29 ideas
6222 | If a decision is in accord with right reason, everyone can agree with it [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: No decision can be in accord with right reason unless all can agree on it. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XLVI) | |
A reaction: Personally I think anyone who disagrees with this should get out of philosophy (and into sociology, fantasy fiction, ironic game-playing, crime…). Of course 'can' agree is not the same as 'will' agree. You must have faith that good reasons are persuasive. |
12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The standard classification holds that 'animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.5) | |
A reaction: My understanding of 'difference' would take it down to the level of the individual, so the question is - which did Aristotle believe in. Not all commentators agree with Oderberg, and Wedin thinks the individual substance is paramount. |
12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: To define something just means to set forth its limits in such a way that one can distinguish it from all other things of a different kind. To distinguish it from all other things of the same kind belongs to the theory of 'individuation'. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) | |
A reaction: I take Aristotle to have included individuation as part of his understanding of definition. Are tigers a kind, or are fierce tigers a kind, and is my tiger one-of-a-kind? |
12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The Aristotelian account of numbers is that their existence depends on the existence of things that are not numbers, ..since numbers are abstractions from the existence of things. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.2) | |
A reaction: This is the deeply unfashionable view to which I am attached. The problem is the status of transfinite, complex etc numbers. They look like fictions to me. |
12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Being is heterogeneous: there is substantial being, accidental being, complete being, incomplete being, necessary being, contingent being, possible being, absolute being, relative being, intrinsic being, extrinsic being, and so on. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Dependent being? Oderberg is giving the modern scholastic view. Personally I take 'being' to be univocal, even if it can be qualified in all sorts of ways. I don't believe we actually have any grasp at all of different ways to exist. |
16051 | Life has a new supervenient relation, which alters its underlying physical events [Morgan,L] |
Full Idea: When some new kind of relatedness is supervenient (say at the level of life), the way in which the physical events which are involved run their course is different in virtue of its presence. | |
From: Lloyd Morgan (Emergent Evolution [1923], pp.15-16), quoted by Terence Horgan - From Supervenience to Superdupervenience 1 | |
A reaction: This is a clear assertion of 'downward causation' at the first introduction of 'supervenience', supporting 'emergentism' about life and mind. That is, the newly-emerged feature has new causal powers that affect the physical system from outside. Wrong! |
12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.5) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a conclusive objection to claims for any such thing to be abstract. See, for example, Dummett's claim that the Equator is an abstract object. |
12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: We need a theory of essence to help us distinguish between the powers that do and do not belong to the essence of a thing. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 6.3) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a very good reason for searching for the essence of things, though the need to distinguish does not guarantee that there really is something to distinguish. Maybe powers just come and go. A power is essential in you but not in me? |
12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The demise of 'substance' was wholly due to mistaken notions, mainly from the empiricists, by which it was conceived either as an unknowable featureless substratum, or as dispensable in favour of some or other bundle theory. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.4) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a view that the notion of substance is essential to explaining how we understand the world. I am inclined to think that if we accept the notion of essence we can totally dispense with the notion of substance. |
12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
Full Idea: Real essences are objectively real, they concern being, they are knowable, they are definable, and they are classifiable. | |
From: report of David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: This is a lovely summary (spread over two pages) of what essentialism is all about. It might be added that they are about unity and identity. The fact that they are intrinsically classifiable seems to mislead some people into a confused view. |
12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Nominalism is consistent with belief in individual essences, but real essentialism postulates essences as universals (quiddities). Nominalists are nearly always empiricists, though the converse may not be the case. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This is where I part company with Oderberg. I want to argue that the nominalist/individualist view is more in tune with what Aristotle believed (though he spotted a dilemma here). Only individual essences explain individual behaviour. |
12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Real essentialism, more than any other ontological theory, stresses and seeks to explain the unity of objects. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.3) | |
A reaction: A key piece in the jigsaw I am beginning to assemble. If explanation is the aim, and essence the key to explanation, then explaining unity is the part of it that connects with other metaphysics, about identity and so on. 'Units' breed numbers. |
12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Essence is not reducible to explanatory relations, ...and fundamentally the role of essence is not explanatory but constitutive. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Effectively, this asserts essence as part of 'pure' metaphysics, but I like impure metaphysics, as the best explanation of the things we can know. Hence we can speculate about constitution only by means of explanation. Constitution is active. |
12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: A substance is constituted by its essence, and properties are a species of accident. No property of a thing is part of a thing's essence, though properties flow from the essence. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 7.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this. How can you know of something which has no properties? I'm wondering if the whole notion of a 'property' should be eliminated from good metaphysics. |
12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Why not do away with talk of essences and replace it with talk of powers pure and simple, or reduce essences to collections of powers? But then what unites the powers, and could a power be lost, and is there entailment between the powers? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 6.3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Bennett and Hacker 2003 for this view] The point would seem to be that in addition to the powers, there are also identity and unity and kind-membership to be explained. Oderberg says the powers flow from the essence. |
12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: That is, if two things must have identical properties because they are the same thing, this is because those properties are essential to the thing. Otherwise two things could be the same, even though one of them lacked a non-identifying property. |
12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The fundamental thesis of real essentialism is that every finite material body has a twofold composition, being a compound of act and potency. ...Reality can take on new kinds of existence because there is a principle of potentiality inherent in reality. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.1) | |
A reaction: I take from this remark that the 'powers' discussed by Molnar and other scientific essentialists is roughly the same as 'potentiality' identified by Aristotle. |
12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Any realist theory of possible worlds will be circular in its attempt to illuminate modality, for there has to be some criterion of what counts as a possible world. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Seems right. At the very least, if we are going to rule out contradictory worlds as impossible (and is there a more obvious criterion?), we already need to understand 'impossible' in order to state that rule. |
12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The necessity of identity carries the appearance of triviality, because it is the eviscerated contemporary essentialist form of a foundational real essentialist truth to the effect that every object has its own nature. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: I like this. Writers like Mackie and Forbes have to put the 'trivial' aspects of essence to one side, without ever seeing why there is such a problem. Real substantial essences have necessity of identity as a side-effect. |
12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The rigid designator approach to essentialism has essentialist assumptions. ..The necessity of identity is built into the very conception of a rigid designator,..and Leibniz's Law is presupposed...and necessity of origin presupposes sufficiency of origin. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed. He cites Salmon 1981:196 for the last point] This sounds right. You feel happy to 'rigidly designate' something precisely because you think there is something definite and stable which can be designated. |
6217 | Natural law is supplied to the human mind by reality and human nature [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: Some truths of natural law, concerning guides to moral good and evil, and duties not laid down by civil law and government, are necessarily supplied ot the human mind by the nature of things and of men. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I) | |
A reaction: I agree that some moral truths have the power of self-evidence. If you say they are built into the mind, we now ask what did the building, and evolution is the only answer, and hence we distance ourselves from the truths, seeing them as strategies. |
6221 | If there are different ultimate goods, there will be conflicting good actions, which is impossible [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: If there be posited different ultimate ends, whose causes are opposed to each other, then there will be truly good actions likewise opposed to each other, which is impossible. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.V.XVI) | |
A reaction: A very interesting argument for there being one good rather than many, and an argument which I don't recall in any surviving Greek text. A response might be to distinguish between what is 'right' and what is 'good'. See David Ross. |
6218 | The happiness of individuals is linked to the happiness of everyone (which is individuals taken together) [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: The happiness of each person cannot be separated from the happiness of all, because the whole is no different from the parts taken together. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI) | |
A reaction: Sounds suspiciously like the fallacy of composition (Idea 6219). An objection to utilitarianism is its assumption that a group of people have a 'total happiness' that is different from their individual states. Still, Cumberland is on to utilitarianism. |
6220 | The happiness of all contains the happiness of each, and promotes it [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: The common happiness of all contains the greatest happiness for each, and most effectively promotes it. …There is no path leading anyone to his own happiness, other than the path which leads all to the common happiness. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.VI) | |
A reaction: I take this as a revolutionary idea, which leads to utilitarianism. It is doing what seemed to the Greeks unthinkable, which is combining hedonism with altruism. There is no proof for it, but it is a wonderful clarion call for building a civil society. |
6216 | Natural law is immutable truth giving moral truths and duties independent of society [Cumberland] |
Full Idea: Natural law is certain propositions of immutable truth, which guide voluntary actions about the choice of good and avoidance of evil, and which impose an obligation to act, even without regard to civil laws, and ignoring compacts of governments. | |
From: Richard Cumberland (De Legibus Naturae [1672], Ch.I.I) | |
A reaction: Not a popular view, but I am sympathetic. If you are in a foreign country and find a person lying in pain, there is a terrible moral deficiency in anyone who just ignores such a thing. No legislation can take away a person's right of self-defence. |
12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: In the traditional terminology, function follows essence. Essence just is the principle from which flows the characteristic behaviour of a thing. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 2.1) | |
A reaction: Hence essence must be identified if the behaviour is to be explained, and a successful identification of essence is the terminus of our explanations. But the essences must go down to the micro-level. Explain non-characteristic behaviour? |
12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Even if there were no multiplicity in unity - only a Parmenidean 'block' - still the question would arise as to what gave the amorphous lump its unity; by virtue of what would it be one rather than many? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Which is prior, division or unification? If it was divided, he would ask what divided it. One of them must be primitive, so why not unity? If one big Unity is primitive, why could not lots of unities be primitive? Etc. |
12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: It is incorrect to hold that the job of the real essentialist just is the job of the scientist. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably scientific essentialism, while being firmly a branch of metaphysics, is meant to clarify the activities of science, and thereby be of some practical use. You can't beat knowing what it is you are trying to do. |
12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Oderberg's point is that essence doesn't just occur at the bottom of the hierarchy of kinds, but can exist on a macro-level, and need not be a concealed structure, as we see in the essence of a pile of stones. |