Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Causality and Properties' and 'The Mind in Nature'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
One system has properties, powers, events, similarity and substance [Shoemaker]
     Full Idea: There is a system of internally related concepts containing the notion of a property, the notion of a causal power, the concept of an event, the concept of similarity, and the concept of a persisting substance.
     From: Sydney Shoemaker (Causality and Properties [1980], §07)
     A reaction: A nice example of a modern metaphysical system, one which I find fairly congenial. His notion of events is Kim's, which involves his properties. The persisting substance is the one I am least clear about.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB]
     Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions.
     From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6)
     A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics.