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Full Idea
Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy; their world shrinks to one in which it takes centre stage.
Gist of Idea
Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy
Source
Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10)
Book Ref
Fine,Kit: 'Modality and Tense' [OUP 2005], p.10
A Reaction
A wonderfully accurate observation, I'm afraid. You can trace the entire history of the subject as a wave of obsessions with exciting new ideas. Fine is referring to a posteriori necessities and possible worlds.
| 9200 | Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K] |
| 9202 | Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K] |
| 9205 | The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K] |
| 9206 | We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K] |
| 9208 | Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K] |
| 9209 | Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K] |
| 9207 | If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K] |
| 9210 | Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K] |
| 9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |