display all the ideas for this combination of texts
18 ideas
225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
15292 | We can base the idea of a natural kind on the mechanisms that produce natural necessity [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: Natural necessity involves the concept of generative mechanisms and powerful particulars, and these in turn can be the basis of a useful notion of a natural kind. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 7.V) | |
A reaction: Not sure about that. Say gold and silver are two kinds that lead to two outcomes. Each is a natural necessity. How do you distinguish them? Only by one being the gold-necessity and the other the silver-necessity. Circular? |
15299 | Species do not have enough constancy to be natural kinds [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: We know from biology that naturally occurring species do not exhibit the constancy required by the concept of natural kind. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 8.IV) | |
A reaction: This view has been challenged recently. How much constancy does a natural kind need? Even protons decay eventually, it seems. I think a natural kind just needs a fair degree of stability over a reasonable time-period. Tigers qualify. |
15253 | If the concept of a cause includes its usual effects, we call it a 'power' [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The concept of cause may come to include the concepts of its usual effects. Concepts of this character are used in science, and in common language, to ascribe powers. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II) | |
A reaction: See Theme 8|c|3 in Theme/Structure for more ideas about powers. It's hard to see how you could specify a cause at all if you weren't allowed to say what it does. I love powers, and want to make them the key idea in all of metaphysics. |
15278 | Humean accounts of causal direction by time fail, because cause and effect can occur together [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The Humean effort to ground the intuition of causal directionality on temporal priority of cause alone fails, because in fact some causes and effects are simultaneous. The moving of the knife and separation of the orange occur together. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV) | |
A reaction: Since I take causation to be largely concerned with movements of 'energy', this idea that cause and effect might be simultaneous sounds more like a matter of pragmatics and convention. Moving the knife and moving the orange are different. |
15246 | Active causal power is just objects at work, not something existing in itself [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The exercise of causal power is not a force or power that has some existence of its own but refers to forceful objects at work. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.II) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a behaviourist account of causation, which should make us a bit suspicious. Powers differ from one another. Does all causation have something universally in common? 'Energy' is a stab at the missing ingredient. |
15213 | Causation always involves particular productive things [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: Causation always involves a material particular which produces or generates something. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.I.A) | |
A reaction: I agree with this. My bete noire is the idea that causation somehow results from laws or general truths. That gets the whole thing the wrong way round. This idea is based on the notion of 'powers'. |
15217 | Efficient causes combine stimulus to individuals, absence of contraints on activity [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: Efficient causes comprise both the presence of stimuli which activate a quiescent individual, and the absence or removal of constraints upon an individual already in a state of activity. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.II.B) | |
A reaction: This is part of an account of causation in term of 'powers', with which I agree. Before you object, there is always going to be something about causation which is mind boggling weird, and probably leaves even God bewildered. |
15277 | The cause (or part of it) is what stimulates or releases the powerful particular thing involved [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: We can unambiguously differentiate the cause from the effect in that whatever stimulates or releases the action of the powerful particular involved in the causal production is the cause or part of the cause of that effect. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 6.IV) | |
A reaction: I have doubts about distinguishing stimulus from release, and they sensibly don't say they have a test for 'the' cause, but I roughly agree with this idea. I take 'the' cause to also be tied in with explanation. |
15237 | Originally Humeans based lawlike statements on pure qualities, without particulars [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The original Humean suggestion was that lawlike statements must contain only purely qualitative predicates - that is, predicates which do not require in a statement of their meaning a reference to any particular object or spatio-temporal location. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II) | |
A reaction: Harré and Madden are keen to promote particulars (with powers) as the foundation of scientific theory, and I agree with them. It strikes me as quite elementary that generalisations arise from particulars, so can't fundamentally explain them. |
15238 | Being lawlike seems to resist formal analysis, because there are always counter-examples [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The whole idea of a formal analysis of the concept of lawlikeness has come to seem hopeless; every syntactical criterion proposed has a counter-example. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II) | |
A reaction: They seem unaware of Lewis's work in this area, which may be the most sophisticated attempt at a (Humean) attempt at formal analysis. Personally I see nothing in Lewis that would make them change their minds. |
15223 | Necessary effects will follow from some general theory specifying powers and structure of a world [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: Given some general theory specifying the fundamental causal powers and thereby laying down the general lineaments of a world, the necessity of certain effects can be inferred. They will be 'hypothetically necessary' (given those powers). | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 1.III.B) | |
A reaction: This is a pretty good statement of the core idea of necessity at the heart of scientific essentialism. Are we to call this 'natural' necessity or 'metaphysical' necessity? Presumably it is 'relative' necessity. Big implications for induction! |
15241 | Humeans say there is no necessity in causation, because denying an effect is never self-contradictory [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: Humeans say there can be no element of necessity in the causal relation because the conjunction of a description of a cause with the negation of a description of its usual effect is never self-contradictory. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 3.I) | |
A reaction: We might say there actually is a contradiction, because you assert the existence of something, and then deny that existence by denying that the effect could occur. If the object is inert this is wrong, but if it is defined by its powers it is right. |
15240 | In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: The only sure way of distinguishing lawful and accidental universal statements is to point out that in the former cases we see why the regularity must hold, while in the latter case we do not. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II) | |
A reaction: I agree with this, and also take it to be the solution to the problem of induction. That smoking causes cancer will be a true generalisation but not a law, until we see clearly why it happens. |
15239 | We could call any generalisation a law, if it had reasonable support and no counter-evidence [Harré/Madden] |
Full Idea: There is a case for calling a generalisation a law when its only confirmation is the multiplication of instances, if they don't conflict with other criteria. In fact any supported generalisation could count as a law if there is no counter-evidence. | |
From: Harré,R./Madden,E.H. (Causal Powers [1975], 2.II) | |
A reaction: This is the beginning of the modern doubts about laws of nature, fully articulated in Mumford 2004. It seems to me inescapable that laws drop out if our ontology is based on powerful particulars. They are just patterns of outcome. |