135 ideas
| 9408 | Science studies phenomena, but only metaphysics tells us what exists [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Science deals with the phenomena, ..but it is metaphysics, and only metaphysics, that tells us what ultimately exists. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.2) |
| 2797 | As coherence expands its interrelations become steadily tighter, culminating only in necessary truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: As our system grows in coherence, the interrelations between its parts becomes tighter and tighter;… at the limit contingent truth vanishes, leaving only necessary truth. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 14.7) |
| 9429 | Many forms of reasoning, such as extrapolation and analogy, are useful but deductively invalid [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: There are many forms of reasoning - extrapolation, interpolation, and other arguments from analogy - that are useful but deductively invalid. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Molnar for this] |
| 2768 | The correspondence theory also has the problem that two sets of propositions might fit the facts equally well [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence theory as well as the coherence theory has the problem of more than one set of truths. Why can't two sets of propositions "fit the facts" equally well? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 2765 | Rescher says that if coherence requires mutual entailment, this leads to massive logical redundancy [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Rescher complains that if coherence requires mutual entailment, then what is entailed is logically redundant, and the whole system is infected with mutual redundancy. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.1) |
| 2769 | If one theory is held to be true, all the other theories appear false, because they can't be added to the true one [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: From the point of view of someone with a theory every other theory is false, because it cannot be added to the true theory. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 2766 | Even with a tight account of coherence, there is always the possibility of more than one set of coherent propositions [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: No matter how tight our account of coherence we have to admit that there may be more than one set of coherent propositions (as Russell pointed out (1907)). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) |
| 10397 | Abelard's mereology involves privileged and natural divisions, and principal parts [Abelard, by King,P] |
| Full Idea: Abelard's theory of substantial integral wholes is not a pure mereology in the modern sense, since he holds that there are privileged divisions; ..the division of a whole must be into its principal parts. Some wholes have a natural division. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
| A reaction: This is a mereology that cuts nature at the joints, rather than Lewis's 'unrestricted composition', so I find Abelard rather appealing. |
| 9427 | For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: For Humeans the world is a world primarily of events. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.6) |
| 14334 | Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The claim of modest realism is that there is a subject-independent reality; the presumptuous claim is that we are capable of describing that reality accurately. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: And the super-presumptuous claim is that there only exists one ultimate accurate description of reality. I am happy to call myself a Modest Realist on this one. |
| 2781 | Realism says that most perceived objects exist, and have some of their perceived properties [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Realism in the theory of perception is that objects we perceive usually do exist, and retain some at least of the properties we perceive them as having. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 14306 | Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The anti-realist declines to permit that all statements have truth-values. ...The essence of the anti-realist position is that evidence and ontology cannot be separated. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.6) | |
| A reaction: [second half on p.51] The idea that evidence and ontology are 'inseparable' strikes me as an absurd idea. The proposal that you should not speculate about ontology without some sort of evidence is, of course, not unreasonable. |
| 14333 | Dispositions and categorical properties are two modes of presentation of the same thing [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The dispositional and the categorical are correctly understood just as two modes of presentation of the same instantiated properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.6) | |
| A reaction: This is Mumford's own conclusion, after discussing the views of Armstrong. How about 'a disposition is the modal profile' of a categorical property? |
| 14336 | Categorical predicates are those unconnected to functions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A predicate which is conceptually connected to no function ... is a categorical predicate. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: This is an expansion of Mumford's own theory of dispositions, as functional. Does a cork in a wine bottle have a function, but without doing anything? It seems to achieve its function purely through its structure. |
| 14315 | Categorical properties and dispositions appear to explain one another [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Though categorical properties provide explanations for dispositions, categorical properties are also explained by dispositions; hence neither category uniquely explains the other. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: The conclusion doesn't seem to follow. It depends which one is found at the bottom level. It can go up from a basic disposition, to a categorical property, to another disposition - or the other way around. |
| 14332 | There are four reasons for seeing categorical properties as the most fundamental [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Four reasons for reducing everything to the categorical are: categorical predicates have wider scope; dispositions are variably realised by the categorical; categorical is 1st order, dispositions 2nd; categorical properties are explanatorily basic. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: I particularly reject the fourth reason, as I take categorical properties as still in need of explanation. The categorical view is contingent (and Humean), but I take the categorical properties to be necessitated by the underlying powers. |
| 14302 | A lead molecule is not leaden, and macroscopic properties need not be microscopically present [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Though lead is said to be composed of molecules of lead, these molecules are not leaden in the everyday sense of the word. This suggests that a property need not be present at the microscopic level in order to be present at the macroscopic level. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: [He quotes Joske] This strikes me as a key principle to grasp about properties. One H2O molecule is not water, any more than a brick is a house! Nearly all properties (or all?) are 'emergent' (in the sensible, non-mystical use of that word). |
| 14294 | Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions are attacked as either just saying how something will behave (logical fictions about regularities of events), or as primitive pre-scientific terms like 'phlogiston', place-holders used when we are ignorant of real properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The first view he calls the Ryle-Wittgenstein view, which seems to track back to Hume. |
| 9446 | Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The view of properties I find most attractive is one in which they are natural clusters of, and exhausted by, powers (plus other connections to other properties). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) |
| 14316 | If dispositions have several categorical realisations, that makes the two separate [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: We might claim that dispositions are variably realized by a number of categorical bases; therefore they must be distinct from those bases. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: Cars can be realised by a variety of models, therefore models are not cars? This might work if dispositions are only characterised functionally, as Mumford proposes, but I'm not convinced. |
| 14310 | Dispositions are classifications of properties by functional role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A dispositional property is the classification of a property according to its functional role....[p.85] What is essential to a disposition - its identity condition - is its functional role. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: This is Mumford's view of dispositions. I am wary of any proposal to define something according to its role, because it must have an intrinsic nature which equips it to have that role. |
| 14317 | I say the categorical base causes the disposition manifestation [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The view I promote is one where the categorical base is a cause of the disposition manifestation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 05.5) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me (I think) that the most basic thing has to be a power, whose nature is intrinsically beyond our grasp, and that categorical properties are the result of these powers. Powers are dispositional in character. |
| 14313 | All properties must be causal powers (since they wouldn't exist otherwise) [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems that every property must be a causal power, since every property must be causally potent (as a necessary condition of its very existence). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: Mumford cautiously endorses this idea, which seems to rest on the thesis that 'to exist is to have causal powers'. I think I am even keener on it than Mumford is. Powers and properties need to be disentangled, however. |
| 14318 | Intrinsic properties are just causal powers, and identifying a property as causal is then analytic [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Understanding intrinsic properties as being causal powers is likely to be most profitable, and, if true, renders the causal criterion of property existence true analytically. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites E.Fales on this] I'm inclined to think that in the ultimate ontology the notion of a 'property' drops out. There are true causal powers, and then conventional human ways of grouping such powers together and naming them. |
| 14298 | Dispositions can be contrasted either with occurrences, or with categorical properties [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: For some the notion of a disposition is contrasted with the notion of an occurrence; for others, it is contrasted with that of a categorical property. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6) | |
| A reaction: I vote for dispositions over the other two, but I take the categorical properties to be the main rival. |
| 14293 | Dispositions are ascribed to at least objects, substances and persons [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions are ascribed to at least three distinguishable classes of things: objects, substances, and persons. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.1) | |
| A reaction: Are dispositions not also ascribed to properties? Magnetism has a disposition to attract iron filings? |
| 14326 | Unlike categorical bases, dispositions necessarily occupy a particular causal role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a disposition occupying a different causal role involves a conceptual confusion, ...but there is no conceptual or logical absurdity in a categorical base occupying a different causal role. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the core of Mumford's theory of dispositions. I'm beginning to think that dispositions are merely ways we have of describing and labelling functional mechanisms, and so 'dispositions' drop out of the final story. |
| 14314 | If dispositions are powers, background conditions makes it hard to say what they do [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The realist says that disposition ascriptions are ascriptions of real powers. This leaves unanswered the question, 'power to do what?' The problem of background conditions means that the realist cannot say what it is that a power is a power to do. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.9) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to say what a disposition will do, under any other account of dispositions. I would take a power to be defined by a 'modal profile', rather than an actual account of what it will lead to. |
| 14325 | Maybe dispositions can replace powers in metaphysics, as what induces property change [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions can regain the metaphysical role traditionally ascribed to real powers: the that-in-virtue-of-which-something-will-G, if F. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.9) | |
| A reaction: The attraction is that dispositions can be specified a little more clearly (especially in Mumford's functional version) whereas there may be no more to say about a power once it has been located and named. |
| 14312 | Orthodoxy says dispositions entail conditionals (rather than being equivalent to them) [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The orthodox realist view has it that what makes an ascription a disposition ascription is not that it is equivalent to a conditional proposition but that it entails one. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: Mumford says that Martin has shown that dispositions need not entail conditionals (when a 'fink' is operating, something which intervenes between disposition and outcome). |
| 14291 | Dispositions are not just possibilities - they are features of actual things [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions should correctly be understood as more than mere possibilities. To say something has a disposition is to say something about how it is actually. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], Pref) | |
| A reaction: To me this is a basic axiom of metaphysics. The word 'power' serves well for the actual embodiment of a disposition. A power gives rise to one or more dispositions. Or one or more powers give rise to a disposition? |
| 14299 | There could be dispositions that are never manifested [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that a disposition could be possessed though no manifestation events occur. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.6) | |
| A reaction: It is more than 'plausible' - it is screamingly obvious to everybody, apart from a few philosophers. "Some mute inglorious Milton here may rest" (Gray's Elegy). |
| 14323 | If every event has a cause, it is easy to invent a power to explain each case [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Given any event, and the assumption that every event has a cause, then some power can always be invented as the cause of that event. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: This is a useful warning, and probably explains why 'powers' fell out of fashion in scientifice theorising. They seem to make a return, though, as an appropriate term for the bottom level of each of our explanations. |
| 14328 | Traditional powers initiate change, but are mysterious between those changes [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: In the old-fashioned sense, 'powers' are real potentialities that initiate changes but seem to have a mysterious existence in between those changes. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 07.10) | |
| A reaction: What is a person when they are asleep? What is a dishwasher when it isn't running? What is gunpowder when it doesn't explode? We all understand latent powers. To see them as a 'mystery' is to want to know too much. |
| 14331 | Categorical eliminativists say there are no dispositions, just categorical states or mechanisms [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The categorical eliminativist claims that there are no dispositional properties. All properties must be conceived of as categorical states or mechanisms, in the spirit of Boyle's explanation of powers. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 08.3A) | |
| A reaction: What is the difference between a structure and a mechanism? How do we distinguish an active from an inactive mechanism? Without powers or dispositions, nature is dead junk. |
| 9435 | A 'porridge' nominalist thinks we just divide reality in any way that suits us [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A 'porridge' nominalist denies natural kinds, and thinks there are no objective divisions in reality, so concepts or words can be used by a community to divide the world up in any way that suits their purposes. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.3) |
| 10396 | If 'animal' is wholly present in Socrates and an ass, then 'animal' is rational and irrational [Abelard, by King,P] |
| Full Idea: Abelard argued that if the universal 'animal' were completely present in both Socrates and an ass, making each wholly an animal, then the same thing, animal, will be simultaneously rational and irrational, with contraries present in the whole thing. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
| A reaction: If we have universals for rationality and irrationality, they can distinguish the two. But we must also say that rationality is not an aspect of animal, which seems to mean that mind isn't either. What is the essence of an animal? Not reason? |
| 10395 | Abelard was an irrealist about virtually everything apart from concrete individuals [Abelard, by King,P] |
| Full Idea: Abelard was an irrealist about universals, but also about propositions, events, times other than the present, natural kinds, relations, wholes, absolute space, hylomorphic composites, and the like. The concrete individual is enough to populate the world. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
| A reaction: If a Nominalist claims that 'only particulars exist', this makes him an extreme nominalist, and remarkably materialistic for his time (though he accepted the soul, as well as God). |
| 9447 | If properties are clusters of powers, this can explain why properties resemble in degrees [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If a cluster of ten powers exhausts property F, and property G differs in respect of just one power, this might explain why properties can resemble other properties and in different degrees. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: I love this. The most intractable problem about properties and universals is that of abstract reference - pink resembles red more than pink resembles green. If colours are clusters of powers, red and pink share nine out of ten of them. |
| 15384 | Only words can be 'predicated of many'; the universality is just in its mode of signifying [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| Full Idea: Abelard concluded that only words can be 'predicated of many'. A universal is nothing but a general linguistic predicate, and its universality depends not on its mode of being, but on its mode of signifying. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
| A reaction: Abelard seems to be the originator of what is now called Predicate Nominalism, with Nelson Goodman as his modern representative. If it is just words, is there no fact of two things having the 'same' property? |
| 18617 | Substances, unlike aggregates, can survive a change of parts [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Substances can survive a change in their parts in a way that a mere aggregate of parts. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: A simple but very important idea. If we then distinguish between 'substances' and 'aggregates' we get a much clearer grip on things. Is the Ship of Theseus a substance or an aggregate? There is no factual answer to that. What do you want to explain? |
| 14295 | Many artefacts have dispositional essences, which make them what they are [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Thermostats, thermometers, axes, spoons, and batteries have dispositional essences, which make them what they are. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 01.2 iv) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that we could extend this proposal well beyond artefacts, but it certainly seems particularly clear in artefacts, where a human intention seems to be inescapably involved. |
| 12248 | How can we show that a universally possessed property is an essential property? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists fail to show how we ascend from being a property universally possessed, by all kind members, to the status of being an essential property. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely where my proposal comes in - the essential properties, as opposed to the accidentaly universals, are those which explain the nature and behaviour of each kind of thing (and each individual thing). |
| 8481 | The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard [Abelard, by Orenstein] |
| Full Idea: The de dicto-de re modality distinction dates back to Abelard. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: Most modern philosophers couldn't (apparently) care less where a concept originated, but one of the principles of this database is that such things do matter. I'm not sure why, but if we want the whole picture, we need the historical picture. |
| 18618 | Maybe possibilities are recombinations of the existing elements of reality [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It has been suggested that we could think of possibilities as recombinations of all the existing elements of reality. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: [Armstrong 1989 is the source] The obvious problem would be that the existence of an entirely different reality would be impossible, if this was all possibility could be. It seems to cramp the style of the possible too much. Are properties elements? |
| 18619 | Combinatorial possibility has to allow all elements to be combinable, which seems unlikely [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The combinatorial account only works if you allow that the elements are recombinable. ...But could Lincoln really have been green? It seems possible that you could jump to the moon, unless we impose some restrictions. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: Mumford suggests different combination rules for logical and natural possibility. The general objection is that combinatorial possibility is too permissive - which it clearly is. |
| 18620 | Combinatorial possibility relies on what actually exists (even over time), but there could be more [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Can combinatorial possibility deliver enough possibilities? It uses the existing elements, but there might have been one more particular or one more property. Even extended over time, the elements seem finite, yet there could have been more. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Metaphysics: a very short introduction [2012], 8) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] One objection is that the theory allows too much, and now the objection is that it allows too little. Both objections are correct, so that's the end of that. But I admire the attempt to base modality on actuality. |
| 14309 | Truth-functional conditionals can't distinguish whether they are causal or accidental [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If a conditional remains truth-functional it is incapable of expressing the fact that the connection between antecedent and consequent in the conditional is a causal one rather than merely accidental | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.8) | |
| A reaction: This is the first step towards an account of conditionals which will work in real life rather than merely in classical logic. |
| 14311 | Dispositions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The conclusion that disposition ascriptions are not equivalent to stronger-than-material conditionals is largely to be accepted. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 04.7) | |
| A reaction: [he attributes the view to C.B.Martin 1994] It is hard to see how to describe a disposition in anything other than conditional terms. Mumford's 'functional role' probably has to be described conditionally. It is how the conditional cashes out. |
| 2745 | A pupil who lacks confidence may clearly know something but not be certain of it [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Why isn't certainty required for knowledge? Because we are often prepared to allow that someone does in fact have knowledge when the person is so uncertain they would not claim knowledge for themselves (the 'diffident schoolboy'). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.1) |
| 2755 | If senses are fallible, then being open to correction is an epistemological virtue [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: In my view, once we admit that our beliefs about our sensory states are not infallible, incorrigibility would be a vice rather than a virtue. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be axiomatic among modern philosophers, and I certainly agree with it. |
| 5677 | Naïve direct realists hold that objects retain all of their properties when unperceived [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The naïve direct realist holds that unperceived objects are able to retain properties of all the types we perceive them as having, which includes not only a shape and a size, but also a colour, a taste and a smell. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a completely untenable view, if we are including the qualia of red, sweet or pungent among the properties. It seems uncontroversial that objects retain the capacity to cause redness etc. when they are unperceived. |
| 5678 | Scientific direct realism says we know some properties of objects directly [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The scientific direct realist accepts the directness of our perception of the world, but restricts his realism to a special group of properties, ..not including those which are dependent for their existence upon the existence of a perceiver. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Dancy goes on to say that this distinction is a 'close relative' of Locke's primary/secondary distinction. Am I a direct realist or a representative realist about primary properties? Maybe the distinction dissolves as we unravel the true process. |
| 5681 | Maybe we are forced from direct into indirect realism by the need to explain perceptual error [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Direct realism is unlikely to be able to provide an explanation of perceptual error without collapsing into indirect realism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: If there is an error, there must be two things which don't match: the perception, and the reality. This seems to me a powerful reason for preferring indirect or representative realism. I like the idea that we make mental 'models' (rather than inferences). |
| 5682 | Internal realism holds that we perceive physical objects via mental objects [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Indirect realism holds that in perception we are indirectly aware of the physical objects around us in virtue of a direct awareness of internal, non-physical objects. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This may be a slightly prejudicial definition which invites insoluble questions about the ontological status of the internal 'objects'. It seems to me obvious that we create some sort of inner 'models' or constructions in the process of perception. |
| 5683 | Indirect realism depends on introspection, the time-lag, illusions, and neuroscience [Dancy,J, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The four standard reasons for preferring indirect to direct realism are introspection of our mental processes, the time-lag argument, the argument from illusion, and the findings of neuroscience. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: Ultimately one's views about realism depend on one's views of the mind/brain, and it is the last of the four reasons that sways me. We know enough about the complexity of the brain to accept that it represents reality, with no additional ontology. |
| 2778 | Phenomenalism includes possible experiences, but idealism only refers to actual experiences [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Phenomenalism talks about actual and possible experiences, whereas idealism confines itself to the actual experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) |
| 5684 | Eliminative idealists say there are no objects; reductive idealists say objects exist as complex experiences [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The eliminativist idealist holds that there is no such thing as a material object; there is nothing but experience (idea, sensation). The reductive idealist holds that there are material objects, but they are nothing other than complexes of experience. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Dancy says Berkeley was of the latter type. The distinction doesn't strike me as entirely clear. I can't make much sense of the words 'are' or 'exist' in the second theory. To say it is only experiences translates (to me) as 'doesn't exist'. |
| 2777 | Extreme solipsism only concerns current experience, but it might include past and future [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Extreme solipsism only considers present experiences, but more relaxed solipsism may include past and possible future experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) |
| 2794 | Knowing that a cow is not a horse seems to be a synthetic a priori truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The fact that a cow is not a horse is a candidate for a priori synthetic truth. It doesn't seem to be analytic, because you can know what a cow is without knowing what a horse is. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 14.3) |
| 2780 | Perception is either direct realism, indirect realism, or phenomenalism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: There are three main families of theories of perception: direct realism, indirect realism, and phenomenalism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 5679 | We can't grasp the separation of quality types, or what a primary-quality world would be like [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: There is doubt about whether our experience of the world is such that we can conceive of the sort of separation of primary and secondary qualities which the scientific view calls for, and can understand what the world is like with no secondary qualities. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: Dancy attributes these doubts to Berkeley (e.g. Idea 3837). I think what is claimed here is false. Obviously we spend our whole lives immersed in secondary qualities, but separating the different aspects is precisely what scientists (and philosophers) do. |
| 5680 | For direct realists the secondary and primary qualities seem equally direct [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: For a direct realist our awareness of colour and heat can hardly be of a different order from our awareness of shape and size. Both sorts of properties are presented with equal directness. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a good objection to 'direct scientific realism', which claims direct apprehension of primary qualities alongside a totally relative view of secondary qualities. The best response seems to be to move to a representative view of primary properties. |
| 2782 | We can be looking at distant stars which no longer actually exist [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An object such as a distant star can have ceased to exist by the moment at which we are directly aware of it. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 10.2) |
| 2775 | It is not clear from the nature of sense data whether we should accept them as facts [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The question whether something which appears as datum should remain as accepted fact is one which is not even partially determined by its origin as datum. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.5) |
| 2784 | Appearances don't guarantee reality, unless the appearance is actually caused by the reality [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If I stare at a white wall with my brain wired to a virtual reality computer, and it generates a white wall, we wouldn't say I am seeing reality. It seems that the wall itself must in some way cause my perception of it. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: But suppose the computer generated in my mind an image of the wall which was actually in front of me? And suppose the computer got its image from the identical wall next door, not from mine? And it was only judged identical because the architect said so |
| 2785 | Perceptual beliefs may be directly caused, but generalisations can't be [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: A perceptual belief that p can have as its main cause the fact that p. More general facts (all men are mortal; e=mc2) cannot be the main cause of my belief, even if they do function causally in some way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.5) | |
| A reaction: Note that the perceptual belief can be the "main" cause; it seems to me that most beliefs are caused by judgements, though I may normally accept beliefs which are directly caused by perception, if I have no reason to challenge them. |
| 2788 | If perception and memory are indirect, then two things stand between mind and reality [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If perception is indirect as well as memory, this means there are two direct objects of awareness between the remembering mind and the original object. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.2) |
| 2787 | Memories aren't directly about the past, because time-lags and illusions suggest representation [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Direct realism about memory believes the memory is the past. But the time-lag argument and various illusions are powerful here, suggesting indirect realism involving a memory image. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.2) |
| 2791 | Phenomenalism about memory denies the past, or reduces it to present experience [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Eliminative phenomenalism about memory holds that there is no such thing as the past, just certain present experiences; reductive phenomenalism holds that there is a past, but it is no more than a complex of those present experiences. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.4) |
| 2790 | I can remember plans about the future, and images aren't essential (2+3=5) [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Memory is not solely concerned with the past, let alone one's own past (I remember that I must be in London next week), and need not involve images (2+2=4). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: I can hardly remember the future, so I presume I am remembering my past commitment to go to London, even if I visualise the future with me in London. The non-necessity of images seems right. I can remember the Mona Lisa without a precise image. |
| 2754 | Foundations are justified by non-beliefs, or circularly, or they need no justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalism can get rid of the regress argument with one of three types of belief: those justified by something other than beliefs, those which justify themselves, or those which need no justification. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear trilemma, and none of them will do, which is why foundationalism is false. I vote for Davidson's view, that only a belief can justify another belief. |
| 2749 | For internalists we must actually know that the fact caused the belief [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The internalist would claim that even if the belief is caused by the true fact to which it refers, it is also necessary that the believer believes that this is how their belief arose, and not some other way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm converted to internalism. If the belief is externally supported in the right way, then it may well be a true belief, but knowledge needs critical faculties, and justifications which can be articulated. |
| 2770 | Internalists tend to favour coherent justification, but not the coherence theory of truth [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Internalists such as Keith Lehrer tend to suggest that we adopt a coherence theory of justification but reject the coherence theory of truth. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: I agree with Lehrer. Truth just isn't coherence, for all sorts of well known reasons (found in this database!). High coherence can be totally false. For justification, though, it is the best we have. |
| 2752 | Foundationalism requires inferential and non-inferential justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The core of any form of foundationalism is the view that there are two forms of justification - inferential and non-inferential - and that non-inferential justification must be possible to avoid a sceptical regress. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The foundation may be non-inferential, but is it also non-evidential, or devoid of any support at all, apart from its own eloquent self? I can't buy that, I'm afraid. |
| 2771 | Foundationalists must accept not only the basic beliefs, but also rules of inference for further progress [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Foundationalists suppose we need not only basic beliefs, but also principles of inference to move to the more sophisticated superstructure. We may understand what justifies the basic beliefs, but what about the inference principles? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: Very nice question. Of course, you can't justify everything, but each part of a system can be scrutinised in turn by the other parts (with scrutinising principles tested pragmatically). |
| 2756 | If basic beliefs can be false, falsehood in non-basic beliefs might by a symptom [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Falsehood in a non-basic belief would be a reason to doubt the basic beliefs which support it, once we have admitted that basic beliefs can be false. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: The yearning for foundations arises from the yearning for certainty. If one embraces the fallibilist view of knowledge, as I do, then there is little motivation for foundationalism. |
| 2753 | Beliefs can only be infallible by having almost no content [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Infallible beliefs must have vanishingly small content. No belief with enough content to support the superstructure in which we are really interested is going to be infallible. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: I see no reason why a foundationalist should not be a fallibilist, rather than insisting on the infallibility of their basic beliefs. I don't, though, see how basic beliefs can count as knowledge. |
| 2773 | Coherentism gives a possible justification of induction, and opposes scepticism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Coherentists feel that their approach provides a possible justification for induction, and offers a general stance from which the sceptic can be defused, if not rebutted. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: These are two good reasons why I vote for coherentism (about justification, NOT about truth). Coherence is the main tool for leading us to the best explanation. |
| 2779 | Idealists must be coherentists, but coherentists needn't be idealists [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An idealist should perhaps be a coherentist, but there seems to be no reason why the coherentist should be an idealist; the link between the two is all one-way. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.5) | |
| A reaction: I don't see why an idealist shouldn't be a rationalist foundationalist, with a private reality full of certainties founded on simple a priori truths. Personally I'm an empiricist coherentist, this week. |
| 2786 | For coherentists justification and truth are not radically different things [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The coherentist idea is that justification and truth are not properties of radically different types. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 11.6) | |
| A reaction: Oh. And I thought I was a coherentist. It take it that keeping coherence for foundations separate from coherence as truth is absolutely basic. The latter is nonsense. |
| 2767 | If it is empirical propositions which have to be coherent, this eliminates coherent fiction [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: If coherence is grounded in, and is trying to make sense of, a set of empirical propositions, this will eliminate some of the more fanciful sets of coherent propositions, such as the complete Sherlock Holmes stories. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, I suspect that embracing the coherence view of justification drives one back to empiricisim (pace Bonjour), because that is the most authoritative part of the pattern of beliefs. |
| 2776 | Externalism could even make belief unnecessary (e.g. in animals) [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: One reading of the externalist approach may lead to a rejection of the belief condition for knowledge (in animals, perhaps). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: At this point the concept of 'knowledge' seems to disperse into the mist. This pushes me to a 'setting the bar high' view of knowledge. Otherwise plants will have it, and we don't want that. |
| 2746 | How can a causal theory of justification show that all men die? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: How can a causal analysis of justification show that I know that all men die? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I presume he means that inductive generalisations can't be purely causal. The claim that men are immortal is absurd because it is 'unconnected' to what actually happens. |
| 2747 | Causal theories don't allow for errors in justification [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Causal accounts of justification do not allow for the possibility that a false belief may still be justified. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Good. If you switch to what you only think is the cause of your belief, you have gone internalist and ruined the party. You can't deny that a falsehood can be justified, or justification is vacuous. |
| 2772 | Coherentism moves us towards a more social, shared view of knowledge [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: An advantage of coherentism is that it directs attention away from the individual's struggle to achieve knowledge (the classical conception), and points to knowledge as a social phenomenon, shared, and increased by means of sharing. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 8.3) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly the view which I now embrace. Internal coherence is the basis, but that spills out into the community, and into books, and into the relativity of social acceptance. |
| 2743 | What is the point of arguing against knowledge, if being right undermines your own argument? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: What is the point of arguing that justified belief is impossible, for if you were right there could be no reasons for your conclusion? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 1.3) |
| 2751 | Probabilities can only be assessed relative to some evidence [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: In Probability Calculus probability is only assessed relative to some evidence. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 4.1) |
| 14319 | Nomothetic explanations cite laws, and structural explanations cite mechanisms [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A nomothetic explanation appeals to laws where the explanandum is shown to be an instance of a general law. ...The alternative is a structural explanation, which postulates a mechanism, opening up a hidden world. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites E.McMullin 1978] I am very much in favour of structural explanations, and opposed to nomothetic ones. That is, nomothetic accounts are only the first step towards an explanation - perhaps a mere identification of the explanandum. |
| 14342 | General laws depend upon the capacities of particulars, not the other way around [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws, qua true generalities, if they exist at all, are ontologically parasitic upon the capacities of particulars, rather than the other way round. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. And hence trying to explain a particular behaviour by saying that it falls under a law is absurdly circular and vacuous. |
| 14322 | If fragile just means 'breaks when dropped', it won't explain a breakage [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If fragile means nothing more than 'breaks when dropped', then it is no explanation of why something breaks when dropped. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: His point is that you have to unpack the notion of fragile, which presumably cites underlying mechanisms. This is the 'virtus dormitiva' problem - but that explanation of opium's dormitive powers is not entirely stupid. |
| 14337 | Maybe dispositions can replace the 'laws of nature' as the basis of explanation [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: I will consider the case for an ontology of real dispositions replacing the so-called laws of nature as the basic building blocks of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This precisely summarises the view I am exploring, with a particular focus on real essences. I certainly think the 'laws of nature' must go. See Mumford's second book on this. |
| 14343 | To avoid a regress in explanations, ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The nature of explanation is such that ungrounded dispositions will always have to be posited in order to avoid a regress of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be right, but leaves it open to mock the proposals as 'virtus dormitiva' - empty place-holders that ground explanations but do no explanatory work. What else can be done, though? |
| 14320 | Subatomic particles may terminate explanation, if they lack structure [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The behaviour of subatomic particles cannot be further analysed into structures and this may tempt us to regard these as instances of 'brute' ungrounded dispositions which end any possible regress of explanation. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, if it is 'structural' explanations we are after (as I think we are) which look for mechanisms. An electron seems to be just three dispositions and no structure, so there is nothing more to say. Ladyman scorns this account. |
| 14324 | Ontology is unrelated to explanation, which concerns modes of presentation and states of knowledge [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Nothing about ontology is at stake in questions of explanation, for explanatory success is contingent upon the modes of presentation of explanans and explananda, and relative states of knowledge and ignorance. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 06.8) | |
| A reaction: There are real facts about the immediate and unusual causes which immediately precede an event, and these might be candidates for a real explanation. There are also real mechanisms and powers which dictate a things behaviour. |
| 2757 | The argument from analogy rests on one instance alone [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: As an inductive argument Mill's argument from analogy (other people have inputs and outputs like mine, so the intermediate explanation must be the same) is weak because it is based on a single instance. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: The argument may be 'weak' as a piece of pure logic, but when faced with a strange situation, one's own case seems like crucial evidence, like a single eye-witness to a crime. |
| 2758 | You can't separate mind and behaviour, as the analogy argument attempts [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The analogy argument makes the error (as Wittgenstein showed) of assuming that mind is quite separate from behaviour, and yet I can understand what it is for others to have mental states, which is contradictory. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me that Wittgenstein is excessively behaviourist, and he always seems to be flirting with eliminative views of mind, so he was never bothered about other minds. Minds aren't separate from behaviour, but they are distinct. |
| 15385 | Abelard's problem is the purely singular aspects of things won't account for abstraction [Panaccio on Abelard] |
| Full Idea: Abelard's problem is that it is not clear how singular forms could do the job they are supposed to do - to account for abstraction, namely - if they were purely singular aspects. | |
| From: comment on Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
| A reaction: A very nice question! If we say that abstracta are just acquired by ignoring all but that feature in some objects, how do we identify 'that' feature in order to select it? The instances must share something in common to be abstracted. |
| 2744 | Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Verificationism (the 'verification principle') is an earlier form of anti-realism. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 1.note) | |
| A reaction: If the one true God announced that there is a real world out there, I might take that as a verification of the fact. |
| 2760 | Logical positivism implies foundationalism, by dividing weak from strong verifications [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: The foundationalist claim that there are inferential and non-inferential justifications is mirrored by the claim of logical empiricism (the verification principle) that all significant statements are either strongly or weakly verifiable. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I take it to be characteristic of both to divide the support for something into two types, one of which is basic, and the other built up on the basics. The first step is to decide what is basic. |
| 2761 | If the meanings of sentences depend on other sentences, how did we learn language? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: It is clearly possible to learn a language from scratch, because we have all done it, but if holism is true and the meaning of each sentence depends on the meanings of others, how did we do it? | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: The question of 'how did it ever get started?' actually seems to block almost every explanation of everything that ever happens. How do I begin to move my hand? |
| 15383 | Nothing external can truly be predicated of an object [Abelard, by Panaccio] |
| Full Idea: Abelard argued from the commonly accepted definition of a universal as 'what can be predicated of man', that no external thing can ever be predicated of anything. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'Peter' | |
| A reaction: It sounds to me as if Abelard is confusing predicates with properties! Maybe no external can be a property of anything, but I take predicates to just be part of what you can say about anything, and that had better included external facts. |
| 2763 | There is an indeterminacy in juggling apparent meanings against probable beliefs [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Indeterminacy stems from an interplay between belief and meaning, as with a man who tells you he keeps two rhinoceri in the fridge and squeezes the juice of one for a drink each morning. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: I don't understand why an 'interplay' is called an 'indeterminacy'. Typical philosophers. Close examination will usually show whether the change is just in belief, or just in meaning, or in both. |
| 2762 | Charity makes native beliefs largely true, and Humanity makes them similar to ours [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: One criterion for successful translation is that it show native beliefs to be largely true (Principle of Charity), and another is that it imputes to natives beliefs we can make sense of them having (Principle of Humanity). | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intro to Contemporary Epistemology [1985], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: The trouble with such guidelines is that they always have to be 'all things being equal'. Sometimes the natives are really idiotic, and sometimes their attitudes seem quite inhuman. |
| 7260 | If there are intuited moral facts, why should we care about them? [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: Critics asked (of intuitionism) why, if moral facts are as the intuitionists say, we should care about them at all. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intuitionism [1991]) | |
| A reaction: It is a good question, as we don't care much about other a priori truths, such as the square root of 169. |
| 7261 | Internalists say that moral intuitions are motivating; externalist say a desire is also needed [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: There is an internalist view of intuitionism, saying that to accept that one's action is wrong is itself to be motivated not to do it. Externalists (like Ross) say that moral judgements need the help of an independent desire to motivate us. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intuitionism [1991]) | |
| A reaction: The internalists would be closer to Kant or Plato (for whom reason or pure ideas motivate), while externalist would favour Hume's belief/desire account of human actions. I like Kant and Plato, but Hume is more plausible. Dancy disagrees (Idea 7262). |
| 7262 | Obviously judging an action as wrong gives us a reason not to do it [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: It is ludicrous to say that we might accept an action is outrageously wrong and still think of this as not in itself giving us good reason to hold back. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intuitionism [1991]) | |
| A reaction: If we think of some dreadful man-made famine in a remote continent, our judgement may well give a reason to act, but apathy usually intervenes. We are discussing a purely theoretical motive on the one hand, and an actual motivator on the other. |
| 7265 | Moral facts are not perceived facts, but perceived reasons for judgements [Dancy,J] |
| Full Idea: I intend to suggest that moral facts are best thought of not as facts perceived but as reasons recognised in the exercise of practical moral judgement. | |
| From: Jonathan Dancy (Intuitionism [1991]) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced by this modified version. Why should the fact that someone is in pain be, in itself, a reason to prevent it? There are different cultural traditions for response to the pain of others. We are the squeamish tradition. |
| 18681 | The base for values has grounds, catalysts and intensifiers [Dancy,J, by Orsi] |
| Full Idea: Dancy distinguishes three parts of the supervenience base of values: 1) those which ground the value ('resultance base'); 2) those which enable the ground to make something good ('enabling conditions'); 3) those which intensify or diminish value. | |
| From: report of Jonathan Dancy (Ethics without Principles [2004], p. 170-181) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 5.2 | |
| A reaction: I really like and admire this. Dancy has focused on what really matters about values (and hence about the whole of ethics), and begun the work of getting a bit of clarity and increased understanding. |
| 14344 | Natural kinds, such as electrons, all behave the same way because we divide them by dispositions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Regularities exist because we classify kinds on the basis of their dispositions, not on pre-established divisions of kinds. The dispositions are the basis for the division into kinds, which is why all electrons behave in the same way. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.7) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as being so obvious that it is hardly worth saying, and yet an enormous number of philosophers seem to have been led up the garden path by the notion of a 'kind', probably under the influence of Kripke, Putnam and Wiggins. |
| 10398 | Natural kinds are not special; they are just well-defined resemblance collections [Abelard, by King,P] |
| Full Idea: In Abelard's view a natural kind is a well-defined collection of things that have the same features, so that natural kinds have no special status, being no more than discrete integral wholes whose principle of membership is similarity. | |
| From: report of Peter Abelard (works [1135]) by Peter King - Peter Abelard 2 | |
| A reaction: I take a natural kind to be a completely stable and invariant class of things. Presumably this invariance has an underlying explanation, but Abelard seems to take the Humean line that we cannot penetrate beyond the experienced surface. |
| 19068 | Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Like Aristotle, the reason we are really interested in causation is because we want to be able to explain change. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian themes [2014], 8) | |
| A reaction: This pinpoints a very important and simple idea. It raises the question (among others) of whether we have just invented this thing called 'causation', because no explanation of change was visible. Hume certainly couldn't see any explanation. |
| 9430 | Singular causes, and identities, might be necessary without falling under a law [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: One might have a singularist view of causation in which a cause necessitates its effect, but they need not be subsumed under a law, ..and there are identities which are metaphysically necessary without being laws of nature. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 04.5) |
| 9445 | We can give up the counterfactual account if we take causal language at face value [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If we take causal language at face value and give up reducing causal concepts to non-causal, non-modal concepts, we can give up the counterfactual dependence account. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.5) |
| 9443 | It is only properties which are the source of necessity in the world [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If laws do not give the world necessity, what does? I argue the positive case for it being properties, and properties alone, that do the job (so we might call them 'modal properties'). | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.1) |
| 14338 | In the 'laws' view events are basic, and properties are categorical, only existing when manifested [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: In the 'laws' world view, events are the basic ontological unit and properties are parasitic upon them. Properties exist only in virtue of their instantiation in events. Properties are categorical, because they are only manifested in the present. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: Mumford rejects this view, and I am with him all the way. The first requirement is that properties be active, and not inert. See Leibniz on this. |
| 9444 | There are four candidates for the logical form of law statements [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The contenders for the logical form of a law statement are 1) a universally quantified conditional, 2) a second-order relation between first-order universals, 3) a functional equivalence, and 4) a dispositional characteristic of a natural kind. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 10.3) |
| 14339 | Without laws, how can a dispositionalist explain general behaviour within kinds? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The problem is how, without general laws, can the dispositionalist explain why generalities in behaviour are true of kinds. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: And the answer is to make kinds depend on individuals, and not vice versa, and then point to the necessary patterns that arise from conjunctions of individual dispositions, given their identity in many individuals. |
| 14341 | Dretske and Armstrong base laws on regularities between individual properties, not between events [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The improved Dretske/Armstrong regularity view of laws dispenses with the empiricist articulation of them in terms of events, and construes them as singular statements of fact that describe relations between properties. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: They then seem to go a bit mystical, by insisting that the properties are 'universals' (even if they have to be instantiated). Universals explain nothing. |
| 9441 | Regularity laws don't explain, because they have no governing role [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: A regularity-law does not explain its instances, because such laws play no role in determining or governing their instances. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.7) | |
| A reaction: Good. It has always seemed to me entirely vacuous to explain an event simply by saying that it falls under some law. |
| 14340 | It is a regularity that whenever a person sneezes, someone (somewhere) promptly coughs [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It is no doubt a true regularity that every time I sneeze, someone, somewhere in the world, immediately coughs. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: Not a huge problem for the regularity theory of laws, but the first challenge that it must meet. |
| 9431 | Pure regularities are rare, usually only found in idealized conditions [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Pure regularities are not nearly as common as might have been thought, and are usually only to be found in simplified or idealized conditions. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Nancy Cartwright 1999 for this view] |
| 9416 | Regularities are more likely with few instances, and guaranteed with no instances! [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems that the fewer the instances, the more likely it is that there be a regularity, ..and if there are no cases at all, and no S is P, that is a regularity. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: [He attributes the second point to Molnar] |
| 9415 | Would it count as a regularity if the only five As were also B? [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: While it might be true that for all x, if Ax then Bx, would we really want to count it as a genuine regularity in nature if only five things were A (and all five were also B)? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.3) |
| 9422 | If the best system describes a nomological system, the laws are in nature, not in the description [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If the world really does have its own nomological structure, that a systematization merely describes, why are the laws not to be equated with the nomological structure itself, rather than with the system that describes it? | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) |
| 9421 | The best systems theory says regularities derive from laws, rather than constituting them [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The best systems theory (of Mill-Ramsey-Lewis) says that laws are not seen as regularities but, rather, as those things from which regularities - or rather, the whole world history including the regularities and everything else - can be derived. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: Put this way, the theory invites questions about ontology. Regularities are just patterns in physical reality, but axioms are propositions. So are they just features of human thought, or do these axioms actuallyr reside in reality. Too weak or too strong. |
| 9432 | Laws of nature are necessary relations between universal properties, rather than about particulars [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The core of the Dretske-Tooley-Armstrong view of the late 70s is that we have a law of nature when we have a relation of natural necessitation between universals. ..The innovation was that laws are about properties, and only indirectly about particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: It sounds as if we should then be able to know the laws of nature a priori, since that was Russell's 1912 definition of a priori knowledge. |
| 9433 | If laws can be uninstantiated, this favours the view of them as connecting universals [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If there are laws that are instantiated in no particulars, then this would seem to favour the theory that laws connect universals rather than particulars. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: There is a dispute here between the Platonic view of uninstantiated universals (Tooley) and the Aristotelian instantiated view (Armstrong). Mumford and I prefer the dispositional account. |
| 14345 | The necessity of an electron being an electron is conceptual, and won't ground necessary laws [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The logical necessity of physical laws is not required by dispositional essentialism. An electron would not be an electron if its behaviour were different from the behaviour it has in the actual world, but this necessity is purely conceptual. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 10.8) | |
| A reaction: [He is particularly aiming this at Ellis and Lierse 1994] This may be missing the point. Given those electron dispositions, the electrons necessitate law-like happenings. Whether a variable entity is called an 'electron' is trivial. |
| 9434 | Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: If dispositional essentialism is granted, then there is a law of nature wherever there is an essential property of a natural kind; laws are just the havings of essential properties by natural kinds. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: [He is expounding Ellis's view] |
| 14307 | Some dispositions are so far unknown, until we learn how to manifest them [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: It seems reasonable to assume that there are some dispositions of some things of which we are not aware because we have not yet discovered the way to get these dispositions to manifest. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.7) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty good description of what scientists are currently doing when, for example, they build a new particle accelerator. |
| 9437 | To distinguish accidental from essential properties, we must include possible members of kinds [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Where properties are possessed by all kind members, we must distinguish the accidental from essential ones by considering all actual and possible kind members. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This is why we must treat possibilities as features of the actual world. |
| 9439 | The Central Dilemma is how to explain an internal or external view of laws which govern [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: The Central Dilemma about laws of nature is that, if they have some governing role, then they must be internal or external to the things governed, and it is hard to give a plausible account of either view. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 09.2) | |
| A reaction: This dilemma is the basis of Mumford's total rejection of 'laws of nature'. I think I agree. |
| 9412 | You only need laws if you (erroneously) think the world is otherwise inert [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws are a solution to a problem that was misconceived. Only if you think that the world would be otherwise inactive or inanimate, do you have the need to add laws to your ontology. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a bold and extreme view - and I agree with it. I consider laws to be quite a useful concept when discussing nature, but they are not part of the ontology, and they don't do any work. They are metaphysically hopeless. |
| 9411 | There are no laws of nature in Aristotle; they became standard with Descartes and Newton [Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Laws do not appear in Aristotle's metaphysics, and it wasn't until Descartes and Newton that laws entered the intellectual mainstream. | |
| From: Stephen Mumford (Laws in Nature [2004], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 5470. |