display all the ideas for this combination of texts
2 ideas
7368 | Originally there were no reasons, purposes or functions; since there were no interests, there were only causes [Dennett] |
Full Idea: In the beginning there were no reasons; there were only causes. Nothing had a purpose, nothing had so much as a function; there was no teleology in the world at all. The explanation is simple: there was nothing that had interests. | |
From: Daniel C. Dennett (Consciousness Explained [1991], 7.2) | |
A reaction: It seems reasonable to talk of functions even if the fledgling 'interests' are unconscious, as in a leaf. Is a process leading to an end an 'interest'? What are the 'interests' of a person who is about to commit suicide? |
10931 | We can't say 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves' if we can't quantify modally [Quine] |
Full Idea: To say an object is soluble in water is to say that it would dissolve if it were in water,..which implies that 'necessarily if x is in water then x dissolves'. Yet we do not know if there is a suitable sense of 'necessarily' into which we can so quantify. | |
From: Willard Quine (Reference and Modality [1953], §4) | |
A reaction: This is why there has been a huge revival of scientific essentialism - because Krike seems to offer exacty the account which Quine said was missing. So can you have modal logic without rigid designation? |