display all the ideas for this combination of texts
16 ideas
| 10518 | Shapes and directions are of something, but games and musical compositions are not [Hale] |
| Full Idea: While a shape or a direction is necessarily of something, games, musical compositions or dance routines are not of anything at all. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.3.II) | |
| A reaction: This seems important, because Frege's abstraction principle works nicely for abstractions 'of' some objects, but is not so clear for abstracta that are sui generis. |
| 10513 | Many abstract objects, such as chess, seem non-spatial, but are not atemporal [Hale] |
| Full Idea: There are many plausible example of abstract objects which, though non-spatial, do not appear to satisfy the suggested requirement of atemporality, such as chess, or the English language. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.3.1) | |
| A reaction: Given the point that modern physics is committed to 'space-time', with no conceivable separation of them, this looks dubious. Though I think the physics could be challenged. Try Idea 7621, for example. |
| 10514 | If the mental is non-spatial but temporal, then it must be classified as abstract [Hale] |
| Full Idea: If mental events are genuinely non-spatial, but not atemporal, its effect is to classify them as abstract; the distinction between the abstract and the mental simply collapses. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This is important. You can't discuss this sort of metaphysics in isolation from debates about the ontology of mind. Functionalists do treat mental events as abstractions. |
| 10523 | Being abstract is based on a relation between things which are spatially separated [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The abstract/concrete distinction is, roughly, between those sortals whose grounding relations can hold between abstract things which are spatially but not temporally separated, those concrete things whose grounding relations cannot so hold. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.3.III) | |
| A reaction: Thus being a father is based on 'begat', which does not involve spatial separation, and so is concrete. The relation is one of equivalence. |
| 10307 | The modern Fregean use of the term 'object' is much broader than the ordinary usage [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The notion of an 'object' first introduced by Frege is much broader than that of most comparable ordinary uses of 'object', and is now fairly standard and familiar. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This makes it very difficult to get to grips with the metaphysical issues involved, since the ontological claims disappear into a mist of semantic vagueness. |
| 10315 | We can't believe in a 'whereabouts' because we ask 'what kind of object is it?' [Hale] |
| Full Idea: Onotological outrage at such objects as the 'whereabouts of the Prime Minister' derives from the fact that we seem beggared for any convincing answer to the question 'What kind of objects are they?' | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.2.II) | |
| A reaction: I go further and ask of any object 'what is it made of?' When I receive the answer that I am being silly, and that abstract objects are not 'made' of anything, I am tempted to become sarcastic, and say 'thank you - that makes it much clearer'. |
| 16235 | Persistence conditions cannot contradict, so there must be a 'dominant sortal' [Burke,M, by Hawley] |
| Full Idea: Burke says a single object cannot have incompatible persistence conditions, for this would entail that there are events in which the object would both survive and perish. He says one sortal 'dominates' the other (sweater dominates thread). | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This I take to be the most extreme version of sortal essentialism, and strikes me as incredibly gerrymandered and unacceptable. It is just too anthropocentric to count as genuine metaphysics. I may care more about the thread. |
| 14753 | The 'dominant' of two coinciding sortals is the one that entails the widest range of properties [Burke,M, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Burke claims that the 'dominant' sortal is the one whose satisfaction entails possession of the widest range of properties. For example, the statue (unlike the lump of clay) also possesses aesthetic properties, and hence is dominant. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4 | |
| A reaction: [there are three papers by Burke on this; see all the quotations from Burke] Presumably one sortal could entail a single very important property, and the other sortal entail a huge range of trivial properties. What does being a 'thing' entail? |
| 16072 | 'The rock' either refers to an object, or to a collection of parts, or to some stuff [Burke,M, by Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: Burke distinguishes three different readings of 'the rock'. It can be a singular description denoting an object, or a plural description denoting all the little pieces of rock, or a mass description the relevant rocky stuff. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5 | |
| A reaction: Idea 16068 is an objection to the second reading. Only the first reading seems plausible, so we must just get over all the difficulties philosophers have unearthed about knowing exactly what an 'object' is. I offer you essentialism. Rocks have unity. |
| 14751 | Tib goes out of existence when the tail is lost, because Tib was never the 'cat' [Burke,M, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Burke argues that Tib (the whole cat apart from its tail) goes out of existence when the tail is lost. His essentialist principle is that if something is ever of a particular sort (such as 'cat') then it is always of that sort. Tib is not initially a cat. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4 | |
| A reaction: This I take to be a souped up version of Wiggins, and I just don't buy that identity conditions are decided by sortals, when it seems obvious that sortals are parasitic on identities. |
| 16071 | Sculpting a lump of clay destroys one object, and replaces it with another one [Burke,M, by Wasserman] |
| Full Idea: On Burke's view, the process of sculpting a lump of clay into a statue destroys one object (a mere lump of clay) and replaces it with another (a statue). | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5 | |
| A reaction: There is something right about this, but how many intermediate objects are created during the transition. It seems to make the notion of an object very conventional. |
| 16234 | Burke says when two object coincide, one of them is destroyed in the process [Burke,M, by Hawley] |
| Full Idea: Michael Burke argues that a sweater is identical with the thread that consitutes it, that both were created at the moment when they began to coincide, and that the original thread was destroyed in the process. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3 | |
| A reaction: [Burke's ideas are spread over three articles] It is the thread which is destroyed, because the sweater is the 'dominant sortal' (which strikes me as a particularlyd desperate concept). |
| 13278 | Maybe the clay becomes a different lump when it becomes a statue [Burke,M, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Burke has argued in a series of papers that the lump of clay which constitutes the statue is numerically distinct from the lump of clay which exists before or after the statue exists. The first is a statue, while the second is merely a lump of clay. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects | |
| A reaction: Koslicki objects that this introduces radically different persistence conditions from normal. It would mean that a pile of sugar was a different pile of sugar every time a grain moved (even slightly). You couldn't step into the same sugar twice. |
| 14750 | Two entities can coincide as one, but only one of them (the dominant sortal) fixes persistence conditions [Burke,M, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: Michael Burke has given an account that avoids distinguishing coinciding entities. ...The statue/lump satisfies both 'lump' and 'statue', but only the latter determines that object's persistence conditions, and so is that object's 'dominant sortal'. | |
| From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4 | |
| A reaction: Presumably a lump on its own can have its own persistance conditions (as a 'lump'), but those would presumably be lost if you shaped it into a statue. Burke concedes that. Can of worms. Using a book as a doorstop... |
| 10522 | The relations featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations [Hale] |
| Full Idea: The relations which are featured in criteria of identity are always equivalence relations. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.3.III) | |
| A reaction: This will only apply to strict identity. If I say 'a is almost identical to b', this will obviously not be endlessly transitive (as when we get to k we may have lost the near-identity to a). Are 'two threes' identical to 'three twos'? |
| 10321 | We sometimes apply identity without having a real criterion [Hale] |
| Full Idea: Not every (apparent) judgement of identity involves application of anything properly describable as a criterion of identity, ...such as being able to pronounce that mercy is the quality of being merciful. | |
| From: Bob Hale (Abstract Objects [1987], Ch.2.II) | |
| A reaction: This suggests some distinction between internal criteria (e.g. grammatical, conceptual) and external criteria (existent, sensed). |