Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Actualism and Possible Worlds', 'Difference and Repetition' and 'A Priori Knowledge Revisited'

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16 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
21901 'Difference' refers to that which eludes capture [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: 'Difference' is a term which Deleuze uses to refer to that which eludes capture.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: Presumably its ancestor is Kant's noumenon. This is one of his concepts used to 'palpate' our ossified conceptual scheme.
5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 6. Classical Logic
12430 Classical logic is our preconditions for assessing empirical evidence [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: In my terminology, classical logic (or at least, its most central tenets) consists of propositional preconditions for our assessing empirical evidence in the way we do.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: I like an even stronger version of this - that classical logic arises out of our experiences of things, and so we are just assessing empirical evidence in terms of other (generalised) empirical evidence. Logic results from induction. Very unfashionable.
12431 I believe classical logic because I was taught it and use it, but it could be undermined [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: I believe the laws of classical logic, in part because I was taught them, and in part because I think I see how those laws are used in assessing evidence. But my belief could easily be undermined by experience.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §VII)
     A reaction: Quine has one genuine follower! The trouble is his first sentence would fit witch-doctoring just as well. Kitcher went to Cambridge; I hope he doesn't just believe things because he was taught them, or because he 'sees how they are used'!
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
21902 'Being' is univocal, but its subject matter is actually 'difference' [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: Being is said in a single and same sense of everything of which it is said, but that of which it is said differs: it is said of difference itself.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968], p.36), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: This is an attempt to express the Heraclitean view of reality, as process, movement, multiplicity - something which always eludes our attempts to pin it down.
14664 Necessary beings (numbers, properties, sets, propositions, states of affairs, God) exist in all possible worlds [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: A 'necessary being' is one that exists in every possible world; and only some objects - numbers, properties, pure sets, propositions, states of affairs, God - have this distinction.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 2)
     A reaction: This a very odd list, though it is fairly orthodox among philosophers trained in modern modal logic. At the very least it looks rather parochial to me.
21908 Ontology can be continual creation, not to know being, but to probe the unknowable [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: Ontology can be an ontology of difference ....where what is there is not the same old things but a process of continual creation, an ontology that does not seek to reduce being to the knowable, but widens thought to palpate the unknowable.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 5.05
     A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the first duty of ontology is to face up to the knowable. I'm not sure that probing the unknowable, with no success or prospect of it, is a good way to spend a life. Probing ('palpating') can sometimes discover things.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being
21903 Ontology does not tell what there is; it is just a strange adventure [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze's hands ontology is not a matter of telling us what there is, but of taking us on strange adventures.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 3.03
     A reaction: Presumably you only indulge in the strange adventure because you have no idea how to specify what there is. This sounds like the essence of post-modernism, in which life is just a game.
21904 Being is a problem to be engaged, not solved, and needs a new mode of thinking [Deleuze, by May]
     Full Idea: In Deleuze, Being is not a puzzle to be solved but a problem to be engaged. It is to be engaged by a thought that moves as comfortably among problems as it does among solutions, as fluidly among differences as it does among identities.
     From: report of Gilles Deleuze (Difference and Repetition [1968]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.01
     A reaction: This sounds like what I've always known as 'negative capability' (thanks to Keats). Is philosophy just a hobby, like playing darts? It seems that the aim of the process is 'liberation', about which I would like to know more.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
14666 Socrates is a contingent being, but his essence is not; without Socrates, his essence is unexemplified [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: Socrates is a contingent being; his essence, however, is not. Properties, like propositions and possible worlds, are necessary beings. If Socrates had not existed, his essence would have been unexemplified, but not non-existent.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 4)
     A reaction: This is a distinctive Plantinga view, of which I can make little sense. I take it that Socrates used to have an essence. Being dead, the essence no longer exists, but when we talk about Socrates it is largely this essence to which we refer. OK?
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 1. A Priori Necessary
12428 Many necessities are inexpressible, and unknowable a priori [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: There are plenty of necessary truths that we are unable to express, let alone know a priori.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §II)
     A reaction: This certainly seems to put paid to any simplistic idea that the a priori and the necessary are totally coextensive. We might, I suppose, claim that all necessities are a priori for the Archangel Gabriel (or even a very bright cherub). Cf. Idea 12429.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 2. A Priori Contingent
12429 Knowing our own existence is a priori, but not necessary [Kitcher]
     Full Idea: What is known a priori may not be necessary, if we know a priori that we ourselves exist and are actual.
     From: Philip Kitcher (A Priori Knowledge Revisited [2000], §II)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 12428, which challenges the inverse of this relationship. This one looks equally convincing, and Kripke adds other examples of contingent a priori truths, such as those referring to the metre rule in Paris.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
14662 Possible worlds clarify possibility, propositions, properties, sets, counterfacts, time, determinism etc. [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: The idea of possible worlds has delivered insights on logical possibility (de dicto and de re), propositions, properties and sets, counterfactuals, time and temporal relations, causal determinism, the ontological argument, and the problem of evil.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], Intro)
     A reaction: This date (1976) seems to be the high-water mark for enthusiasm about possible worlds. I suppose if we just stick to 'insights' rather than 'answers' then the big claim might still be acceptable. Which problems are created by possible worlds?
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
16472 Plantinga's actualism is nominal, because he fills actuality with possibilia [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
     Full Idea: Plantinga's critics worry that the metaphysics is actualist in name only, since it is achieved only by populating the actual world with entities whose nature is explained in terms of merely possible things that would exemplify them if anything did.
     From: comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
     A reaction: Plantinga seems a long way from the usual motivation for actualism, which is probably sceptical empiricism, and building a system on what is smack in front of you. Possibilities have to be true, though. That's why you need dispositions in actuality.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 8. Possible Worlds Semantics
16469 Plantinga has domains of sets of essences, variables denoting essences, and predicates as functions [Plantinga, by Stalnaker]
     Full Idea: The domains in Plantinga's interpretation of Kripke's semantics are sets of essences, and the values of variables are essences. The values of predicates have to be functions from possible worlds to essences.
     From: report of Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
     A reaction: I begin to think this is quite nice, as long as one doesn't take the commitment to the essences too seriously. For 'essence' read 'minimal identity'? But I take essences to be more than minimal, so use identities (which Kripke does?).
16470 Plantinga's essences have their own properties - so will have essences, giving a hierarchy [Stalnaker on Plantinga]
     Full Idea: For Plantinga, essences are entities in their own right and will have properties different from what instantiates them. Hence he will need individual essences of individual essences, distinct from the essences. I see no way to avoid a hierarchy of them.
     From: comment on Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 4.4
     A reaction: This sounds devastating for Plantinga, but it is a challenge for traditional Aristotelians. Only a logician suffers from a hierarchy, but a scientist might have to live with an essence, which contains a super-essence.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 1. Propositions
14663 Are propositions and states of affairs two separate things, or only one? I incline to say one [Plantinga]
     Full Idea: Are there two sorts of thing, propositions and states of affairs, or only one? I am inclined to the former view on the ground that propositions have a property, truth or falsehood, not had by states of affairs.
     From: Alvin Plantinga (Actualism and Possible Worlds [1976], 1)
     A reaction: Might a proposition be nothing more than an assertion that a state of affairs obtains? It would then pass his test. The idea that a proposition is a complex of facts in the external world ('Russellian' propositions?) quite baffles me.