12 ideas
| 20349 | Metaphysics aims at the essence of things, and a system to show how this explains other truths [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The core of metaphysics is an account of the 'essence' or 'being' of things. ...And metaphysics needs system, to show how these primary truths reach out into all the other truths, to help us see that, and how, they are true. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I like the phrase 'the essential nature' of things, because it doesn't invoke rather dodgy entities called 'essences', but everyone understands the idea of focusing on what is essential, and on things having a distinct 'nature'. |
| 20351 | Metaphysics needs systems, because analysis just obsesses over details [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics makes system a virtue, contrary to the tendency of analysis, which breaks a problem into ever finer parts and then absorbs itself in these. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, because it seems to rule out analytic metaphysics. I prefer Bertrand Russell's view. Admittedly analysis oftens gets stuck in the bog, especially if it hopes for salvation in logic, only to discover its certainties endlessly receding. |
| 20350 | Metaphysics generalises the data, to get at the ontology [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: The evidence lies at the periphery of the [metaphysical] system and runs in from there, through decreasingly specific accounts of the data, to the central ontology. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Philosophy is the study of high level generalisations, IMHO. Studying them means studying the reasons for asserting them. Richardson puts it very nicely. |
| 2534 | Mindless bodies are zombies, bodiless minds are ghosts [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: When bodies are conceived without mind, Zombies are the topic; when mind is conceived without bodies, Ghosts are the topic. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Personally I am not too impressed by either possibility. I doubt whether either of them are even logically possible. Can you have a magnet without its magnetism? Can you have magnetism with no magnet? |
| 2537 | Types are properties, and tokens are events. Are they split between mental and physical, or not? [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The question is whether mental and physical types (which are properties) are distinct, and whether mental and physical tokens (which are events) are distinct. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Helpful. While the first one gives us the rather dodgy notion of 'property dualism', the second one seems to imply Cartesian dualism, if the events really are distinct. It seems to me that thought is an aspect of brain events, not a distinct event. |
| 2532 | Intentionality isn't reducible, because of its experiential aspect [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The link between Aboutness and consciousness, plus the latter's theoretical recalcitrance, have prevented reduction of the former. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I remain unconvinced that Aboutness (intentionality) has to be wholly (or even partly conscious). We are more interested in our conscious mental states, because those are the ones we can report to other people, and discuss. |
| 2533 | Rule-following can't be reduced to the physical [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: If you can't squeeze an 'ought' from an 'is', then the feature of normativity will prevent the reduction of Aboutness. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A dubious argument. Hume's point is that no rational inference will get you from is to ought, but you can get there on a whim. I don't see normativity as being so intrinsically magical that it is irreducible. |
| 2535 | The main argument for physicalism is its simple account of causation [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: The dominant empirical argument for physicalism is the Overdetermination Argument: physics is closed and complete, mind is causally efficacious, the world isn't choc-full of overdetermination, so the mind is physical as well. | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I find this argument utterly convincing. The idea that there is only one thing which is outside the interconnected causal nexus which seems to constitute the rest of reality, and that is a piece of meat inside our heads, strikes me as totally ridiculous. |
| 2536 | Do facts cause thoughts, or embody them, or what? [Sturgeon] |
| Full Idea: Does a thought relate to its truth conditions like a tree to its age, a bee dance to its target, or smoke to its cause? | |
| From: Scott Sturgeon (Matters of Mind [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. Is truth the purpose of thoughts, or the cause of thoughts, or the constitution(?) of thoughts? I vote for the bee….but we mustn't confuse truth with truth-conditions. |
| 20356 | Humans dominate because, unlike other animals, they have a synthesis of conflicting drives [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: In contrast to the other animals, man has cultivated an abundance of contrary drives and impulses within himself: thanks to this synthesis, he is master of the earth. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §966) | |
| A reaction: If this is true, it presents the fundamental challenge of politicial philosophy - to visual a successful social system for a creature which does not have a clear and focused nature. For Nietzsche, this 'synthesis' continually evolves. |
| 20366 | A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson] |
| Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect. | |
| From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112) | |
| A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events. |
| 3029 | Stilpo said if Athena is a daughter of Zeus, then a statue is only the child of a sculptor, and so is not a god [Stilpo, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Stilpo asked a man whether Athena is the daughter of Zeus, and when he said yes, said,"But this statue of Athena by Phidias is the child of Phidias, so it is not a god." | |
| From: report of Stilpo (fragments/reports [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.10.5 |