Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM, J.O. Urmson and James Cargile

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 1. Nature of Analysis

13750	Analysis aims at the structure of facts, which are needed to give a rationale to analysis [Urmson, by Schaffer,J]
	Full Idea: Urmson explains the direction of analysis as 'towards a structure...more nearly similar to the structure of the fact', adding that this metaphysical picture is needed as a 'rationale of the practice of analysis'.
	From: report of J.O. Urmson (Philosophical Analysis [1956], p.24-5) by Jonathan Schaffer - On What Grounds What n30
	A reaction: In other words, only realists can be truly motivated to keep going with analysis. Merely analysing language-games is doable, but hardly exciting.

5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 6. Plural Quantification

14235	Saying 'they can become a set' is a tautology, because reference to 'they' implies a collection [Cargile]
	Full Idea: If the rule is asserted 'Given any well-determined objects, they can be collected into a set by an application of the 'set of' operation', then on the usual account of 'they' this is a tautology. Collection comes automatically with this form of reference.
	From: James Cargile (Paradoxes: Form and Predication [1979], p.115), quoted by Oliver,A/Smiley,T - What are Sets and What are they For? Intro
	A reaction: Is this a problem? Given they are well-determined (presumably implying countable) there just is a set of them. That's what set theory is, I thought. Of course, the iterative view talks of 'constructing' the sets, but the construction looks unstoppable.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality

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.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

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.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism

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.