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17312
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It is more explanatory if you show how a number is constructed from basic entities and relations [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
Being the successor of the successor of 0 is more explanatory than being predecessor of 3 of the nature of 2, since it mirrors more closely the method by which 2 is constructed from a basic entity, 0, and a relation (successor) taken as primitive.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4)
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A reaction:
This assumes numbers are 'constructed', which they are in the axiomatised system of Peano Arithmetic, but presumably the numbers were given in ordinary experience before 'construction' occurred to anyone. Nevertheless, I really like this.
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17314
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The relata of grounding are propositions or facts, but for dependence it is objects and their features [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
The relata of the grounding relation are typically taken to be facts or propositions, while the relata of ontological dependence ...are objects and their characteristics, activities, constituents and so on.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.5 n25)
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A reaction:
Interesting. Good riddance to propositions here, but this seems a bit unfair to facts, since I take facts to be in the world. Audi's concept of 'worldly facts' is what we need here.
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17309
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For Fine, essences are propositions true because of identity, so they are just real definitions [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
Fine assumes that essences can be identified with collections of propositions that are true in virtue of the identity of a particular object, or objects. ...There is not, on this approach, much of a distinction between essences and real definitions.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4)
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A reaction:
This won't do, because the essence of a physical object is not a set of propositions, it is some aspects of the object itself, which are described in a definition. Koslicki notes that psuché is an essence, and the soul is hardly a set of propositions!
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17317
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A good explanation captures the real-world dependence among the phenomena [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
It is plausible to think that an explanation, when successful, captures or represents (by argument, or a why? question) an underlying real-world relation of dependence which obtains among the phenomena cited.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6)
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A reaction:
She cites causal dependence as an example. I'm incline to think that 'grounding' is a better word for the target of good explanations than is 'dependence' (which can, surely, be mutual, where ground has the directionality needed for explanation).
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13193
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Active force is not just potential for action, since it involves a real effort or striving [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Active force should not be thought of as the simple and common potential [potentia] or receptivity to action of the schools. Rather, active force involves an effort [conatus] or striving [tendentia] toward action.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.252)
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A reaction:
This is why Leibniz is lured into making his active forces more and more animistic, till they end up like proto-minds (though never, remember, conscious and willing minds).
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13194
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God's laws would be meaningless without internal powers for following them [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
To say that, in creation, God gave bodies a law for acting means nothing, unless, at the same time, he gave them something by means of which it could happen that the law is followed.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.253)
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A reaction:
This is the beginning of the modern rebellion against the medieval view of laws as imposed from outside on passive matter. Unfortunately for Leibniz, once you have postulated active internal powers, the external laws become redundant.
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13192
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Power is passive force, which is mass, and active force, which is entelechy or form [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
The dynamicon or power [potentia] in bodies is twofold, passive and active. Passive force [vis] constitutes matter or mass [massa], and active force constitutes entelechy or form.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On Body and Force, Against the Cartesians [1702], p.252)
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A reaction:
This is explicitly equating the innate force understood in physics with Aristotelian form. The passive force is to explain the resistance of bodies. I like the equation of force with power. He says the entelechy is 'analogous' to a soul.
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