Combining Texts

Ideas for 'What is Logic?st1=Ian Hacking', 'Extrinsic Properties' and 'Truthmaking for Presentists'

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3 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 3. Types of Properties
Being polka-dotted is a 'spatial distribution' property [Cameron]
     Full Idea: Spatial distribution properties say how things are across a region of space, such as being polka-dotted.
     From: Ross P. Cameron (Truthmaking for Presentists [2011], 3)
     A reaction: I think the routine fallacy of inferring properties from predicates is buried here. We truthfully describe it as 'polka-dotted', but that doesn't mean we must reify polka-dottedness, and see it as a feature of the world. What is a 'jumbled' space?
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 4. Intrinsic Properties
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.
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.