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16061
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If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
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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'.
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From:
Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
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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.
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14193
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'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
Some deep essentialists resist the need to explain the structure under de re modal properties, taking them as primitive. One version (which we can call 'substance theory') takes them to fall under a sortal concept, with no further explanation.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
A very helpful identification of what Wiggins stands for, and why I disagree with him. The whole point of essences is to provide a notion that fits in with sciences, which means they must have an explanatory role, which needs structures.
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14195
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If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
If the substance essentialist holds that the sort an object belongs to determines its de re modal properties (rather than the other way round), then he needs to give an (ontological, not conceptual) explanation of what determines an object's sort.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
See Idea 14193 for 'substance essentialism'. I find it quite incredible that anyone could think that a thing's sort could determine its properties, rather than the other way round. Even if sortals are conventional, they are not arbitrary.
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14196
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Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
The explanation of material constitution given by substance essentialism is that there are multiple objects. A person is essentially human-shaped (falling under the human sort), while their hunk of tissue is accidentally human-shaped (as tissue).
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
At this point sortal essentialism begins to look crazy. Persons are dubious examples (with sneaky dualism involved). A bronze statue is essentially harder to dent than a clay one, because of its bronze. If you remake it of clay, it isn't the same statue.
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14190
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Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
Essentialism says that objects have their properties essentially. 'Deep' essentialists take the (nontrivial) essential properties of an object to determine its nature. 'Shallow' essentialists substitute context-dependent truths for the independent ones.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
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A reaction:
If the deep essence determines a things nature, we should not need to say 'nontrivial'. This is my bete noire, the confusion of essential properties with necessary ones, where necessary properties (or predicates, at least) can indeed be trivial.
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14189
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'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
A 'modal realist' believes that there are many concrete worlds, while the 'actualist' believes in only one concrete world, the actual world. The 'ersatzist' is an actualist who takes nonactual possible worlds and their contents to be abstracta.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
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A reaction:
My view is something like that modal realism is wrong, and actualism is right, and possible worlds (if they really are that useful) are convenient abstract fictions, constructed (if we have any sense) out of the real possibilities in the actual world.
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8954
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Geometrical circles cannot identify a circular paint patch, presumably because they lack something [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
The vocabulary of geometry is sufficient to identify the circle, but could not be used to identify any circular paint patch. The reason must be that the circle lacks certain properties that can distinguish paint patches from one another.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
I take this to be support for the traditional view, that abstractions are created by omitting some of the properties of physical objects. I take them to be fictional creations, reified by language, and not actual hidden entities that have been observed.
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8955
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Abstractions are imperceptible, non-causal, and non-spatiotemporal (the third explaining the others) [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
In current discussions, abstract entities are usually distinguished as 1) in principle imperceptible, 2) incapable of causal interaction, 3) not located in space-time. The first is often explained by the second, which is in turn explained by the third.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
Szabó concludes by offering 3 as the sole criterion of abstraction. As Lewis points out, the Way of Negation for defining abstracta doesn't tell us very much. Courage may be non-spatiotemporal, but what about Alexander the Great's courage?
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