14018
|
Is Sufficient Reason self-refuting (no reason to accept it!), or is it a legitimate explanatory tool? [Bourne]
|
|
Full Idea:
Mackie (1983) dismisses the Principle of Sufficient Reason quickly, arguing that it is self-refuting: there is no sufficient reason to accept it. However, a principle is not invalidated by not applying to itself; it can be a powerful heuristic tool.
|
|
From:
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.VI)
|
|
A reaction:
If God was entirely rational, and created everything, that would be a sufficient reason to accept the principle. You would never, though, get to the reason why God was entirely rational. Something will always elude the principle.
|
16730
|
If matter is entirely atoms, anything else we notice in it can only be modes [Gassendi]
|
|
Full Idea:
Since these atoms are the whole of the corporeal matter or substance that exists in bodies, if we conceive or notice anything else to exist in these bodies, that is not a substance but only some kind of mode of the substance.
|
|
From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
|
|
A reaction:
If the atoms have a few qualities of their own, are they just modes? If they are genuine powers, then there can be emergent powers, which are rather more than mere 'modes'.
|
16619
|
We observe qualities, and use 'induction' to refer to the substances lying under them [Gassendi]
|
|
Full Idea:
Nothing beyond qualities is perceived by the senses. …When we refer to the substance in which the qualities inhere, we do this through induction, by which we reason that some subject lies under the quality.
|
|
From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
|
|
A reaction:
He talks of 'induction' (in an older usage), but he seems to mean abduction, since he never makes any observations of the substances being proposed.
|
20166
|
A man is a responsible agent to the extent he has an intention, and knows what he is doing [Hampshire]
|
|
Full Idea:
A man becomes more and more a free and responsible agent the more he at all times knows what he is doing, in every sense of this phrase, and the more he acts with a definite and clearly formed intention.
|
|
From:
Stuart Hampshire (Thought and Responsibility [1960], p.178), quoted by John Kekes - The Human Condition 07.1
|
|
A reaction:
Kekes quote this (along with Frankfurt, Hart etc) as the 'received view' of responsibility, which he attacks.
|
16593
|
Atoms are not points, but hard indivisible things, which no force in nature can divide [Gassendi]
|
|
Full Idea:
The vulgar think atoms lack parts and are free of all magnitude, and hence nothing other than a mathematical point, but it is something solid and hard and compact, as to leave no room for division, separation and cutting. No force in nature can divide it.
|
|
From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.3.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.2
|
|
A reaction:
If you gloatingly think the atom has now been split, ask whether electrons and quarks now fit his description. Pasnau notes that though atoms are indivisible, they are not incorruptible, and could go out of existence, or be squashed.
|
16729
|
How do mere atoms produce qualities like colour, flavour and odour? [Gassendi]
|
|
Full Idea:
If the only material principles of things are atoms, having only size, shape, and weight, or motion, then why are so many additional qualities created and existing within the things: color, heat, flavor, odor, and innumerable others?
|
|
From:
Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.5.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
|
|
A reaction:
This is pretty much the 'hard question' about the mind-body relation. Bacon said that heat was just motion of matter. I would say that this problem is gradually being solved in my lifetime.
|
14019
|
Relativity denies simultaneity, so it needs past, present and future (unlike Presentism) [Bourne]
|
|
Full Idea:
Special Relativity denies absolute simultaneity, and therefore requires a past and a future, as well as a present. The Presentist, however, only requires the present.
|
|
From:
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.VII)
|
|
A reaction:
It is nice to accuse Relativity of ontological extravagence. When it 'requires' past and future, that may not be a massive commitment, since the whole theory is fairly operationalist, according to Putnam.
|
14003
|
Time is tensed or tenseless; the latter says all times and objects are real, and there is no passage of time [Bourne]
|
|
Full Idea:
Theories of time are in two broad categories, the tenseless and the tensed theories. In tenseless theories, all times are equally real, as are all objects located at them, and there is no passage of time from future to present to past. It's the B-series.
|
|
From:
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], Intro IIa)
|
|
A reaction:
It might solve a few of the problems, but is highly counterintuitive. Presumably it makes the passage of time an illusion, and gives no account of how events 'happen', or of their direction, and it leaves causation out on a limb. I'm afraid not.
|
14005
|
B-series objects relate to each other; A-series objects relate to the present [Bourne]
|
|
Full Idea:
Objects in the B-series are earlier than, later than, or simultaneous with each other, whereas objects in the A-series are earlier than, later than or simultaneous with the present.
|
|
From:
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], Intro IIb)
|
|
A reaction:
Must we choose? Two past events relate to each other, but there is a further relation when 'now' falls between the events. If I must choose, I suppose I go for the A-series view. The B-series is a subsequent feat of imagination. McTaggart agreed.
|
14006
|
Time flows, past is fixed, future is open, future is feared but not past, we remember past, we plan future [Bourne]
|
|
Full Idea:
We say that time 'flows', that the past is 'fixed' but the future is 'open'; we only dread the future, but not the past; we remember the past but not the future; we plan for the future but not the past.
|
|
From:
Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], Intro III)
|
|
A reaction:
These seem pretty overwhelming reasons for accepting an asymmetry between the past and the future. If you reject that, you seem to be mired in a multitude of contradictions. Your error theory is going to be massive.
|