Galileo, by Tuck] |
Full Idea: Galileo argued that there is no such thing as heat (and hence also as colour) in the external world, so there is no reason to conclude from colour-blindness that we cannot know the truth about the world. | |
From: report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
A reaction: This key idea, taken up by Gassendi, Descartes and Locke, seems to me to be one of the most important (and, in retrospect, rather obvious) facts ever worked out by the human mind. Why does anyone still doubt it? |
5454 | Tastes, odours and colours only reside in consciousness, and would disappear with creatures [Galileo] |
Full Idea: I think tastes, odours, colours, and so on are mere names as far as the objects are concerned, and only reside in consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated. | |
From: Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]), quoted by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.3 | |
A reaction: A nice bold assertion of the primary/secondary distinction from the first great scientist. I agree, and to disagree (and hence side with Berkeley and Hume) is to head for metaphsical and epistemological confusion. |
16560 | Galileo introduced geometrico-mechanical explanation, based on Archimedes [Galileo, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: The modern idea of explaining with mechanisms became current in the 17th century when Galileo articulated a geometrico-mechanical form of explanation based on Archimedes' simple machines. This became the 'mechanical philosophy'. | |
From: report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C - Thinking About Mechanisms 5.2 | |
A reaction: So is Archimedes the source? I would say that mechanical explanation is just commonsense, and is predominant in all human thinking, even in tiny infants. |
23395 | Mohists desire wealth, population and social order as the best consequences [Mozi, by Norden] |
Full Idea: The consequentialist Mohists give a fairly objective characterisation of benefits as wealth, populousness, and social order, and harm as poverty, depopulation, and social chaos. | |
From: report of Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE]) by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.I | |
A reaction: That is a formula favoured by many authoritarian leaders in modern times. |
23394 | If people regarded other states as they did their own, they would never attack them [Mozi] |
Full Idea: If people regarded other people's states in the same way that they regard their own, who then would incite their own state to attack that of another? | |
From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.I | |
A reaction: A nice case of the application of golden rule thinking to states, instead of to individuals. I can't see Putin (in 2022) being impressed by 'how would you like it if another country invaded Russia?'. The Golden Rule is an analogy argument. |
23396 | Mozi condemns partiality, which is the cause of all the great harms in the world [Mozi] |
Full Idea: It is those who are partial in their dealings with others who are the real cause of all the great harms in the world. That is why our teacher Mozi says 'I condemn partiality'. | |
From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.II | |
A reaction: This is morality as the rule of law, rather than as the result of human affections. He is on the same wavelength as Kant. Mozi was criticising Confucius, who favoured family over strangers. |
23397 | Those who are against impartiality still prefer impartial protectors [Mozi] |
Full Idea: Even though one may not advocate impartiality, one would certainly want to entrust one's family to the person who is impartial. | |
From: Mozi (The Mozi [c.440 BCE], 16), quoted by Bryan van Norden - Intro to Classical Chinese Philosophy 4.II | |
A reaction: In the modern world his example would be the police, so he effectively he wants the impartiality of the law. But who wants legal impartiality within the affairs of a family? |
3645 | To understand the universe mathematics is essential [Galileo] |
Full Idea: The great book of the universe cannot be understood unless one can understand the language in which it is written - the language of mathematics. | |
From: Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623], VI.232) | |
A reaction: Nice, though one might say that humans created the language of maths to help them discuss the patterns they perceived in nature. Maybe what is special is order, and all order can be described mathematically. |
19673 | Galileo mathematised movement, and revealed its invariable component - acceleration [Galileo, by Meillassoux] |
Full Idea: Galileo conceives of movement in mathematical terms. ...In doing so, he uncovered, beyond the variations of position and speed, the mathematical invariant of movement - that is to say, acceleration. | |
From: report of Galileo Galilei (Two Chief World Systems [1632]) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 5 | |
A reaction: That is a very nice advert for the mathematical physics which replaced the Aristotelian substantial forms. ...And yet, is acceleration some deep fact about nature, or a concept which is only needed if you insist on being mathematical? |