7 ideas
| 15464 | The distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties leads to confusion [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: To avoid the danger of claiming that dispositions are their own categorical bases, we do better to eschew the alleged distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties altogether. | |
| From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], II) | |
| A reaction: Since I have been unable to form any intuitive notion of what a 'categorical' property is, I like this, though not necessarily for his reason. |
| 15463 | All dispositions must have causal bases [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Prior, Pargetter and Jackson have argued convincingly for the thesis that all dispositions must have causal bases. | |
| From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], II) | |
| A reaction: [Their paper is 1982] This key thesis is tackled by modern defenders of powers. The question is not who has the best arguments, but who offers the most coherent picture. What is a 'causal basis'? What sort of thing could be primitive or fundamental? |
| 15461 | A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: A disposition which would straight away vanish if put to the test is called 'finkish'. A finkishly fragile thing is fragile so long as it is not struck. But if it were struck, it would straight away cease to be fragile, and it would not break. | |
| From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], I) | |
| A reaction: There are also 'antidotes'. Finks kill the disposition, antidotes kill the effect. These cases are problems for the simple conditional analysis of a disposition - because we never achieved the consequent. |
| 15462 | Backtracking counterfactuals go from supposed events to their required causal antecedents [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: 'Backtracking' counterfactual reasoning runs from a counterfactually supposed event to the causal antecedents it would have to have had. | |
| From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], I) | |
| A reaction: Why not call it a 'transcendental' counterfactual? Presumably you go thisworld>> counterfactualevent>> worldneededtocauseit. It conjures up two possible worlds instead of one. |
| 21513 | We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6 | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere. |
| 21497 | If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues. |
| 22908 | When one element contains the grounds of the other, the first one is prior in time [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: When one of two non-contemporaneous elements contains the grounds for the other, the former is regarded as the antecedent, and the latter as the consequence | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical Foundations of Mathematics [1715], p.201) | |
| A reaction: Bardon cites this passage of Leibniz as the origin of the idea that time's arrow is explained by the direction of causation. Bardon prefers it to the psychological and entropy accounts. |