display all the ideas for this combination of texts
14 ideas
| 13584 | The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The extension of a property in any given world is just a contingent fact about that world; its extension is not the essence of the property. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 2.07) | |
| A reaction: The Quinean idea, common among logicians, that a predicate is just a set defined for some model, may be useful in the logic, but is preposterous as an account of what a property actually is in nature, even if the set covers possible worlds. |
| 13587 | There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: There is no natural property of 'fragility'; glasses, parchments, ecosystems and spiders' webs are fragile in their own ways, but they have nothing intrinsic or structural in common. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.06) | |
| A reaction: This is important (and, I think, correct) because we are inclined to say that something is 'intrinsically' fragile, but that still isn't enough to identify a true property. Ellis wants universals to be involved, and even a nominalist must sort-of agree. |
| 13577 | Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The paradigmatically 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, depending on how things are distributed in space and time. Shape is the obvious example. ...Other examples are number, size and configuration. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.09) | |
| A reaction: I'm finding it very frustrating that this concept is much discussed in current philosophy of science (e.g. by Bird), but it is exceedingly hard to pin down any exact account of these 'categorical' properties, or even why they are so-called. |
| 9436 | The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: There is no property of being an electron. It could only be instantiated by electrons, so it does not seem genuine. And what is the thing that supposedly instantiates the property of being an electron? | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 75,92), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 7.3 | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely. Bird launches an excellent attack on categorial properties. |
| 13582 | 'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: In my view 'being a methane molecule' is not a property name, but a predicate that is constructed out of a natural kind name, and so pretends to name a property. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 2.03) | |
| A reaction: I can't tell you how strongly I agree with this. How long have you got? This is so incredibly right that... You get the idea. He observes that such properties cannot be instantiated 'in' anything. |
| 13580 | Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: There can be no question of a causal power's acting one way in one world and another way in a different world. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.12) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps the very core idea of scientific essentialism. It doesn't feel quite right that when you ask for the source of this necessity, you are only told that it is necessary for the very identity of a power. The truth is that it is a primitive of nature. |
| 13598 | Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Causal powers are often directional. For example, they may be centripetal, centrifugal, or circulatory. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11) | |
| A reaction: The examples all seem to raise a few questions, about whether the directionality arises from the context, rather than from the intrinsic power. |
| 13568 | Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: It may be that the most fundamental things have no structure, and therefore no structure in virtue of which they have the powers they have. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Maybe the world has inexplicable powers, so there is a God? It seems obvious that there will be no explanation of the 'lowest level' of reality, and also obvious (to me and Leibniz, anyway) that this lowest level has to be active. |
| 13586 | Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: One view is that there must be an intrinsic property or structure in virtue of which a given thing has the behavioural disposition in question. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.06) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Prior, Pargetter,Jackson 1982] A key question in the metaphysics of nature - whether dispositions should be taken as primitive, or whether we should try to explain them in other terms. I take powers and dispositions to be prior to properties. |
| 13585 | The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The properties of the most fundamental things in nature, including mass, charge, spin, and the like, would all appear to be dispositional. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.05) | |
| A reaction: This goes with the Leibnizian claim that the most fundamental features of nature must be active in character. |
| 13596 | A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A causal power is a disposition of something to produce forces of a certain kind. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.09) | |
| A reaction: Hence when Leibniz was putting all his emphasis on the origin of the forces in nature, he was referring to exactly what we mean by 'powers'. From Ellis's formulation, I take powers to be more basic than dispositions. Does he realise this? |
| 13599 | Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The causal powers of an object are the dispositional properties of that object that are the real essences of the natural kinds of processes that involve that object in the role of cause. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11) | |
| A reaction: This is Ellis's formal definition at the end of his discussion of causal powers. He only seems to allow powers to the kind rather than to the individual. How do we account for the causal powers of unique genius? I say the powers are the essences. |
| 13572 | There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Three categories of universals: 'substantive' universals have instances that are members of natural kinds of objects or substances; 'dynamic' universals are kinds of events or processes; 'property' universals are tropes of real properties or relations. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: I would want to distinguish real properties from relations. It is important to remember that an object can traditionally instantiate a universal, and that they aren't just properties. |
| 13573 | Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The various kinds of universals are all natural kinds of one sort or another. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't sound right. What about the universals of mathematics, or universals which are a matter of social or linguistic convention? I think Ellis is trying to hijack the word 'universal' in response to Armstrong's more idealistic account. |