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Single Idea 5456

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties ]

Full Idea

Redness is not a property, because it has no mind-independent existence.

Gist of Idea

Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent

Source

Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3)

Book Ref

Ellis,Brian: 'The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism' [Acumen 2002], p.43

A Reaction

Well said. Secondary qualities are routinely cited in discussions of properties, and they shouldn't be. Redness causes nothing to happen in the physical world, unless a consciousness experiences it.

The 107 ideas from Brian Ellis

6616 Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis]
6612 Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis]
6615 A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis]
6614 A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis]
6613 The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis]
23781 Categoricals exist to influence powers. Such as structures, orientations and magnitudes [Ellis, by Williams,NE]
12665 I support categorical properties, although most people only want causal powers [Ellis]
12667 Metaphysics aims at the simplest explanation, without regard to testability [Ellis]
12666 We can base logic on acceptability, and abandon the Fregean account by truth-preservation [Ellis]
12668 Metaphysical necessity holds between things in the world and things they make true [Ellis]
12670 A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis]
12669 Science aims to explain things, not just describe them [Ellis]
12672 Properties and relations are discovered, so they can't be mere sets of individuals [Ellis]
12673 Physical properties are those relevant to how a physical system might act [Ellis]
12671 I deny forces as entities that intervene in causation, but are not themselves causal [Ellis]
12674 Energy is the key multi-valued property, vital to scientific realism [Ellis]
12675 Laws of nature are just descriptions of how things are disposed to behave [Ellis]
12676 Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis]
12682 Essentialism needs categorical properties (spatiotemporal and numerical relations) and dispositions [Ellis]
12684 Spatial, temporal and numerical relations have causal roles, without being causal [Ellis]
12683 Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
12679 A real essence is a kind's distinctive properties [Ellis]
12681 There are natural kinds of processes [Ellis]
12680 Natural kind structures go right down to the bottom level [Ellis]
12685 Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis]
12686 Causal powers are a proper subset of the dispositional properties [Ellis]
12687 Metaphysical necessities are those depending on the essential nature of things [Ellis]
12688 Mathematics is the formal study of the categorical dimensions of things [Ellis]
12689 Simultaneity can be temporal equidistance from the Big Bang [Ellis]
12690 The present is the collapse of the light wavefront from the Big Bang [Ellis]
5442 For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis]
5445 Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis]
5443 Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis]
5444 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis]
5447 Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis]
5448 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis]
5446 For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis]
5460 Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis]
5459 Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis]
5461 The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis]
5462 Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis]
5453 Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis]
5457 Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG]
5456 Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis]
5458 Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis]
5468 Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG]
5469 The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis]
5466 Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis]
5464 For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis]
5463 Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis]
5473 The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis]
5474 Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis]
5475 We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis]
5471 Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis]
5472 Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis]
5477 One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis]
5479 Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis]
5476 Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis]
5478 Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis]
5480 The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis]
5491 A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis]
5487 Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis]
5486 Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis]
5482 Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis]
5483 Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis]
5481 Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis]
5488 Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis]
5489 Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis]
5490 Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis]
5484 Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis]
5485 Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis]
18398 Space, time, and some other basics, are not causal powers [Ellis]
13568 Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis]
13567 Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis]
13569 To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis]
13570 Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis]
13571 Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis]
13566 A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis]
13573 Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis]
13572 There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis]
13574 Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis]
13575 If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis]
13576 Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis]
13577 Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis]
13578 The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis]
13579 What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis]
13581 Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis]
13580 Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis]
13582 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis]
13583 There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis]
13584 The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis]
13585 The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis]
13586 Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis]
13587 There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis]
13596 A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis]
13595 Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis]
13594 The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis]
13599 Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis]
13598 Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis]
13597 Good explanations unify [Ellis]
13600 The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis]
13601 Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis]
13604 Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis]
13603 A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis]
9436 The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis]
13606 Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis]
13607 If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis]