Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Plutarch, Harr�,R./Madden,E.H. and S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum

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165 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Like disastrous small errors in navigation, small misunderstandings can wreck intellectual life [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Just as the tiniest error in navigation may lead to a landfall even on the wrong continent, so the acceptance of apparently innocuous principles can lead to doctrines which, if accepted, would render intellectual life impossible.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A)
     A reaction: If one lived life by an axiom system, and one of the axioms was a bit off kilter, then this idea would be a powerful one. Note that it is only 'intellectual' life that is screwed up, but even there a plurality of ideas keep correcting one another.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
Philosophy devises and assesses conceptual schemes in the service of worldviews [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: In our view the task of a philosopher is to devise and critically assess conceptual schemes in the service of some overall vision of the world.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.B)
     A reaction: This makes theology just as genuinely a branch of philosophy as their scientific essentialism. Is there any sort of philosophy, then, which is not 'in the service' of some independent worldview? Interesting. Note 'devise', as well as 'assess'.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
Analysis of concepts based neither on formalism nor psychology can arise from examining what we know [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Adequate accounts of those concepts which are neither purely formal nor simply psychological can be achieved by attention to ....the content of our knowledge, content which goes beyond the reports of immediate experience.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A)
     A reaction: I like this one. Most proponents of analysis are either bogged down in trying to reduce all of our talk to formal logic, or else they think that they are just analysing how we think. It's neither, because the concepts arise from the world.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 6. Logical Analysis
Humeans see analysis in terms of formal logic, because necessities are fundamentally logical relations [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The Humean view has led philosophers to suppose that their task is to provide an analysis of key concepts and relations wholly in terms drawn from formal logic, since relations of necessity are, in their view, fundamentally logical relations
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A)
     A reaction: A very sharp observation about why logic has become central to contemporary philosophy. As far as I can see, logic steadily increases its dominance, to the point where ordinary metaphysical thought is being squeezed out.
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 2. Positivism
Positivism says science only refers to immediate experiences [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Positivism is the doctrine that the content of scientific propositions is exhausted by what can be immediately experienced.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.I)
     A reaction: The simple thing missing from positivism is inference to the best explanation. Also, if you actually rule out other propositions as 'meaningless', you rule out speculation, which would certainly cripple science.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 1. Definitions
Logically, definitions have a subject, and a set of necessary predicates [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: From a logical point of view all definitions look exactly alike, that is, they contain a logical subject and a set of predicates which are attributed of necessity to that subject.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.IV)
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / b. Types of number
Points can be 'dense' by unending division, but must meet a tougher criterion to be 'continuous' [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Points can be 'dense' by indefinitely prolonged division. To be 'continuous' is more stringent; the points must be cut into two sets, and meet the condition laid down by Boscovich and Dedekind.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: This idea goes with Idea 15274, which lays down the specification of the Dedekind Cut, which is the criterion for the real (and continuous) numbers. Harré and Madden are interested in whether time can support continuity of objects.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / i. Reals from cuts
Points are 'continuous' if any 'cut' point participates in both halves of the cut [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Divide points into left and right set. They're 'continuous' if that point is either last member of left set, and greatest lower bound of right (so no least member), or least upper bound of left set (so no last member) and first member of right set.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: The best attempt I have yet encountered to explain a Dedekind Cut for the layperson. I gather modern mathematicians no longer rely on this way of defining the real numbers.
6. Mathematics / C. Sources of Mathematics / 10. Constructivism / e. Psychologism
There is not an exclusive dichotomy between the formal and the logical [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The assumption that there is an exclusive dichotomy between the formal and the psychological is, in our view, an error of enormous consequence.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A)
     A reaction: I agree entirely with this, and am opposed to the Fregean view of the matter. The psychology is the bridge between the physical world and the logic. Frege had to be a platonist, so that the formalism could latch onto something.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
Humeans can only explain change with continuity as successive replacement [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Given the Humean ontology, there is grave difficulty in making any sense at all of the concept of change with continuity as distinct from successive replacements.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6. Intro)
     A reaction: Hence the four-dimensionalist approach is basically Hume updated. The weird nature of time lurks behind this difficulty. If you can separate the moments of time, you can separate the bits of a continuous thing, and then ask how they relate.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
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.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
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.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / b. Events as primitive
Humeans construct their objects from events, but we construct events from objects [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: On our view, 'event' is to be understood in terms of the ontology of enduring things, while on the Humean view enduring things are conceived to be constructions of events.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: It has quite hard to take either objects or events, given that they seem to be amenable to analysis. I am tempted to take essences as primitive. They fix identity, endure change, bear accidental properties (including temporary intrinsics).
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
The induction problem fades if you work with things, rather than with events [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: By a shift from events to things we claim to make the big problem of induction tractable.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.II)
     A reaction: [You'll have to read their chapter to get the whole picture] The idea of basing a metaphysics on 'events' gives me the creeps, given the difficulty of individuating an event. Events are not primitive; even animals can analyse their components.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / a. Fundamental reality
Fundamental particulars can't change [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Fundamental particulars are incapable of change.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.IV)
     A reaction: I quote this in order to challenge it. If the proton can decay (which seems to be the case) maybe everything can. The fundamentals of a lawn mower eventually rust away; it may be thus with universe. What evidence could deny this?
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
Hard individual blocks don't fix what 'things' are; fluids are no less material things [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: There is no metaphysical justification whatever for treating the solid, bounded, material object as the determiner of all thing concepts. Fluids are no less material things than are hard solid blocks.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.IV)
     A reaction: We don't tend to talk of a fluid as 'a' thing, and without distinct objects there would be virtually no structure, or interest, in nature, so what gives identity to the blocks must interest the metaphysician.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / b. Mixtures
Magnetic and gravity fields can occupy the same place without merging [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The magnetic and the gravitation field can occupy all the same places without merging.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.IV)
     A reaction: We can divide stuff into two classes, then, according to whether they usually merge if coextensive in space. Oil and water can be mixed, but eventually separate again.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Gravitational and electrical fields are, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The region around a magnetic body, the space between earth and moon, and the vicinity of an electric cable remain obstinately and, for a materialist, distressingly empty of material.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.III)
     A reaction: Ouch, if you are a strict 'materialist'! I call myself a 'naturalist', in a hand-wavy sort of way. On materialism and determinism I remain vague.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 9. States of Affairs
Events are changes in states of affairs (which consist of structured particulars, with powers and relations) [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: A state of affairs consists of structures of particulars that endure (of which physical objects would be one type), the properties and powers of those particulars, and the relations obtaining among them. A common 'event' is a change in state of affairs.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: I find 'event' to be so vague, and so dependent on pragmatic interests, that it has hard to find a place for it in an ontological system. Ditto with state of affairs. They overlap. States of affairs can survive change (like a political majority).
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
Humeans see predicates as independent, but science says they are connected [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The connectivity of ensembles of predicates is characteristic of natural science, while the independence of empirical predicates is the requirement of the Humean position.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
     A reaction: This is yet another excellent reason for getting rid of the hyperempirical Humean view of these things. The best explanation of the world is that its ingredients are clearly not 'independent' of each other.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 7. Emergent Properties
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
Energy was introduced to physics to refer to the 'store of potency' of a moving ball [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The concept of energy was introduced into physics precisely to make possible the application of the 'store of potency' paradigm in cases like the contact of billiard balls, since the moving ball is clearly an agent of change.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: I find this to be a hugely revealing little observation. For years the nature of energy has bothered me, and I have been struck by the active character of nature. I am beginning to understand the world!
Some powers need a stimulus, but others are just released [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Some powerful particulars require to be stimulated before their powers are manifested. Others will manifest their powers whenever the impediments to action, the constraints, are removed.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.V)
     A reaction: Sounds nice and clear, but if gunpowder explodes at a certain temperature, how can you distinguish temperatures as the 'stimulus' ones and the 'release' ones? We just remove the constraint of low temperature.
Some powers are variable, others cannot change (without destroying an identity) [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Contrasted with variable powers are those powers which cannot be diminished or augmented without loss of identity for the particular to which they are ascribed.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.I)
     A reaction: They give the example of a Deputy Sheriff's powers, as one that cannot vary. I suppose the powers of an electron are in the fixed category. Fair enough. Can a fundamental power be variable (or only 'complex' powers)?
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: For scientists 'copper' refers to something having the properties of malleability, fusibility, ductility, electric conductivity, density 8.92, atomic weight 63.54, and atomic number 19. All but the last of these are dispositional.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
     A reaction: This is important because it is tempting to pick the atomic number as the essence of copper, but it is the only one on the list which is structural rather than dispositional. The deep question is why that substance has those dispositions.
We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The power of particulars are always made understandable by the natures of those particulars, but finally such explanations come to rest with a power of a particular that has no explanation in the nature of that thing or bit of material.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.VII)
     A reaction: I'm glad they faced up to this matter. The question is whether the fundamental powers which are the terminus of explanation are the same sort of thing as the powers which were said to be the target for explanations. Just complex powers?
Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: As the most promising candidate for entities which intrinsically qualify as ultimate because their nature is in principle identical with their powers we will offer a physical field.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.VII)
     A reaction: An electron comes fairly close to being nothing but a bundle of powers, but fields seem to have a slightly more basic role in physics, so this strikes me as a good suggestion. It meets Ladyman's mocking of the 'microbangings' view.
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
Powers are not qualities; they just point to directions of empirical investigation [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: An attribution of a power opens up a certain direction of empirical investigation. It is not an attribution of an occult quality, because it is not a quality-attribution at all.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 5.II)
     A reaction: They seem to have a rather behaviouristic view of powers, which I am inclined to think misses how fundamental powers are. I see fundamental powers as the terminus of empirical investigation (which focuses on how powers combine).
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
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
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / c. Dispositions as conditional
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.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent
What is a field of potentials, if it only consists of possible events? [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: How are we to conceive of a field of potentials when the very point of the notion is that it serves to describe what would happen at various places, and is not a description of what did or is happening?
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.III)
     A reaction: I suppose the answer is induction. If there were no events, the field would be beyond us. We infer the field from observed events, and infer possible events from the patterns of behaviour in the field, and its nature.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 7. Against Powers
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).
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
The good criticism of substance by Humeans also loses them the vital concept of a thing [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: In being properly critical about the merits of the concept of substance, ...the Humean finds he has lost the vitally important concept of a thing as well.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: This is the whole reason that Aristotle and others started talking about substances in the first place. The big mistake is to think that Aristotle believes in a thing called 'substance'. The notion is a placeholder for whatever holds a thing together.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
We can escape substance and its properties, if we take fields of pure powers as ultimate [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The importance of the field concept (as ultimate) is that it allows us to escape from the apparently pervasive concepts of substance and its properties. A field has no substance other than its powers (or its potentials).
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.VII)
     A reaction: You can't run away from substance by only thinking about what is ultimate. Are they going to ignore separate objects? What gives them identity? Do they have any properties? What has the properties? More work needed here.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
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.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 1. Structure of an Object
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.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 3. Matter of an Object
The assumption that shape and solidity are fundamental implies dubious 'substance' in bodies [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The assumption that shape and solidity are the fundamental mechanical qualities requires an implausible hypothesis of a substance or material filling the space of bodies.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.II.B)
     A reaction: This is 'substance' in the sense of matter, rather than in the sense of an Aristotelian essence. They defend fields (rather than particles) as the fundamentals of the physical world.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 7. Substratum
The notorious substratum results from substance-with-qualities; individuals-with-powers solves this [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Chemical analysis either arrives at a qualityless substance, the notorious substratum, or is obliged to declare certain qualities primary and inexplicable. Substituting individuals-with-powers for substance-with-qualities removes these difficulties.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.II)
     A reaction: Any account gives you something as basic, and that something is always going to seem inherently and deeply mysterious. I prefer powers to substrata, but what has the powers? They like 'fields'.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
In logic the nature of a kind, substance or individual is the essence which is inseparable from what it is [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: From the point of view of philosophical logic, the nature of a kind, or a material substance or an individual is its essence, that is, those of its qualities which are inseparable from its being that kind, that material or that individual.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.I)
     A reaction: This might be where the logical and the naturalistic notions of essence come apart. Could something retain its 'natural' essence while losing its identity, or lose its essence while retaining its identity?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
We can infer a new property of a thing from its other properties, via its essential nature [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: If we know the nature of a particular that explains its properties, powers and capacities and relates them into intelligible clusters, then we can indeed infer from some of the powers and properties to others via its essential nature.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.III)
     A reaction: This is an optimistic assertion of precisely the possibility which Locke denied in Idea 12547. This optimism is the main reason for the revival of scientific essentialism in recent years. It just seems to be true of modern science.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
We say the essence of particles is energy, but only so we can tell a story about the nature of things [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The essential nature of matter and radiation is energy, so it is maintained, but the point of maintaining this is precisely to allow one to make use of a notion of the nature of things.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.III)
     A reaction: They are defending essentialism, but this seems to be a counterexample, of our need to postulate essences where there are none. It makes our explanations work better, but at the cost of commitment to a 'quasi-substance' (Idea 15265).
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
To say something remains the same but lacks its capacities and powers seems a contradiction [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Talk about particulars remaining the same and yet lacking their usual capacities and powers is at once to assert and deny that a certain object or sample of material has a given nature.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
     A reaction: They imply that this is a contradiction, and hence impossible. So what do we say about something in which the powers fade? Do they both retain and lose their identity? Or can we separate essence from identity?? Aha!
Some individuals can gain or lose capacities or powers, without losing their identity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Some individuals to gain or lose certain capacities or powers, but do not thereby lose their identity. They still have the same nature. A drug, or photographic paper, may lose effectiveness over time.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
     A reaction: Damn! I thought I was the first to spot this problem! I, however, take it to be much more metaphysically significant than Harré and Madden do. The question is whether those properties were essential, since they can be lost. Essential but not necessary!
A particular might change all of its characteristics, retaining mere numerical identity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Change might mean that a particular lost some or perhaps all of its previous characteristics and retained at worst only a dubious numerical identity derived from temporal continuity of the occupation of a place or continuous sequence of places.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.II)
     A reaction: If all that is left is its location, that seems like passing-away rather than change. A dead leaf retains mere numerical identity while losing its essence. A burnt-up leaf might have a location, but it hardly qualifies as a 'leaf'.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 3. Three-Dimensionalism
'Dense' time raises doubts about continuous objects, so they need 'continuous' time [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Since discontinuities in a dense set of temporal points lead to doubts about the existential integrity of a thing, the thing-ontology demands that a dense time be continuous.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: This seems to be a rather unequivocal assertion about a rather uncertain topic. If quanta can move in 'leaps', which appear to abolish the notion of what happens 'between' two states, who can say what objects might manage to do?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
If things are successive instantaneous events, nothing requires those events to resemble one another [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: If events are instantaneous time-slices of a physical thing, the persistence of the pattern is an inexplicable fact in that there is no requirement for the successive time-slices to bear any resemblance to the event previously occurring at that place.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: The Humean four-dimensional view doesn't seem to require an explanation of this (or of much else), and takes it as a brute fact that slices resemble. Something has to be a brute fact, I suppose.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
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.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 8. Continuity of Rivers
Humeans cannot step in the same river twice, because they cannot strictly form the concept of 'river' [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: A Humean cannot step in the same river twice, not because the river is always a different river, but because he can strictly have no such concept as 'river'.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.II)
     A reaction: This arises from a discussion of induction. What is a Humean to make of an object which keeps changing? They only have connected impressions, and no underlying essence to hold the impressions together.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 9. Ship of Theseus
Replacing timbers on Theseus' ship was the classic illustration of the problem of growth and change [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: At intervals they removed old timbers from the preserved ship and replaced them with sound ones, so the ship became a classic illustration for the philosophers of the disputed question of growth and change, some saying it was the same, others different.
     From: Plutarch (Life of Theseus [c.85], 23)
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality
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.
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?
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.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
What reduces the field of the possible is a step towards necessity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Whatever reduces the field of the possible is a step towards necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.IV)
     A reaction: This is a deeply stirring idea, because it suddenly opens up a research project of narrowing the possibilities, with a stunning Holy Grail at the end of it. Sherlock Holmes said this first, of course.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
There is 'absolute' necessity (implied by all propositions) and 'relative' necessity (from what is given) [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: In addition to absolute necessity ('p is strictly implied by ¬p'), i.e. p strictly implied by any proposition whatever, C.I. Lewis also distinguished relative necessity ('p implied by what is given or known').
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.V)
     A reaction: Once you accept this distinction you find that the 'relative' one comes in all sorts of degrees. You "have to" put more salt in this soup. (Deontic' necessity, someone on Twitter tells me!)
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 6. Logical Necessity
Logical necessity is grounded in the logical form of a statement [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When the logical form of a statement is offered as the grounds for the judgement that it cannot be true we have logical necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.B)
     A reaction: This sounds like a truth about logical necessity, but certainly not a full account of it, because contingent statements also have logical form. I can't think of any other criterion than the finding of a contradiction buried in the logical form.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 7. Natural Necessity
Natural necessity is not logical necessity or empirical contingency in disguise [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Natural necessity is neither a mere reflection of logical necessity nor a roundabout way of referring to empirical contingency.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.B)
     A reaction: They offer a strong defence of natural necessity, which is basic to their scientific essentialism. The key point is that they, unlike some others, are not defending metaphysical necessity about nature, but finding a different type of necessity. Good.
The relation between what a thing is and what it can do or undergo relate by natural necessity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The relation between what a thing is and what it is capable of doing and undergoing is naturally necessary.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
     A reaction: Note that this was written in 1975, and in no way rests of Kripkean notions of rigid designation and necessary identities. Needs thought, but I take it to be an appealing proposal.
A necessity corresponds to the nature of the actual [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: There is a necessity corresponding to the nature of the actual.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.III.C)
     A reaction: A nice slogan for the assertion of a genuine and distinct natural necessity. Hence every possible world will have its own distinctive natural necessity. If the actual contains the possible, then there are possible new natural necessities in the actual!
Natural necessity is when powerful particulars must produce certain results in a situation [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When the natures of the operative powerful particulars, the constraining or stimulating effect of conditions and so on are offered as the grounds for the judgement that a certain effect cannot but happen (or fail), we have natural necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.B)
     A reaction: This is the view I subscribe to, the really right bit of scientific essentialism. Can this view be proved? Hm. I take the opposite view to be the misguided Humean idea that if you can imagine it not happening, then it might not happen. Firey furnace.
People doubt science because if it isn't logically necessary it seems to be absolutely contingent [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: At the basis of all doubts about the rationality of science lies the idea that there is no rational resting place between logical necessity and absolute contingency.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.III)
     A reaction: I'm struck by the fact that when someone says "I have to go now", they express a necessity. Are there thousands of types of necessity, or one conditional necessity resting on thousands of different foundations?
Property or event relations are naturally necessary if generated by essential mechanisms [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The relationship between co-existing properties or successive events or states is naturally necessary when understood by scientists to be related by generative mechanisms, whose structure and components constitute the essential natures of the world.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.III)
     A reaction: Does that mean that the relationship between an actual state and a possible state is metaphysically necessary, rather than naturally necessary? I think we need dispositions to be part of actuality, and hence replace 'co-existing' with 'possible'.
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.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
Transcendental necessity is conditions of a world required for a rational being to know its nature [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When the conditions for a rational being having knowledge of the nature of a world are offered as the grounds for the judgement that such a world must have certain characteristics, we have transcendental necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.B)
     A reaction: It seems like a rather hard call to decide whether such characteristics pertain to the world, or to the mind of the rational being. Kant is obviously behind this one. You must read his first Critique at least four times to evaluate it.
There is a transcendental necessity for each logical necessity, but the transcendental extends further [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Whatever is logically necessary must be reflected in a corresponding transcendental necessity. But there are a great range of transcendental necessities which are not reflected in any logical necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.C)
     A reaction: That is, the world would be unknowable if any of the logical necessities failed to apply to it. I hope that doesn't mean that we are supposed to intuitively know all the logical necessities. Nowadays we are famous for being bad at that.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
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...
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
Counterfactuals are just right for analysing statements about the powers which things have [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: We understand subjunctive conditionals as statements about possibilities, excluding those actualised. So that form is just right for part of the analysis of a power statement, since to say a thing has a power is to say what behaviour is possible for it.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 5.VII)
     A reaction: They seem unaware of the famous work of Stalnaker and Lewis on this type of analysis, but as a fan of powers I find this interesting, and it offers a nice extra piece for my big jigsaw.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
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.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
If natural necessity is used to include or exclude some predicate, the predicate is conceptually necessary [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When a natural necessity is used as the basis for the inclusion or exclusion of the appropriate predicate in the meaning of a concept of a kind of particular, then it is conceptually necessary that that kind of particular has that property or power.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V.B)
     A reaction: This is one of the bolder views of Harré and Madden, since many philosophers would say that conceptual necessity rests entirely on convention rather than on nature. We could cut them out by just saying that most of our conventions rest on nature.
Having a child is contingent for a 'man', necessary for a 'father'; the latter reflects a necessity of nature [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Described as a man it is quite contingent that he has a child, but described as a father it is conceptually necessary that he has a child. But that conceptual necessity is a reflection of the natural necessity of the father's role in reproduction.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.I)
     A reaction: This is a (good) response to Quine's claim that necessity depends entirely on the mode of description (and his mathematician cyclist example).
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 4. Necessity from Concepts
Is conceptual necessity just conventional, or does it mirror something about nature? [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The question about conceptual necessity is whether it is only stipulative and conventional in character or whether it mirrors something about the nature of physical systems.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.A)
     A reaction: This is the key question, which fans of conventionalism (such as Sidelle) don't seem to face up to. I take it to be important that our concepts are not created by a committee of fools, but by people constantly relating to the world.
There is a conceptual necessity when properties become a standard part of a nominal essence [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: When discoveries about the nature of a thing or substance explain or justify our holding that certain properties are its nominal essence, then the diachronic process of meaning development creates a genuine conceptual necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.VI)
     A reaction: This sounds like a pretty good account of one of the bases for conceptual necessity. They seem to think that conceptual necessity rests on a mixture of real and nominal essence (but then some of the nominal features are also real).
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
Necessity and contingency are separate from the a priori and the a posteriori [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The concepts of necessity and contingency are detached from those of the apriori and the a posteriori.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.IV)
     A reaction: This seems to arise quite independently of Kripke, from the attack by the authors on the Humean view of modality. They also mention the possibility of the apriori contingent.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
If Goldbach's Conjecture is true (and logically necessary), we may be able to conceive its opposite [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Even in cases (such as Goldbach's Conjecture) which, if true, are logically necessary, we may be able to conceive the opposite. We can conceive of there being a number which is not the sum of two primes.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: [attributed to Kneale] Ah, but can we conceive this (as Descartes would say) 'clearly and distinctly'? I can conceive circular squares, as long as I don't concentrate too hard.
11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 2. Common Sense Certainty
It is silly to say that direct experience must be justified, either by reason, or by more experience [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: It would be silly to suggest that what is a matter of experience must be justified by reason, and it makes no sense to say that what we are insisting upon as a matter of direct experience must itself be established by experience.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: The first half is now known as the 'Moorean' view (Idea 6349). It does make sense, when faced with a weird experience, to assess and establish it by means of a combination of reason and other experiences. It's called 'coherence'!
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / a. Idealism
The sun is always bright; it doesn't become bright when it emerges [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The sun doesn't become bright when it emerges from the clouds; it always is bright.
     From: Plutarch (26: Oracles in Decline [c.85], §39)
     A reaction: Not an argument, but a nice appeal to common sense, like Russell's example of the cat that disappears behind the furniture and then reappears. To disagree with Plutarch here strikes me as the road to philosophical absurdity.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 1. Perception
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.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
We experience qualities as of objects, not on their own [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: It seems clear that we are never presented with a quality except of some object.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: I'm not convinced that that 'seems clear'. The idea of sense-data is that while it seems to be of an object, reason suggests that the experience of the quality must precede the object assembled thereby. How do you arbitrate?
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 6. Inference in Perception
Inference in perception is unconvincingly defended as non-conscious and almost instantaneous [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: To the objection that one is never aware of inferences in sensation, the unconvincing reply comes that such inferences are automatic, telescoped, non-discursive and unconscious.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: I think the 'unconvincing' reply is a bit more convincing in the light of modern research on the brain, which presents everything it does in a far less conscious light than the traditional view. Even reason seems barely conscious.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 2. Associationism
Humean impressions are too instantaneous and simple to have structure or relations [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The Humean event, the impression, basic to his epistemology, is, as we have seen, instantaneous in nature, punctiform and elemenentary, and from this characterisation follows its atomicity, its lack of internal connections with anything else.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: This simple point about Humean associationism is the key to grasping the whole hideous worldview that has gripped twentieth century philosophy. How many impressions make up an apple? And why do they sum to make something?
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 6. Falsification
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.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Clavius's Paradox: purely syntactic entailment theories won't explain, because they are too profuse [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Clavius' Paradox shows that a theorem-like structure organised by entailments cannot be identified as a scientific explanation by reference to syntactical criteria, since it shares its syntactic criteria with many other theorem-like structures.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.3)
     A reaction: I think I was pretty convinced that a scientific theory had to meet more than mere syntactic criteria, before I encountered this idea. Lewis's account of laws may have to face this objection.
Simplicity can sort theories out, but still leaves an infinity of possibilities [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Whatever simplicity criterion is chosen for theories, it can at best sort out strata of explanations of equal simplicity, each stratum containing infinitely many items.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
     A reaction: [They cite Katz 1962 for this] This sounds to me like a purely technical result, where pragmatics would narrow the plausible theories right down. The 'Paradox of Clavius' is behind the idea (with an infinity of possible middle terms).
The powers/natures approach has been so successful (for electricity, magnetism, gravity) it may be universal [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The marvellous success in science of the powers/natures formula as a guide to research naturally leads to an attempt at a universal application of such a powerful schema. The electric and magnetic and gravitational fields are known by their powers.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.III)
     A reaction: This is a wonderfully heroic, and accurate, opposition to the prevailing accounts of science when they wrote. The laws, processes and equations of science and just part of a description of the natures and basic powers of what exists.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
We prefer the theory which explains and predicts the powers and capacities of particulars [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: There are competitive models of the nature of things and materials, and that one is chosen which is successful in explaining the most powers and capacities of particulars and in leading to the discovery of hitherto unsuspected powers and capacities.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.III)
     A reaction: If the powers and capacities are what get explained, what exactly does the explaining? If you says 'essences', you then have to characterise essences in some other way. I vote for basic powers as primitive. - but Idea 15302.
Science investigates the nature and constitution of things or substances [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The task of natural science is to investigate the nature of a thing or substance, and to test hypotheses as to the constitution of that thing or substance.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.IV)
     A reaction: This seems to suggest that science is only concerned with the very small, but it would include facts such as the dramatic change of a lump of uranium when it grows bigger.
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
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.
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.
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
Conjunctions explain nothing, and so do not give a reason for confidence in inductions [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: 'Going together' is irrelevant as an explanation, and that is precisely why it is useless as a reason for having confidence in inductive inferences.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.I)
     A reaction: I suspect that the deep underlying question is whether the actual world has modal features - that is, are dispositions, rather than mere categorical properties, a feature of the actual. Is this room full of possibilities? Yes, say I.
Hume's atomic events makes properties independent, and leads to problems with induction [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The atomicity of Humean events ensures the sequential independence of properties, ...and this in turn leads to the Humean problem of induction.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: This strikes me as pretty good analysis of what has gone wrong with the Humean account. As far as I can see, the 'problem' of induction just doesn't occur in scientific essentialism.
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?
14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / b. Raven paradox
Contraposition may be equivalent in truth, but not true in nature, because of irrelevant predicates [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The question about Hempel's Paradox is whether contraposition is not only equivalent in truth, but equivalent tout court. It forcibly inserts new predicates into a context of properties known to be connected by nature.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
     A reaction: [compressed] This seems to capture quite nicely the intuition most people have (which makes it a 'paradox') that the equivalent predicate is irrelevant to the immediate enquiry. The paradox is good because it forces the present explanation.
The items put forward by the contraposition belong within different natural clusters [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: If empirical predicates are linked in clusters, contraposition of (black, raven) would carry one via such pairs as (shoe, white) into a different empirical cluster, or no cluster at all.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.I)
     A reaction: This is, of course, addressed to Hempel's Raven Paradox. Those paradoxes now strike me as relics of a time when Humean empiricism and logic were thought to be the best approaches to scientific theory. Harré and Madden pioneered a better view.
The possibility that all ravens are black is a law depends on a mechanism producing the blackness [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The generating mechanism that produces black raven-like beings is assumed in the according of potential law status to the statement that all ravens are black.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.III)
     A reaction: This is a very nice succinct statement of what I take to be the scientific essentialist view of induction. It isn't about building up Humean habits of regularity, but of gradually inferring explanatory mechanisms, which might even give necessities.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / b. Aims of explanation
Only changes require explanation [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Only changes require explanation.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.I)
     A reaction: This points to powers as the fundamentals of all explanations, whereas if stasis also has to be explained then structures and matter have to be explained. Why is there something rather than nothing? No explanations allowed!
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / c. Direction of explanation
If explanation is by entailment, that lacks a causal direction, unlike natural necessity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Natural necessity involves causal directionality as an essential element, while entailment as a purely logical relation does not.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.V)
     A reaction: If there is a naturally necessary relation between an eclipse and its cause, the directionality of that doesn't seem to arise from the mutual relation between the two. You have to add time's arrow, or causation's arrow.
Powers can explain the direction of causality, and make it a natural necessity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The concept of power can be used to explain the temporal directionality of the concept of causality, and, at the same time, makes that causality a genuine case of natural necessity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.V)
     A reaction: I'm not sure that powers actually 'explain' causal direction. It seems more like transferring the directionality from the process to its source. You are still left with brute directionality.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / e. Lawlike explanations
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.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
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.
If the nature of particulars explains their powers, it also explains their relations and behaviour [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: If we see that certain powers and capacities are explained by the nature of certain particulars and are necessarily attendant upon them, then we have an explanation of why certain things must go together and happen as they do.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 4.I)
     A reaction: They are offering this as an account of induction, as well as of explanation, and it is a nice summary of the account which I take to be correct.
Powers and natures lead us to hypothesise underlying mechanisms, which may be real [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Usually in science the powers/natures formula does lead to the imagining of hypothetical mechanisms which might be discovered to be real.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.III)
     A reaction: The underlying mechanism is what I take Aristotle to have proposed, and it is the instinctive explanation by children (charted by Susan Gelman).
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Solidity comes from the power of repulsion, and shape from the power of attraction [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Solidity is the effect of a power of repulsion between whole things, and shape is the effect of a power of attraction between parts of whole things.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.II.B)
     A reaction: This sounds a bit too neat in its division, but it shows nicely how a metaphysics with powers can deal with categorical properties. The question, remains, though of what is doing the repelling and attracting. Fields, they say.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
Essence explains passive capacities as well as active powers [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Capacities just as much as powers, what particulars and substances are liable to undergo as well as what they are able to do, are explained by reference to what the thing is in itself.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.C)
     A reaction: This is an important warning against trying to give the whole account in terms of powers - unless the capacities and structures and categorical properties can also be explained in terms of the basic powers.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
Some philosophers say the soul is light [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers hold that the soul is in its essence light.
     From: Plutarch (75: Is 'Live Unknown' a Wise Precept? [c.85], §6)
     A reaction: A nice idea, to rival the stoic view that the soul is fire. It is understandable to propose that the soul is some sort of lightweight and fast moving matter. How else could thought be achieved physically? Nowadays, parallel processing is our only model.
When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance.
     From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001)
     A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 5. Generalisation by mind
The very concepts of a particular power or nature imply the possibility of being generalised [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The concepts of power, capacity and the nature of a particular involve generalisations and hence already presuppose that there are grounds for extrapolation.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.V)
     A reaction: I take sortal essentialism to be a serious misundertanding, but the mistake needs to be explained, and this idea is helpful towards that. I think the problem resides in the nature of the language we need to describe particulars.
16. Persons / B. Nature of the Self / 7. Self and Body / c. Self as brain controller
Rather than being the whole soul, maybe I am its chief part? [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Is each of us not the soul, but the chief part of the soul, by which we think and reason and act, all the other parts of soul as well as of body being mere instruments of its power?
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1119)
     A reaction: Socrates is associated with the idea that I am my whole soul (Idea 1650). Plutarch represents an interesting development, which may lead both to the Christian 'soul' and to the Cartesian 'ego'. I think Plutarch is right, but what is the 'soul'?
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
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.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / a. Physicalism critique
If atoms have no qualities, they cannot possibly produce a mind [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Perception, mind, intelligence and thought cannot so much as be conceived, even with the best will, as arising among void and atoms, things which taken separately have no quality.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1112)
     A reaction: A nice articulation of the intuition of all anti-physicalists. Plutarch would have to rethink his position carefully if he learned of the sheer number of connections in the brain, and of the theory of natural selection. His challenge remains, though.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / f. Emotion and reason
Some say emotion is a sort of reason, and others say virtue concerns emotion [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers make the emotions varieties of reason, on the ground that all desire and grief and anger are judgments, while others declare that the virtues have to do with emotions, as when fear is the province of courage.
     From: Plutarch (68: Generation of the soul in 'Timaeus' [c.85], 1025d)
     A reaction: The second idea comes from Aristotle, but the second is interesting, and corresponds to the views coming from modern neuroscience, where even the most basic thought seems to involve emotion. What could be the motivation for 'pure' reason?
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
What properties a thing must have to be a type of substance can be laid down a priori [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: A statement which asserts that a substance or thing must manifest certain properties in order to be identified as a thing or substance of that sort can be laid down a priori.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.IV)
     A reaction: This observation is encountered in Sidelle, but this is earlier, and seems to be the key to the Twin Earth thing. It is just convention whether we call XYZ water, or whether there are two sorts of jade or one. Science has prestige.
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / a. Contextual meaning
We say there is 'no alternative' in all sorts of contexts, and there are many different grounds for it [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: To attribute necessity to a condition, an outcome or effect, the truth of a statement, or a conclusion, is to indicate within the relevant context that no alternative is possible. In each context there are appropriate grounds for such judgements.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.V)
     A reaction: This anticipipates Kit Fine's account of necessity by 25 years, and seems to be the right way to understand it. In ordinary usage, 'there is no alternative' is obvious a quite different claim in very different contexts.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / c. Reducing intentions
Action needs an affinity for a presentation, and an impulse toward the affinity [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: The sceptics say there are three movements of the soul: presentation, impulse and assent. …And action requires two things: a presentation of something to which one has an affinity, and an impulse toward what is presented as an object of affinity.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], 1122c)
     A reaction: Not much reasoning involved in this account, which the sceptics say is compatible with suspension of judgement.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c)
     A reaction: This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure
Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
     A reaction: A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The good life involves social participation, loyalty, temperance and honesty [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: To live the good life is to live a life of participation in society, of loyalty to friends, of temperance and honest dealing.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1108)
     A reaction: 'Participation in society' is the interesting one. This might translate as 'doing your duty', or as 'leading a well-rounded life'. Solitude is wrong if you are indebted to others, and it is unhealthy if you are not. Is solitude really immoral, though?
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Because animals value pleasure very little, they have not been led into sex between males or between females.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
If only atoms exist, how do qualities arise when the atoms come together? [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: If you accept atomism, you must show how bodies without quality have given rise to qualities of every kind by the mere fact of coming together. For example, how has the quality called 'hot' been imposed on the atoms?
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1111)
     A reaction: This argument is still significant in current philosophy of mind. If temperature is 'mean kinetic energy', you are left wondering where the energy came from, and why minds experience the heat. This is the 'Hard Question'.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 6. Necessity of Kinds
We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Natural necessity involves the concept of generative mechanisms and powerful particulars, and these in turn can be the basis of a useful notion of a natural kind.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.V)
     A reaction: Not sure about that. Say gold and silver are two kinds that lead to two outcomes. Each is a natural necessity. How do you distinguish them? Only by one being the gold-necessity and the other the silver-necessity. Circular?
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 7. Critique of Kinds
Species do not have enough constancy to be natural kinds [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: We know from biology that naturally occurring species do not exhibit the constancy required by the concept of natural kind.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.IV)
     A reaction: This view has been challenged recently. How much constancy does a natural kind need? Even protons decay eventually, it seems. I think a natural kind just needs a fair degree of stability over a reasonable time-period. Tigers qualify.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
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.
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 2. Types of cause
If the concept of a cause includes its usual effects, we call it a 'power' [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The concept of cause may come to include the concepts of its usual effects. Concepts of this character are used in science, and in common language, to ascribe powers.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: See Theme 8|c|3 in Theme/Structure for more ideas about powers. It's hard to see how you could specify a cause at all if you weren't allowed to say what it does. I love powers, and want to make them the key idea in all of metaphysics.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
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?
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation
Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The Humean effort to ground the intuition of causal directionality on temporal priority of cause alone fails, because in fact some causes and effects are simultaneous. The moving of the knife and separation of the orange occur together.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: Since I take causation to be largely concerned with movements of 'energy', this idea that cause and effect might be simultaneous sounds more like a matter of pragmatics and convention. Moving the knife and moving the orange are different.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 6. Causation as primitive
Active causal power is just objects at work, not something existing in itself [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The exercise of causal power is not a force or power that has some existence of its own but refers to forceful objects at work.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: This seems to be a behaviourist account of causation, which should make us a bit suspicious. Powers differ from one another. Does all causation have something universally in common? 'Energy' is a stab at the missing ingredient.
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / a. Observation of causation
Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Causation always involves a material particular which produces or generates something.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A)
     A reaction: I agree with this. My bete noire is the idea that causation somehow results from laws or general truths. That gets the whole thing the wrong way round. This idea is based on the notion of 'powers'.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata
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?
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.
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.
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / c. Conditions of causation
Efficient causes combine stimulus to individuals, absence of contraints on activity [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Efficient causes comprise both the presence of stimuli which activate a quiescent individual, and the absence or removal of constraints upon an individual already in a state of activity.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.B)
     A reaction: This is part of an account of causation in term of 'powers', with which I agree. Before you object, there is always going to be something about causation which is mind boggling weird, and probably leaves even God bewildered.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / d. Selecting the cause
The cause (or part of it) is what stimulates or releases the powerful particular thing involved [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: We can unambiguously differentiate the cause from the effect in that whatever stimulates or releases the action of the powerful particular involved in the causal production is the cause or part of the cause of that effect.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: I have doubts about distinguishing stimulus from release, and they sensibly don't say they have a test for 'the' cause, but I roughly agree with this idea. I take 'the' cause to also be tied in with explanation.
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).
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
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.
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.
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.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity
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'.
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.
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.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The original Humean suggestion was that lawlike statements must contain only purely qualitative predicates - that is, predicates which do not require in a statement of their meaning a reference to any particular object or spatio-temporal location.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II)
     A reaction: Harré and Madden are keen to promote particulars (with powers) as the foundation of scientific theory, and I agree with them. It strikes me as quite elementary that generalisations arise from particulars, so can't fundamentally explain them.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 7. Strictness of Laws
Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The whole idea of a formal analysis of the concept of lawlikeness has come to seem hopeless; every syntactical criterion proposed has a counter-example.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II)
     A reaction: They seem unaware of Lewis's work in this area, which may be the most sophisticated attempt at a (Humean) attempt at formal analysis. Personally I see nothing in Lewis that would make them change their minds.
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.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / b. Scientific necessity
Necessary effects will follow from some general theory specifying powers and structure of a world [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Given some general theory specifying the fundamental causal powers and thereby laying down the general lineaments of a world, the necessity of certain effects can be inferred. They will be 'hypothetically necessary' (given those powers).
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.III.B)
     A reaction: This is a pretty good statement of the core idea of necessity at the heart of scientific essentialism. Are we to call this 'natural' necessity or 'metaphysical' necessity? Presumably it is 'relative' necessity. Big implications for induction!
Humeans say there is no necessity in causation, because denying an effect is never self-contradictory [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Humeans say there can be no element of necessity in the causal relation because the conjunction of a description of a cause with the negation of a description of its usual effect is never self-contradictory.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.I)
     A reaction: We might say there actually is a contradiction, because you assert the existence of something, and then deny that existence by denying that the effect could occur. If the object is inert this is wrong, but if it is defined by its powers it is right.
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.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The only sure way of distinguishing lawful and accidental universal statements is to point out that in the former cases we see why the regularity must hold, while in the latter case we do not.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II)
     A reaction: I agree with this, and also take it to be the solution to the problem of induction. That smoking causes cancer will be a true generalisation but not a law, until we see clearly why it happens.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 11. Against Laws of Nature
We could call any generalisation a law, if it had reasonable support and no counter-evidence [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: There is a case for calling a generalisation a law when its only confirmation is the multiplication of instances, if they don't conflict with other criteria. In fact any supported generalisation could count as a law if there is no counter-evidence.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II)
     A reaction: This is the beginning of the modern doubts about laws of nature, fully articulated in Mumford 2004. It seems to me inescapable that laws drop out if our ontology is based on powerful particulars. They are just patterns of outcome.
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.
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.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
We perceive motion, and not just successive occupations of different positions [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: A moving thing is perceptually distinct from a motionless thing, but takes on no new quality. The perception of its motion is a genuine perception. Its motion is not inferred from observation of its successive occupations of different relative positions.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II)
     A reaction: This seems to be a response to Russell's reductive 'at-at' account of motion, which always struck me as wrong. It doesn't prove Russell wrong, of course, and they are trying to demonstrate that we perceive causation directly.
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 2. Thermodynamics / a. Energy
'Energy' is a quasi-substance invented as the bearer of change during interactions [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: In the case of electron/positron/gamma ray annihilation scientists maintain the paradigm of rational explanation by inventing a quasi-substance as the bearer of continuity, and all three are seen in terms of 'energy'.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.III)
     A reaction: What a relief to see energy described as a 'quasi-substance'. I spent all of my physics studies bewildered by the nature of energy (especially when described as 'pure energy'). What does e=mc^2 mean if e is a quasi-substance?
'Kinetic energy' is used to explain the effects of moving things when they are stopped [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The 'store' of kinetic energy is used as a latency concept to explain the power of bringing about changes which is manifested by the moving thing when its motion is arrested.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV)
     A reaction: These ideas have been most illuminating in connecting for me the general idea of a 'power' to the rather dubious concept of 'energy' in physics.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 2. Space
Space can't be an individual (in space), but it is present in all places [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Space lacks a place, and does not qualify as an individual, since the ordinary notion of individuals relates to place not space. ...But we can think of space as present in every place through the necessary connection between space and all places.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 9.IV)
     A reaction: I'm not sure I understand it being present in every place, given that it is every place.
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 1. Chemistry
Chemical atoms have two powers: to enter certain combinations, and to emit a particular spectrum [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: The same electronic constitution confers two distinct powers upon chemical atoms: the power of entering only into certain chemical combinations and the power to radiate a particular spectrum.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 5.VI)
     A reaction: Presumably radioactive elements emit other radiation. Do atoms have passive powers as well as active ones?
Chemistry is not purely structural; CO2 is not the same as SO2 [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Modern chemistry is not, as chemistry, purely structural. ...Thus CO2 is a different substance from SO2.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.II)
     A reaction: I don't think I ever thought the chemistry was purely structural, but if you go in for the idea that reality is essentially geometrical (inspired by physics, presumably, like Ladyman) then you might make this mistake.
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / e. Miracles
People report seeing through rocks, or over the horizon, or impossibly small works [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: It is said that Lynceus could see through rock and tree, and a lookout in Sicily saw Carthaginian ships a day and a half away, and Callicrates and Myrmecides are said to fashion carriages canopied with the wings of fly, and write on sesame seeds.
     From: Plutarch (72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions [c.85], 1083e)
     A reaction: A warning from Plutarch against believing everything you hear!
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Theism is supposed to make the world more intelligible - and should offer results [Harré/Madden]
     Full Idea: Theism is supposedly a positive view that renders the world more intelligible than its alternatives, and this professed programme requires the production of results.
     From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.VI)
     A reaction: A nice articulation of a view of theism which will make believers wince, because Harré and Madden see it as a scientific theory, intended to explain the world. I'm with them. I see Plato's theory of Forms as a scientific theory.
Absurd superstitions make people atheist, not disharmony in nature [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Men have never thought the universe godless on the ground of detecting some fault in stars or seasons; ..it is the ridiculous things that superstition does that makes people say it would be better if there were no gods at all.
     From: Plutarch (14: Superstition [c.85], §12)
     A reaction: Not true, I would say. Absurd superstitions do discredit belief in the supernatural, but earthquakes are a disharmony in nature, and a nasty one at that. Nowadays we have other explanations to rival those of religion.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / a. Religious Belief
No one will ever find a city that lacks religious practices [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: A city without holy places and gods, without any observance of prayers, oaths, oracles, sacrifices for blessings received or rites to avert evils, no traveller has ever seen or will ever see.
     From: Plutarch (74: Reply to Colotes [c.85], §1125)
     A reaction: The nearest you might get would be Soviet Moscow, but in 1973 I saw a man there jeering at a woman who was kneeling in the street outside a closed church. Plutarch would be stunned at the decline in religious practices in modern Europe.