Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Pierre Gassendi, Craig Bourne and Stuart Hampshire

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21 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
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.
3. Truth / H. Deflationary Truth / 1. Redundant Truth
14008 The redundancy theory conflates metalinguistic bivalence with object-language excluded middle [Bourne]
     Full Idea: The problem with the redundancy theory of truth is that it conflates the metalinguistic notion of bivalence with a theorem of the object language, namely the law of excluded middle.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 3.III Pr3)
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
14010 All relations between spatio-temporal objects are either spatio-temporal, or causal [Bourne]
     Full Idea: If there are any genuine relations at all between spatio-temporal objects, then they are all either spatio-temporal or causal.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 3.III Pr4)
     A reaction: This sounds too easy, but I have wracked my brains for counterexamples and failed to find any. How about qualitative relations?
14009 It is a necessary condition for the existence of relations that both of the relata exist [Bourne]
     Full Idea: It is widely held, and I think correctly so, that a necessary condition for the existence of relations is that both of the relata exist.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 3.III Pr4)
     A reaction: This is either trivial or false. Relations in the actual world self-evidently relate components of it. But I seem able to revere Sherlock Holmes, and speculate about relations between possible entities.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes
16668 Modes of things exist in some way, without being full-blown substances [Gassendi]
     Full Idea: Modes are not nothing but something more than mere nothing; they are therefore 'res' of some kind, not substantial of course, but at least modal.
     From: Pierre Gassendi (Disquisitions [1644], II.3.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 260
     A reaction: This is the great modern atomist talking pure scholastic metaphysics. He's been reading Suárez. Gassendi seems to accept more than one type of existence.
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'.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
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.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 2. Interactionism
3400 Things must have parts to intermingle [Gassendi]
     Full Idea: If you are no larger than a point, how are you joined to the whole body, which is so large? …and there can be no intermingling between things unless the parts of them can be intermingled.
     From: Pierre Gassendi (Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) [1641]), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.131
     A reaction: As Descartes says that mind is distinct from body because it is non-spatial, it doesn't seem quite right to describe it as a 'point', but the second half is a real problem. Being non-spatial is a real impediment to intermingling with spatial objects.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility
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.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
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.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity
14016 The idea of simultaneity in Special Relativity is full of verificationist assumptions [Bourne]
     Full Idea: Special Relativity, with its definition of simultaneity, is shot through with verificationist assumptions.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.IIc)
     A reaction: [He credits Sklar with this] I love hearing such points made, because all my instincts have rebelled against Einstein's story, even after I have been repeatedly told how stupid I am, and how I should study more maths etc.
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.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time
14013 Special Relativity allows an absolute past, future, elsewhere and simultaneity [Bourne]
     Full Idea: There is in special relativity a notion of 'absolute past', and of 'absolute future', and of 'absolute elsewhere', and of 'absolute simultaneity' (of events occurring at their space-time conjunction).
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 5.III)
     A reaction: [My summary of his paragraph] I am inclined to agree with Bourne that there is enough here to build some sort of notion of 'present' that will support the doctrine of Presentism.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
14015 No-Futurists believe in past and present, but not future, and say the world grows as facts increase [Bourne]
     Full Idea: 'No-Futurists' believe in the real existence of the past and present but not the future, and hold that the world grows as more and more facts come into existence.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.IIb)
     A reaction: [He cites Broad 1923 and Tooley 1997] My sympathies are with Presentism, but there seems not denying that past events fix truths in a way that future events don't. The unchangeability of past events seems to make them factual.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
14007 How can presentists talk of 'earlier than', and distinguish past from future? [Bourne]
     Full Idea: Presentists have a difficulty with how they can help themselves to the notion of 'earlier than' without having to invoke real relata, and how presentism can distinguish the past from the future.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 2.IV)
     A reaction: The obvious response is to infer the past from the present (fossils), and infer the future from the present (ticking bomb). But what is it that is being inferred, if the past and future are denied a priori? Tricky!
14011 Presentism seems to deny causation, because the cause and the effect can never coexist [Bourne]
     Full Idea: It seems that presentism cannot accommodate causation at all. In a true instance of 'c causes e', it seems to follow that both c and e exist, and it is widely accepted that c is earlier than e. But for presentists that means c and e can't coexist.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 4)
     A reaction: A nice problem. Obviously if the flying ball smashed the window, we are left with only the effect existing - otherwise we could intercept the ball and prevent the disaster. To say this cause and this effect coexist would be even dafter than the problem.
14017 Since presentists treat the presentness of events as basic, simultaneity should be define by that means [Bourne]
     Full Idea: Since for presentism there is an ontologically significant and basic sense in which events are present, we should expect a definition of simultaneity in terms of presentness, rather than the other way round.
     From: Craig Bourne (A Future for Presentism [2006], 6.IV)
     A reaction: Love it. I don't see how you can even articulate questions about simultaneity if you don't already have a notion of presentness. What are the relata you are enquiring about?
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
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.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series
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.