display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
14253 | An object's 'being' isn't existence; there's more to an object than existence, and its nature doesn't include existence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: It seems wrong to identify the 'being' of an object, its being what it is, with its existence. In one respect existence is too weak; for there is more to an object than mere existence; also too strong, for an object's nature need not include existence. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: The word 'being' has been shockingly woolly, from Parmenides to Heidegger, but if you identify it with a thing's 'nature' that strikes me as much clearer (even if a little misty). |
14261 | There is 'weak' dependence in one definition, and 'strong' dependence in all the definitions [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: An object 'weakly' depends upon another if it is ineliminably involved in one of its definitions; and it 'strongly' depends upon the other if it is ineliminably involved in all of its definitions. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
A reaction: It is important to remember that a definition can be very long, and not just what might go into a dictionary. |
14251 | A natural modal account of dependence says x depends on y if y must exist when x does [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A natural account of dependence in terms of modality and existence is that one thing x will depend on another thing y just in case it is necessary that y exists if x exists (or in the symbolism of modal logic, □(Ex→Ey). | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: He is going to criticise this view (which he traces back to Aristotle and Husserl). It immediately seems possible that there might be counterexamples. x might depend on y, but not necessarily depend on y. Necessities may not produce dependence. |
14257 | An object depends on another if the second cannot be eliminated from the first's definition [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The objects upon which a given object depends, according to the present account, are those which must figure in any of the logically equivalent definitions of the object. They will, in a sense, be ineliminable. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: This is Fine's main proposal for the dependency relationship, with a context of Aristotelian essences understood as definitions. Sounds pretty good to me. |
14254 | Dependency is the real counterpart of one term defining another [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The notion of one object depending upon another is the real counterpart to the nominal notion of one term being definable in terms of another. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: This begins to fill out the Aristotelian picture very nicely, since definitions are right at the centre of the nature of things (though a much more transitional part of the story than Fine seems to think). |