display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
23768 | A metaphysic is a set of wider explanations derived from a basic ontology [Williams,NE] |
Full Idea: A metaphysic is what you get when you embed a fundamental ontology within a larger metaphysical framework by repeatedly appealing to elements of that ontology in explaining metaphysical phenomena. …Only then do you see what the ontology is worth. | |
From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 01.1) | |
A reaction: Confirming my mantra that metaphysics is an explanatory activity. I think it is important that the ontology includes relations (such as 'determinations'), and is not just an inventory of types of entity. |
23773 | Humeans say properties are passive, possibility is vast, laws are descriptions, causation is weak [Williams,NE] |
Full Idea: The main components of neo-Humean metaphysics are that properties are inherently non-modal and passive, that what is possible is restricted only by imagination and coherence, that laws are non-governing descriptions, and causation is weak and extrinsic. | |
From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 02.1) | |
A reaction: This is Williams identifying the enemy, prior to offering the much more active and restictive powers ontology. I'm with Williams. |
23779 | We shouldn't posit the existence of anything we have a word for [Williams,NE] |
Full Idea: There seems to be a mysterious desire to posit entities simply because certain terms pop up in our vocabulary. But we should not be so indiscriminate about our posits, even if our talk is properly vetted. | |
From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 04.1) | |
A reaction: This should hardly need saying, and the familiar example is 'for the sake of' entailing sakes, but it seems to be a vice that is still found in metaphysical philosophy. The word 'nothingness' comes to mind. |
23786 | The status quo is part of what exists, and so needs metaphysical explanation [Williams,NE] |
Full Idea: The status quo is part of what exists, and thus it is a proper topic of concern for the metaphysician, and so it warrants explanation. | |
From: Neil E. Williams (The Powers Metaphysics [2019], 07.2) | |
A reaction: His point is that ontology as a mere inventory of things gives no account of why they remain unchanged, as well as their processes and connections. |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) | |
A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition. |