9 ideas
| 21959 | Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is the most general attempt to make sense of things. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the first sentence of Moore's book, and a touchstone idea all the way through. It stands up well, because it says enough without committing to too much. I have to agree with it. It implies explanation as the key. I like generality too. |
| 18892 | Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me? | |
| From: Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5 | |
| A reaction: [See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what? |
| 12019 | McGinn falsely claims necessity of origin is a special case of the necessity of identity [Forbes,G on McGinn] |
| Full Idea: McGinn assimilates the origin relation among organisms to the identity relation, so that the necessity of origin becomes a special case of the necessity of identity. We argue that this assimilation is illegitimate. | |
| From: comment on Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 6.1 | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. I have long suspected what McGinn suspects. Once you have identified the organism with a particular origin, it hardly seems surprising that this particular origin has become inescapable. |
| 18415 | The actual world is just the world you are in [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| Full Idea: Lewis equates knowing which world is actual with knowing which world one is in. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 05.1 | |
| A reaction: [This view is not, of course, Actualism, but an alternative treatment of actuality, within a multitude of possibilities]. |
| 16392 | A content is a property, and believing it is self-ascribing that property [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| Full Idea: For Lewis, a belief mode is analysed by saying that to believe a content (analysed as a property) is for the subject of thought to 'self-ascribe' that property. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 18.3 | |
| A reaction: Lewis is weird. I would have thought you only self-ascribe the 'property' when you find yourself believing it. Lewis seems desperate to eliminate mental language. Belief can be a primitive concept without being primitive in ontology. |
| 21958 | Appearances are nothing beyond representations, which is transcendental ideality [Moore,AW] |
| Full Idea: Appearances in general are nothing outside our representations, which is just what we mean by transcendental ideality. | |
| From: A.W. Moore (The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics [2012], B535/A507) |
| 18416 | Attitudes involve properties (not propositions), and belief is self-ascribing the properties [Lewis, by Solomon] |
| Full Idea: Lewis suggests that we take attitudes to have properties, rather than propositions, as contents. To stand in the belief relation to a property is to self-ascribe that property. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by Robert C. Solomon - Erotic Love as a Moral Virtue 05.1 | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of convoluted suggestion that Lewis has to come up with, in pursuit of his project of a wholly consistent metaphysics. Examine Lewis's account of properties before you judge this proposal! Self-ascribing is joining a set! |
| 16390 | Lewis's popular centred worlds approach gives an attitude an index of world, subject and time [Lewis, by Recanati] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers now prefer Lewis's centred worlds framework for indexicals …It is two-dimensional, saying an attitude only has a truth-value when evaluated with respect to a contextual index, containing a subject and time, as well as a world. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by François Recanati - Mental Files 18.2 | |
| A reaction: [compressed; this is said to have largely ousted the older Kaplan-Perry view] You only begin to understand the possible worlds game when you see how many problems find proposed 'solutions' there. |
| 18418 | A theory of perspectival de se content gives truth conditions relative to an agent [Lewis, by Cappelen/Dever] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's theory of a perspectival 'de se' content ...delivers truth conditions not absolutely, but only relative to a choice of agent/center. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Attitudes De Dicto and De Se [1979]) by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 05.7 | |
| A reaction: The proposal rests on a theory of 'centred' possible worlds, specifying the viewpoint of some agent within the whole system. It relies on accepting the idea that indexicals are special, which Cappelen and Dever reject. |