12 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. |
| 7276 | All art is quite useless [Wilde] |
| Full Idea: All art is quite useless. | |
| From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891]) | |
| A reaction: Echoes Kant's thought that art is 'purposive without purpose'. Although I find Wilde's claims that morality has nothing to do with art to be naïve, I find this remark sympathetic. Art may play with moral feelings, but is unlikely to affect actions. |
| 7274 | Books are only well or badly written, not moral or immoral [Wilde] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as a moral or an immoral book. Books are well written, or badly written. That is all. | |
| From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891]) | |
| A reaction: This is simply false. Novels that are viciously (or subtly) racist, sexist, homophobic, or egotistical can obviously be immoral. I could write a nasty story about Oscar Wilde. It might, though, be very well written. If life is moral, so are novels. |
| 7275 | Having ethical sympathies is a bad mannerism of style in an artist [Wilde] |
| Full Idea: No artist has ethical sympathies. An ethical sympathy in an artist is an unpardonable mannerism of style. | |
| From: Oscar Wilde (Preface to 'Dorian Gray' [1891]) | |
| A reaction: This has a Nietzschean suggestion that the artist is 'beyond good and evil', and operates on some higher level of values, which in Wilde's case seem to be purely aesthetic. You can't justify a callous murder by executing it beautifully. |
| 22594 | In 1794 France all individual and legal rights were suppressed by the general will [Dunt] |
| Full Idea: In the French Revolution the general will replaced democracy, the separation of powers, the rule of law, and individual rights. | |
| From: Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], 03) | |
| A reaction: I had some sympathy with the idea of the general will, but Dunt has persuaded me otherwise. It is the embodiment of the democratic problem of the tyranny of the majority. |
| 22602 | Over several centuries a set of eight main liberal values was established [Dunt] |
| Full Idea: Over the centuries liberal values were established: freedom of the individual, reason, consent in government, individual rights, the separation of powers, protection of minorities, autonomy, and moderation. | |
| From: Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], 13) | |
| A reaction: What's not to like? 'Moderation' might be a sticking point, for anyone who thinks that very large social changes are needed. |
| 22596 | No government, or the whole nation, can control an individual beyond legitimate scope [Dunt] |
| Full Idea: When a government of any sort puts a threatening hand on that part of individual life beyond its proper scope, …even if it were the whole nation, except for the man it is harassing, it would be no more legitimate for that. | |
| From: Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4 | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is what counts as 'proper scope' - and who gets to define it? If the individual can define that, then criminals can appeal to this principle. The state must be persuaded of it, then asked to stick to it during conflicts. |
| 22603 | Laissez-faire liberalism failed to give people the protections and freedoms needed for a good life [Dunt] |
| Full Idea: Laissez-faire liberalism failed, because it did not offer people protections and real freedom - against discrimination, insecure work, educational disadvantage, lack of social respect, absence of representation. It was cold, distant, and ineffective. | |
| From: Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], 13) | |
| A reaction: A very nice summary, which I take to be correct. |
| 22592 | Nationalism pretends that we can only have a single identity [Dunt] |
| Full Idea: Nationalism pretends that there is only one identity, that we cannot be more than one thing at once. | |
| From: Ian Dunt (How to be a Liberal [2020], Today) | |
| A reaction: Dunt is a defender of liberalism, which assumes a wide degree of pluralism. Could I be a British citizen, but love France more than Britain? I don’t see why not, but it is not an ideal situation. |