Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Paul Audi, Margaret Cavendish and Melissus

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17 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
Being is one [Melissus, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Being is one.
     From: report of Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b23
     A reaction: I can only really understand this in terms of physics, as the belief that ultimately there is one simple theory which explains everything. That project doesn't look terribly promising, despite the lovely simplifications of modern physics.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out.
Ground relations depend on the properties [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding relations depend on the natures of the properties involved in them.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: I'm cautious about this if we don't find out more exactly what properties are (and they had better not just be predicates). Maybe properties are the only apparatus we have here, though I prefer 'powers' for the fundamentals.
A ball's being spherical non-causally determines its power to roll [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The fact that a given thing is spherical non-causally determines the fact that it has the power to roll.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Quine won't accept this, because you have added something called a 'power' to the ball (intrinsically, it seems), over and above its observable sphericity. Does being a ball 'determine' that it can't be in two places at once? Order of explanation?
Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8)
     A reaction: [It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed]
The best critique of grounding says it is actually either identity or elimination [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I think the most promising skeptical strategy is to insist on either identity or elimination wherever grounding is alleged to hold.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.9)
     A reaction: This comes after an assessment of the critiques of grounding by Oliver, Hofweber and Daly. So we don't say chemistry grounds biology, we either say biology is chemistry, or that there is no biology. Everything is just simples. Not for me.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / b. Relata of grounding
Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry.
If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4)
     A reaction: It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / c. Grounding and explanation
We must accept grounding, for our important explanations [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The reason we must countenance grounding is that it is indispensible to certain important explanations.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: I like this a lot. The first given of all philosophy is the drive to exlain. However, we mustn't go inventing features of the world, simply to give us the possibility of explaining it. The objective fact seems to be the without-which-not relation.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / d. Grounding and reduction
Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5)
     A reaction: Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact
Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The 'worldly' view of facts says they are obtaining states of affairs, individuated by their constituents and their combination. On the 'conceptual' view, facts will differ if they pick out an object or property via different concepts.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: Might it be that conceptual differences between facts are supervenient on worldly differences (with the worldly facts in charge)?
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Two things being identical (like water and H2O) is not an explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: If there is identity between water and H2O, we have neither the asymmetry nor the irreflexivity that explanations require.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Once you realise it is H2O, you understand its deeper features, which will open up new explanations. He's right, though.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
     Full Idea: Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain.
     From: Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
     A reaction: Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
There is no real motion, only the appearance of it [Melissus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: There is no such thing as real motion, but there only appears to be such.
     From: report of Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.4.3
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 1. Void
The void is not required for change, because a plenum can alter in quality [Aristotle on Melissus]
     Full Idea: There is no need for void to be the cause of all change, because it is perfectly possible for a plenum to alter qualitatively (which is something Melissus overlooked).
     From: comment on Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 214a27
     A reaction: In modern physics this presumably gives us fluctuations in a force field. Motion is like a cat being digested by a python. The atomist claim that emptiness is needed if anything is to move still has intuitive appeal.
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 2. Eternal Universe
Nothing could come out of nothing [Melissus]
     Full Idea: If Nothing existed, in no way could anything come into being out of nothing.
     From: Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B1), quoted by (who?) - where?