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Single Idea 10745

[filed under theme 10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 5. Modality from Actuality ]

Full Idea

Natural science is up to its ears in modal notions because of its use of the concepts of disposition, causation and law.

Gist of Idea

Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law

Source

Alex Oliver (The Metaphysics of Properties [1996], §15)

Book Ref

-: 'Mind' [-], p.45

A Reaction

This is aimed at Quine. It might be possible for an auster physicist to dispense with these concepts, by merely describing patterns of observed behaviour.

The 29 ideas from Alex Oliver

10714 The expressions with properties as their meanings are predicates and abstract singular terms [Oliver]
10715 There are five main semantic theories for properties [Oliver]
10468 A metaphysics has an ontology (objects) and an ideology (expressed ideas about them) [Oliver]
10471 Ockham's Razor has more content if it says believe only in what is causal [Oliver]
10716 There are just as many properties as the laws require [Oliver]
10472 'Structural universals' methane and butane are made of the same universals, carbon and hydrogen [Oliver]
10720 We have four options, depending whether particulars and properties are sui generis or constructions [Oliver]
10721 If properties are sui generis, are they abstract or concrete? [Oliver]
10719 There are four conditions defining the relations between particulars and properties [Oliver]
10722 Instantiation is set-membership [Oliver]
10726 Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver]
10730 If universals ground similarities, what about uniquely instantiated universals? [Oliver]
10724 Located universals are wholly present in many places, and two can be in the same place [Oliver]
7963 Aristotle's instantiated universals cannot account for properties of abstract objects [Oliver]
7962 Uninstantiated properties are useful in philosophy [Oliver]
10727 Uninstantiated universals seem to exist if they themselves have properties [Oliver]
10725 Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver]
10739 The property of redness is the maximal set of the tropes of exactly similar redness [Oliver]
10741 Maybe concrete particulars are mereological wholes of abstract particulars [Oliver]
10738 Tropes are not properties, since they can't be instantiated twice [Oliver]
10740 The orthodox view does not allow for uninstantiated tropes [Oliver]
10742 Tropes can overlap, and shouldn't be splittable into parts [Oliver]
10745 Science is modally committed, to disposition, causation and law [Oliver]
10744 Nominalism can reject abstractions, or universals, or sets [Oliver]
10746 Conceptual priority is barely intelligible [Oliver]
10747 Accepting properties by ontological commitment tells you very little about them [Oliver]
10748 Reference is not the only way for a predicate to have ontological commitment [Oliver]
10749 Necessary truths seem to all have the same truth-maker [Oliver]
10750 Slingshot Argument: seems to prove that all sentences have the same truth-maker [Oliver]