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7 ideas
5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Scientific essentialists hold that one of the primary aims of science is to define the limits of the possible. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure working scientists will go along with that, but I like the claim that philosophy is very much part of the same enterprise as practical science (and NOT subservient to it!). I think of metaphysics as very high level physics. |
12191 | Counterfactuals are true if logical or natural laws imply the consequence [Goodman, by McFetridge] |
Full Idea: Goodman's central idea was: 'If that match had been scratched, it would have lighted' is true if there are suitable truths from which, with the antecedent, the consequent can be inferred by means of a logical, or more typically natural, law. | |
From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals [1947]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §4 | |
A reaction: Goodman then discusses the problem of identifying the natural laws, and identifying the suitable truths. I'm inclined to think counterfactuals are vaguer than that; they are plausible if coherent reasons can be offered for the inference. |
5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Essentialists are modal realists; ..what is really possible, they say, is what is compatible with the natures of things in this world (and this does not commit them to the existence of any world other than the actual world). | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: This introduces something like 'compatibilities' into our ontology. That must rest on some kind of idea of a 'natural contradiction'. We can discuss the possibilities resulting from essences, but what are the possible variations in the essences? |
5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Metaphysical necessities are propositions that are true in virtue of the essences of things. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: I am cautious about this. It sounds like huge Leibnizian metaphysical claims riding in on the back of a rather sensible new view of the laws of science. How can we justify equating natural necessity with metaphysical necessity? |
5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
Full Idea: Essentialists do not accept the standard position, which says necessity is a priori, and contingency is a posteriori. They have a radically new category: the necessary a posteriori. The laws of nature are, for example, both necessary and a posteriori. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: Based on Kripke. I'm cautious about this. Presumably God, who would know the essences, could therefore infer the laws a priori. The laws may follow of necessity from the essences, but the essences can't be known a posteriori to be necessary. |
5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The imaginability test of possibility confuses what is really or metaphysically possible with what is only epistemically possible. ..The latter is just what is possible for all we know. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) |
5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The main trouble with possible worlds realism is that the only reason anyone has, or ever could have, to believe in other possible worlds (other than this one) is that they are needed, apparently, to provide truth conditions for modals and conditionals. | |
From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: This attacks Lewis. Ellis makes this sound like a trivial technicality, but if our metaphysics is going to make sense it must cover modals and conditionals. What do they actually mean? Lewis has a theory, at least. |