78 ideas
| 10354 | Correspondence could be with other beliefs, rather than external facts [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence theory of truth does not commit one to the view the reality is mind-independent. There is no reason why the 'facts' that correspond to true beliefs might not themselves be beliefs or ideas. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.17) | |
| A reaction: This seems important, as it is very easy to assume that espousal of correspondence necessarily goes with realism about the external world. It is surprising to think that a full-blown Idealist might espouse the correspondence theory. |
| 10353 | Tarskians distinguish truth from falsehood by relations between members of sets [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: According to the Tarskians we separate out truths from falsehoods by tracing the relations between members of different sets. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.16) |
| 10304 | Very few things in set theory remain valid in intuitionist mathematics [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: Very few things in set theory remain valid in intuitionist mathematics. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934]) |
| 10303 | Restricted Platonism is just an ideal projection of a domain of thought [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: A restricted Platonism does not claim to be more than, so to speak, an ideal projection of a domain of thought. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934], p.261) | |
| A reaction: I have always found Platonism to be congenial when it talks of 'ideals', and ridiculous when it talks of a special form of 'existence'. Ideals only 'exist' because we idealise things. I may declare myself, after all, to be a Restricted Platonist. |
| 10306 | Mathematical abstraction just goes in a different direction from logic [Bernays] |
| Full Idea: Mathematical abstraction does not have a lesser degree than logical abstraction, but rather another direction. | |
| From: Paul Bernays (On Platonism in Mathematics [1934], p.268) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the logicists seem to think that if you increasingly abstract from mathematics, you end up with pure logic. |
| 14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A process has a unity to it that comes from being the expression of a collection of causal powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 1) | |
| A reaction: I would be happier with this if I had a clear notion of what counts as a 'collection' of causal powers. We are back with the Leibnizian anguish over what constitutes a 'unity'. Processes need more attention, I'm thinking. |
| 14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Events are to be understood essentially as changes, rather than as property exemplifications. A particular exemplifying a property (as in Kim 1973 and Lewis 1986) would be better understood as a state of affairs. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely with this. I've never been able to make sense of events as such static relations. It resembles the dubious Russellian view of motion as just being at one place and then at another. |
| 14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We can say that a phenomenon is 'weakly emergent' when it is unexpected, and 'strongly emergent' when it is not deducible even in principle. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: [compression of Chalmers 2006:244] I don't find emergence very interesting, since weak emergence surrounds us all day long, and is the glory of the world, and strong emergence is (I believe) nonsense. |
| 14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars, can all be explained in terms of powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I love powers, but this may be optimistic. I take the concept of causation to be 'more' primitive than powers; how else could you even say what a power is? I presume something must exist to have the power, which gives you particulars. |
| 14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: In respect of explanation the powers view does little better than the laws view. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3c) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. Powers are primitive, so they offer no elucidation of nature, but constitute the building blocks for explanations. Essences are, I think, clusters of powers, and the way in which they cluster is where we find the explanations. |
| 14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Powers are not necessarily reducible to forces. ...That new powers can be found when others combine is a regular part of common sense. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: [first bit p.102] Hm. I've always thought of powers as basic components of ontology. This idea implies that a herd of buffalo has a single power to flatten a tented village. An extra buffalo creates a completely new power. An awful lot of vague powers. |
| 14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Dispositionality can be understood as a sort of selection function - a natural one in this case - and picks out a limited number of outcomes from all the ones that the disposition is for. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.9) | |
| A reaction: Functions should strictly have one output. This sounds wrong. The disposition pushes its powers into the environment, but it is the surrounding contextual powers which do the selecting, in concert. No disposition does any selecting |
| 14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We use the terms 'power' and 'disposition' as equivalent, but some reserve the term 'disposition' for powers that tend to be manifested. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [For the latter they cite Fara 2005] There is some point to the latter distinction, as separating those powers that relate to the actual world from those powers that could never be triggered in actuality. I would say a power produces a disposition. |
| 14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The most obvious inadequacy of the simple conditional account of dispositions is that it fails to accommodate the possibility of prevention. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.10) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Ryle 1949 for the original idea] The point is obviously correct, since the simple analysis assumes that the outcome occurred [∀x(Dx → (Sx → Mx)]. If the outcome was blocked (by finks or antidotes) the disposition would remain. |
| 14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There have been attempts to reduce dispositionality to normativity (by Lowe 1989) and to intentionality (by Molnar 1998). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: I don't really believe in something called 'normativity', and I think it is better to explain intentionality in terms of dispositions, rather than Molnar's way round (though intentionality of mind reveals the nature of powers rather well). |
| 14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If both the statue and the clay fall on someone and crush them to death, we would not say that the death is overdetermined. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: I don't need many reasons to give up the idea that the statue and the clay are two objects, but this will do nicely as one of them. |
| 14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A pandispositionalist has to defend the view that even a property such as sphericity is in reality a cluster of causal powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Is sphericity even a 'property'? I think 'feature' might be the best word for it. 'Quality' is quite good, but is too suggestive of qualia and secondary qualities. 'Mode' is not bad. Things have 'modes of existence' and 'powers'? Powers create modes. |
| 14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Perdurantism tends to go with the view that it is essentially contingent what follows what, because it is no part of the essence of temporal parts that they be arranged in any particular order. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. There is nothing illogical, then, in elderly me intervening between childish me and middle-aged me. Essentialists like me must clearly oppose this view. Elderly me must be preceded and caused by middle-aged me. |
| 17535 | Dispositionality has its own distinctive type of modality [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We contend that dispositionality involves a non-alethic, sui generis, irreducible modality. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Dispositional Modality [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is a lovely bold proposal, and seems to be supported by Werner Heisenberg, in Idea 17534. |
| 14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We think dispositionality is the core modality from which the other two standard modal operators draw their sense as being limiting cases on a spectrum. ...This gives a very this-worldly account of possibility and necessity. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm strongly in favour of this-worldly accounts of modal truths, so I like this. They take dispositions to hover somewhere between what is barely possible and what is absolutely necessary. But is modality actually part of the physical world? |
| 14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Dispositionality could be what gives us the idea of there being modality in the first place: that what is might not be, and what is not could be. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: Compare Williamson's suggestion that counterfactual thinking is the source of such things, which is a similar thought. I take it to be exactly correct. |
| 14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The relationship between co-existing properties or successive events or states is naturally necessary when they are understood by scientists to be related in fact by generative mechanisms, whose structures constitute the essential nature of things. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the view I espouse. It doesn't follow that those mechanisms have necessary existence. Given those mechanisms, they can only behave in that way, because behaving in some way is precisely what they are. |
| 14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Possibility could be just logical possibility (as involving no formal contradictions), or recombinations of all the existing elements (Armstrong), or truth in other concrete worlds (Lewis). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: All wrong, I would say. Well, avoiding contradiction is obviously a sense of 'possible'. Armstrong is wrong. It rules out new 'elements' being possible, and implies impossible combinations of the current ones. As for Lewis... |
| 14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Some truthmaker theorists are truthmaker necessitarians, believing that the way facts in the world make certain propositions true is by necessitating them. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.10) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Armstrong 2007:5-6] I don't believe in this sort of proposition (which turns out, on close inspection, to be just another way of referring to 'the facts'). Propositions are our attempts to express facts, so they can't be necessitated. |
| 10337 | We can have knowledge without belief, if others credit us with knowledge [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: We can have knowledge that p without believing that p. It is enough that others credit us with the knowledge. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: [He is discussing Welbourne 1993] This is an extreme of the communitarian view. |
| 10357 | Methodological Solipsism assumes all ideas could be derived from one mind [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: 'Methodological solipsism' says merely that everyone can conceive of themselves as the only subject. Everyone can construct all referents of their thought and talk out of complexes of their very own experience. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.19) | |
| A reaction: The possibility of this can be denied (e.g. by Putnam 1983, dating back to Wittgenstein). I too would doubt it, though finding a good argument seems a forlorn hope. |
| 14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The myth of the fivefold division of the sense needs to be overturned. In the experience of causation the senses of balance and proprioception are more important. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 9.1) | |
| A reaction: Thinking is a sensual experience too, especially in its emotional dimension. David Hume always based his empiricism on 'experience', not on the mere five external senses. |
| 10339 | Foundations seem utterly private, even from oneself at a later time [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalists place the foundations of knowledge at a point where they are in principle accessible only to the individual knower. They cannot be 'shared' with another person, or with oneself at a later time. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: Kusch is defending an extremely social view of knowledge. Being private to an individual may just he an unfortunate epistemological fact. Being unavailable even to one's later self seems a real problem for foundational certainty. |
| 10331 | Testimony is reliable if it coheres with evidence for a belief, and with other beliefs [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Testimony must be reliable since its deliveries cohere both with input from other information routes in the formation of single beliefs, and with other types of beliefs in the formation of systems of belief. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: Kusch criticises this view (credited to C.A.J. Coady 1992) as too individualistic , but it sounds to me dead right. I take a major appeal of the coherence account of justification to be its capacity to extend seamlessly out into external testimony. |
| 10338 | The coherentist restricts the space of reasons to the realm of beliefs [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: The coherentist restricts the space of reasons to the realm of beliefs. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: I endorse this idea, which endorses Davidson's slogan on the subject. The key thought is that a 'pure' sensation is uninterpreted, and so cannot justify anything. It is only once it generates a proposition that it can justify. But McDowell 1994. |
| 10340 | Individualistic coherentism lacks access to all of my beliefs, or critical judgement of my assessment [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Individualistic versions of coherentism assume that a belief is justified if it fits with all, or most, of my contemporaneous beliefs. But who has access to that totality? Who can judge my assessment? From what position could it be judged? | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Though I agree with Kusch on the social aspect of coherence, I don't think these are major criticisms. Who can access, or critically evaluate a society's body of supposedly coherent beliefs? We just do our best. |
| 10345 | Individual coherentism cannot generate the necessary normativity [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Standard forms of coherentism are unable to account for normativity, because of their common individualism. Normativity cannot be generated within the isolated individual, or in the causal interaction between world and individual mind. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.10) | |
| A reaction: This thought leads to belief in rationalism and the a priori, not (as Kusch hopes) to the social dimension. How can social normativity get off the ground if there is none of it to be found in individuals? The criteria of coherence seem to be given. |
| 10350 | Cultures decide causal routes, and they can be critically assessed [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Assessments of causal routes are specific to cultures, and thus not beyond dialectical justification. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This is a good defence of the social and communitarian view against those who are trying to be thoroughly naturalistic and physicalist by relying entirely on causal processes for all explanation, even though I sympathise with such naturalism. |
| 10343 | Process reliabilism has been called 'virtue epistemology', resting on perception, memory, reason [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Process reliabilism is sometimes subsumed under the label 'virtue epistemology', so that processes are 'epistemically virtuous' if they lead mostly to true beliefs. The 'intellectual virtues' here are perception, memory or reasoning. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: I am shocked that 'intellectual virtue' should be hijacked by reliabilists, suggesting that it even applies to a good clock. I like the Aristotelian idea that sound knowledge rests on qualities of character in the knower - including social qualities. |
| 10341 | Justification depends on the audience and one's social role [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: How a claim (about an X-ray) needs to be justified depends on whether one is confronted by a group of laypersons, or of experts, and is prescribed by one's social role. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 8) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right. I cannot think of any absolute criterion for justification which doesn't play straight into the hands of sceptics. Final and certain justification is an incoherent notion. But I am a little more individualistic than Kusch. |
| 10334 | Testimony is an area in which epistemology meets ethics [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Testimony is an area in which epistemology meets ethics. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: This is very thought-provoking. A key concept linking the two would be 'respect'. Consider also 'experts'. |
| 10336 | Powerless people are assumed to be unreliable, even about their own lives [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: The powerless in society are not usually taken to be trustworthy witnesses even when it comes to providing information about their own lives. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: This is where epistemology shades off into politics and the writings of Foucault. |
| 10324 | Testimony does not just transmit knowledge between individuals - it actually generates knowledge [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Testimony is not just a means of transmission of complete items of knowledge from and to an individual. Testimony is almost always generative of knowledge. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear how my testimony could fail to be knowledge for me, but become knowledge just because I pass it to you. I might understand what I say better than you did. When fools pool their testimony, presumably not much knowledge results. |
| 10327 | Some want to reduce testimony to foundations of perceptions, memories and inferences [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Reductionalists about testimony are foundationalists by temperament. ...Their project amounts to justifying our testimonial beliefs in terms of perceptions, memories and inferences. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: Kusch wants to claim that the sharing of testimony is the means by which knowledge is created. My line is something like knowledge being founded on a social coherence, which is an extension of internal individual coherence. |
| 10329 | Testimony won't reduce to perception, if perception depends on social concepts and categories [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: How can we hope to reduce testimony to perception if the way we perceive the world is to a considerable extent shaped by concepts and categories that we have learned from others? | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: To me this sounds like good support for coherentism, the benign circle between my reason, my experience, and the testimony and reason of others. Asking how the circle could get started shows ignorance of biology. |
| 10330 | A foundation is what is intelligible, hence from a rational source, and tending towards truth [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: It can be argued that testimony is non-reductive because it relies on the fact that whatever is intelligible is likely to come from a rational source, and that rational sources, by their very nature, tend towards the truth. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4 n7) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Tyler Burge 1993, 1997] If this makes testimony non-reductive, how would one assess whether the testimony is 'intelligible'? |
| 10325 | Vindicating testimony is an expression of individualism [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: To believe that testimony needs a general vindication is itself an expression of individualism. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Kusch is a spokesman for Communitarian Epistemology. Surely we are allowed to identify the criteria for what makes a good witness? Ask a policeman. |
| 10335 | Myths about lonely genius are based on epistemological individualism [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Many myths about the lonely scientific genius underwrite epistemological individualism. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: They all actually say that they 'stood on the shoulders of giants', and they are invariably immersed in the contemporary researches of teams of like-minded people. How surprised were the really expert contemporaries by Newton, Einstein, Gödel? |
| 10323 | Communitarian Epistemology says 'knowledge' is a social status granted to groups of people [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: I propose 'communitarian epistemology' - claiming first that the term 'knowledge' marks a social status, and is dependent on the existence of communities, and second that this social status is typically granted to groups of people. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I find this very congenial, though Kusch goes a little far when he claims that knowledge is largely created by social groups. He allows that Robinson Crusoe might have knowledge of his island, but can't give a decent account of it. |
| 10348 | Private justification is justification to imagined other people [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Coming to convince myself is actually to form a pretend communal belief with pretend others, ..which is clearly parasitic on the case where the others are real. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This slightly desperate move is a way for 'communitarian' epistemologists to deal with Robinson Crusoe cases. I think Kusch is right, but it is a bit hard to prove that this is what is 'actually' going on. |
| 14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Smoking disposes towards cancer, and has its way in many instances. The existence of some smokers without cancer, however, does nothing to falsify this dispositional claim. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: Indeed, falsification by one instance will only work against absolute and universal claims, and nature contains hardly any of those. |
| 14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If there were necessity to be found in causation, then the problem of induction would seem to be dissolved. The future would indeed proceed like the past if it were for all time necessitated what caused what. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.14) | |
| A reaction: My working hypothesis is that the essences of nature necessitate their interactions, and that the problem of induction is solved in that way. We can allow causation to be a process in this action, the transmitter of necessities. Or it could drop out. |
| 14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There is indeed natural uniformity in the negative charge of electrons, but the reason for this is that it is an essential property of being an electron that something be negatively charged. It would not be an electron otherwise. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 14570 for the first part of this thought. This doesn't feel right. The behaviour of gravity according to the inverse square law, or General Relativity, seems to be a uniformity that extends beyond the essences of the ingredients. |
| 14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The uniformity of nature principle, if it means absolute regularity, is simply false; not everyone who smokes gets cancer, not all bread nourishes. Nature is not strictly uniform, even if some things tend to be the case. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: Something wrong here. The examples are high-level and complex. When someone survives smoking, or bread fails to nourish, we don't infer a disruption of uniform nature, we infer some other uniformity that has intervened. Are there natural kinds? |
| 14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: It is tempting to think that entailment is the only adequate kind of explanation because of the idea that if A does not entail B, it must have fallen short of (fully) explaining it. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: Yes. One might dream of saying 'this, and only this, necessitates what happened', but it is doubtful whether causes necessitate effects. It is a quirky view to think that every car accident is necessitated. Nuclear explosions block most events. |
| 14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Knowing the structure that something has does not in itself causally explain that thing's behaviour unless we also know what sorts of behaviour a thing of that structure can cause. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. If you focus on the lowest possible levels of causal explanation, I can see only powers. Whatever you come up with, it had better be something active. Geometry never started any bonfires. |
| 10349 | To be considered 'an individual' is performed by a society [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: One cannot even have the social status of 'being an individual' unless it has been conferred on one by a communal performative belief. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: This sounds crazy until you think of the mentality of a tenth generation slave in a fully slave-owning society. |
| 14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A problem for strong emergence is that it opens the way for top-down causation if, for instance, our consciousness is causally productive of physical events. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3d) | |
| A reaction: This is what most fans of 'emergent' consciousness would love, presumably because it makes humans really important (nay, godlike!) in the scheme of things. It take it to be based on a hopelessly simplistic view of what is going on around here. |
| 10344 | Our experience may be conceptual, but surely not the world itself? [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: I am unconvinced by McDowell's arguments in favour of treating the world as itself conceptual. Granted that our experience is conceptual in quality; it still does not follow that the world itself is conceptual. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 9) | |
| A reaction: I would take Kusch's point to be a given in any discussion of concepts, and McDowell as a non-starter on this one. I am inclined to believe that we do have non-conceptual experiences, but I take them to be epistemologically useless. |
| 10358 | Often socialising people is the only way to persuade them [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Often we can convince members of other cultures only by socializing them into our culture. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.19) | |
| A reaction: This looks both true and interesting, and is good support for Kusch's communitarian epistemology. What actually persuades certainly doesn't have to be reasons, and may be almost entirely social. |
| 10333 | Communitarianism in epistemology sees the community as the primary knower [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Communitarianism in epistemology sees the community as the primary knower. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 5) | |
| A reaction: This thought offers an account of epistemology which could fit in with communitarian political views. See the ideas of Martin Kusch in this database. |
| 10351 | Natural kinds are social institutions [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds are social institutions. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch.11) | |
| A reaction: I can see what he means, but I take this to be deeply wrong. A clarification of what exactly is meant by a 'natural kind' is needed before we can make any progress with this one. Is a village a natural kind? Or a poodle? Or a shoal? |
| 14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation by absence should be understood in terms of our explanatory practices rather than as a case of genuine causation. There are indeed no powers at work. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, even if from a human point of view some evil person has deliberately desisted from some life-saving action. It is just allowing other causation to happen. A tricky forensic issue, but not an ontological one. |
| 14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is not always transitive. ...The fire started the sprinkler system and the sprinkler system put the fire out; would we want to say that, by transitivity, the fire caused the fire to be extinguished? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: There wouldn't have been an extinguishing of the fire if there had been no fire. But this is a very nice example, against the Millian view that causation consists of every event prior to the effect. The fire is, though, a precondition. |
| 14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is the passing around of powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. This doesn't feel right. Compare 'causation is the passing around of tennis balls'. Can you explain what a power is without mentioning causation? |
| 14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We accept primitivism about causation, for how could there be something even more basic in the world than causation, which might allow us to bring forth a reductive analysis? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], Concl) | |
| A reaction: I think I agree with this view, and for the same reason. I can't imagine how one could cite any 'categorical' or 'structural' properties, or anything else, without invoking causal phenomena in their characterisation. |
| 14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Rather than depicting causation as between two wholly distinct relata, we argue that it should be seen as a single unfolding process that occurs when a number of mutual manifestation partners meet. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I am in sympathy with this view, and like the notion of 'process' in metaphysics, but I worry about what a 'process' consists of. Does it have ingredients? It can last a long time, so presumably it can have parts. Mere time slices? |
| 14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: When billiard balls collide they deform, and we have a process rather than a momentary collision. Causation is a matter of simultaneity, and simultaneous does not entail instantaneous. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This is why they reject the idea that causal relata are abutting events meeting at timeless joints. I think they have got this bit right. It's amazing what a muddle philosophers have got into in just describing what happens in front of their eyes. |
| 14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If causation connects two events, do we need some invisible third element to tie them together? Might there be just two elements so close together that they come as a package deal? Or a single event or process in which one thing turns into another? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Hence you find yourself drawn to 'process' philosophy, but preferably without the mystical crust laid over it by A.N. Whitehead. If we could individuate processes, we could dump all sorts of other stuff from our ontology. |
| 14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: It would be counterintuitive to say that we have the cause only when the sugar cube first comes into contact with the water, and the effect only once the whole sugar cube has dissolved. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: The way we end up thinking about causation is largely dictated by the language we use to describe it. The whole point of philosophy is to scrape away the language and see what is really going on. |
| 14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: To speak of 'the' causal explanation privileges some causal powers, but it is implausible that this has a special metaphysical status. Instead, that status should be understood in epistemic or pragmatic terms. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I suppose so, but I see a distinction between actions of powers which only explain that one event (striking the match), and actions of powers which explain a whole family of surrounding events (presence of oxygen). |
| 14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There can be constant conjunction without causation (coincidences) and causation without constant conjunction (smoking causes cancer). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presented as a knock-down argument, but I think Humeans can reply to both of them. If you look at the wider pattern of coincidence, or the deeper pattern of coincidence, both of these counterexamples seem to fail. |
| 14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causes can - perhaps they usually do - make a difference but not always. In cases where they don't (such as overdetermination, or late pre-emption), the corresponding counterfactual will be false. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: The whole idea that we might be able to give a full account of causation in terms of some sort of logical relationship between possible worlds etc. appals me. We need to label something as 'Scientific Logicism', so that we can attack it. |
| 14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There is an obvious Euthyphro question to be asked: is it true that c caused e because e counterfactually depended on c; or did e counterfactually depend on c precisely because c caused e? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: The idea that causes could depend on a logical relationship of counterfactual dependence strikes me as so bizarre that only a philosopher could think of it. |
| 14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We could argue that there can be counterfactual dependence between events without causation, namely, cases of double prevention (an event preventing what would have prevented the second). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: Since the whole idea of causation as counterfactual dependence strikes me as utterly counterintuitive, I don't really need these arguments, but it is nice to know that they can be found. Lewis devoted reams of discussion to such problems. |
| 14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A natural process can be interfered with, and thus a cause never necessitates its effects. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: There is the simple point that the world could cease to exist at the instant between cause and effect. But Mumford and Anjum say these two coexist. Finks and antidotes are not conclusive here. Depends what you mean by 'cause' and 'effect'. |
| 14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We can assert the general claim that smoking causes cancer without endorsing the claim that smoking necessitates cancer. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the simplest demolition of the idea that effects necessarily follow causes. Necessitarians might wriggle out of it by focusing on the word 'causes' more closely here. Maybe this example isn't a 'strict' usage. |
| 14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If causation involves any kind of necessity, it should survive the test of antecedent strengthening. ...It is plausible that for any type of causal process, that some new cause can be added which typically results in the effect no longer being caused. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: [Idea expanded p.57] This is their key argument against the idea that causation involves necessity. In simple terms, show me a cause which necessarily leads to some result, and I will show you how you could prevent that result. Sounds good. |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The most persuasive view of a 'ceteris paribus' clause is that the best non-trivially true account that we can give of their meaning is that they indicate that the conditional has dispositional force only. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Lipton 1999] As a general fan of dispositions (as are Mumford and Lill Anjum), this sounds right. If you then add that virtually every event in nature needs a ceteris paribus clause (see N. Cartwright), the whole thing becomes dispositional. |
| 14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is consistent with there being necessitation in the world, but we claim that causation does not itself provide that necessitation. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.8) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. One might distinguish between causation being necessary, and causation supplying the necessity. The obvious alternative is that essences supply the necessity. |
| 14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: What we take to be laws are just descriptions of how the powers behave and affect each other. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3c) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely my view, which I first gleaned in its boldest from from Mumford 2004. I idea that ontology does not contain any 'laws of nature' I find wonderfully liberating. Weak emergence is just epistemic. |
| 14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Physical laws are typically understood as equations, ...but then factors must vary simultaneously, since if one factor varied before the others, there would be a time when the two sides of the equation didn't equate (so Newton's 2nd Law would be false). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Presumably this thought seems to require action-at-a-distance, which no one could understand. Science oversimplifes the world. See Nancy Cartwright. |
| 10332 | Omniscience is incoherent, since knowledge is a social concept [Kusch] |
| Full Idea: The very idea of omniscience is dubious, at least for the communitarian epistemologist, since knowing is a social state, and knowledge is a social status, needing a position in a social network. | |
| From: Martin Kusch (Knowledge by Agreement [2002], Ch. 4) | |
| A reaction: A nice test case. Would an omniscient mind have evidence for its beliefs? Would it continually check for coherence? Is it open to criticism? Does it even entertain the possibility of error? Could another 'omniscient' mind challenge it? |