display all the ideas for this combination of texts
8 ideas
9502 | There might be just one fundamental natural property [Bird] |
Full Idea: The thought that there might be just one fundamental natural property is not that strange. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 6.3) | |
A reaction: A nice variation on the Parmenides idea that only the One exists. Bird's point would refer to a possible unification of modern physics. We see, for example, the forces of electricity and of magnetism turning out to be the same force. |
14979 | Being alone doesn't guarantee intrinsic properties; 'being alone' is itself extrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
Full Idea: The property of 'being alone in the world' is an extrinsic property, even though it has had by an object that is alone in the world. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 01.2 | |
A reaction: I always choke on my cornflakes whenever anyone cites a true predicate as if it were a genuine property. This is a counterexample to Idea 14978. Sider offers another more elaborate example from Lewis. |
15454 | Extrinsic properties come in degrees, with 'brother' less extrinsic than 'sibling' [Lewis] |
Full Idea: Properties may be more or less intrinsic; being a brother has more of an admixture of intrinsic structure than being a sibling does, yet both are extrinsic. | |
From: David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983], I) | |
A reaction: I suppose the point is that a brother is intrinsically male - but then a sibling is intrinsically human. A totally extrinsic relation would be one between entities which shared virtually no categories of existence. |
9477 | Categorical properties are not modally fixed, but change across possible worlds [Bird] |
Full Idea: Categorical properties do not have their dispositional characters modally fixed, but may change their dispositional characters (and their causal and nomic behaviour more generally) across different worlds. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: This is the key ground for Bird's praiseworth opposition to categorical propertie. I take it to be a nonsense to call the category in which we place something a 'property' of that thing. A confusion of thought with reality. |
9490 | The categoricalist idea is that a property is only individuated by being itself [Bird] |
Full Idea: In the categoricalist view, the essential properties of a natural property are limited to its essentially being itself and not some distinct property. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.1) | |
A reaction: He associates this view with Lewis (modern regularity view) and Armstrong (nomic necessitation), and launches a splendid attack against it. I have always laughed at the idea that 'being Socrates' was one of the properties of Socrates. |
9495 | If we abstractly define a property, that doesn't mean some object could possess it [Bird] |
Full Idea: The possibility of abstract definition does not show that we have defined a property that we can know, independently of any theory, that it is physically possible for some object to possess. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.2.3.1) | |
A reaction: This is a naturalist resisting the idea that there is no more to a property than set-membership. I strongly agree. We need a firm notion of properties as features of the actual world; anything else should be called something like 'categorisations'. |
9492 | Categoricalists take properties to be quiddities, with no essential difference between them [Bird] |
Full Idea: The categoricalist conception of properties takes them to be quiddities, which are primitive identities between fundamental qualities, having no difference with regard to their essence. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 4.5) | |
A reaction: Compare 'haecceitism' about indentity of objects, though 'quidditism' sounds even less plausible. Bird attributes this view to Lewis and Armstrong, and makes it sound well daft. |
9503 | To name an abundant property is either a Fregean concept, or a simple predicate [Bird] |
Full Idea: It isn't clear what it is to name an abundant property. One might reify them, as akin to Fregean concepts, or it might be equivalent to a simple predication. | |
From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 7.1.2) | |
A reaction: 'Fregean concepts' would make them functions that purely link things (hence relational?). One suspects that people who actually treat abundant properties as part of their ontology (Lewis) are confusing natural properties with predicates. |