14 ideas
8964 | Entities can be multiplied either by excessive categories, or excessive entities within a category [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
Full Idea: There are two ways that entities can be multiplied unnecessarily: by multiplying the number of explanatory categories, and by multiplying the number of entities within a category. | |
From: J Hoffman/G Rosenkrantz (Platonistic Theories of Universals [2003], 4) | |
A reaction: An important distinction. The orthodox view is that it is the excess of categories that is to be avoided (e.g. by nominalists). Possible worlds in metaphysics, and multiple worlds in physics, claim not to violate the first case. |
8962 | 'There are shapes which are never exemplified' is the toughest example for nominalists [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
Full Idea: The example which presents the most serious challenge to nominalism is 'there are shapes which are never exemplified'. | |
From: J Hoffman/G Rosenkrantz (Platonistic Theories of Universals [2003], 3) | |
A reaction: To 'exemplify' a shape must it be a physical object, or a drawing of such an object, or a description? If none of those have ever existed, I'm not sure what 'are' is supposed to mean. They seem to be possibilia (with all the associated problems). |
8961 | Nominalists are motivated by Ockham's Razor and a distrust of unobservables [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
Full Idea: The two main motivations for nominalism are an admirable commitment to Ockham's Razor, and a queasiness about postulating entities that are unobservable or non-empirical, existing in a non-physical realm. | |
From: J Hoffman/G Rosenkrantz (Platonistic Theories of Universals [2003], 3) | |
A reaction: It doesn't follow that because the entities are unobservable that they are non-physical. Consider the 'interior' of an electron. Neverless I share a love of Ockham's Razor and a deep caution about unobservables. |
19440 | How do you know you have conceived a thing deeply enough to assess its possibility? [Vaidya] |
Full Idea: The main issue with learning possibility from conceivability concerns how we can be confident that we have conceived things to the relevant level of depth required for the scenario to actually be a presentation or manifestation of a genuine possibility. | |
From: Anand Vaidya (The Epistemology of Modality [2015], 1.2.2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Van Inwagen 1998 for this idea] The point is that ignorant imagination can conceive of all sorts of absurd things which are seen to be impossible when enough information is available. We can hardly demand a criterion for this. |
8963 | Four theories of possible worlds: conceptualist, combinatorial, abstract, or concrete [Hoffman/Rosenkrantz] |
Full Idea: There are four models of the ontological status of possible worlds: conceptualist (mental constructions), combinatorial (all combinations of the actual world), abstract worlds (conjunction of propositions), and concrete worlds (collections of concreta). | |
From: J Hoffman/G Rosenkrantz (Platonistic Theories of Universals [2003], 4) | |
A reaction: [the proponents cited are, in order, Rescher, Cresswell, Plantinga and Lewis] They dismiss Rescher and Cresswell, both of whom seem to me more plausible than Plantinga or Lewis. 'Possible' can't figure in the definition. Possible to us, or in reality? |
7647 | The imagination alone perceives all objects; it is the soul, playing all its roles [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The imagination alone perceives; it forms an idea of all objects, with the words and figures that characterise them; thus the imagination is the soul, because it plays all its roles. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.15) | |
A reaction: This is not just a big claim for the importance of imagination, in strong opposition to Descartes's rather dismissive view (Idea 1399), but also appears to be the germ of an interesting theory about the nature of personal identity. |
7645 | When falling asleep, the soul becomes paralysed and weak, just like the body [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The soul and body fall asleep together. The soul slowly becomes paralysed, together with all the body's muscles. They can no longer hold up the weight of the head, while the soul can no longer bear the burden of thought. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.6) | |
A reaction: A very nice observation, to place alongside other evidence such as drunkenness and blushing. Personally I find it hard to see why anyone ever believed dualism. You don't need modern brain scans and brain lesion research to see the problem. |
23225 | The soul's faculties depend on the brain, and are simply the brain's organisation [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: All the soul's faculties depend so much on the specific organisation of the brain and of the whole body that they are clearly nothing but that organisation. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.26) | |
A reaction: An interesting idea because it suggests that La Mettrie is a functionalist, rather than simply a reductive physicalist. |
7652 | Man is a machine, and there exists only one substance, diversely modified [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: Let us conclude boldly that man is a machine and that there is in the whole universe only one diversely modified substance. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.39) | |
A reaction: What courage it must have taken to write what now seems a perfectly acceptable and normal view. One day there should be a collective monument to Hobbes, Gassendi, Spinoza, La Mettrie and Hume, who thought so boldly. |
7650 | All thought is feeling, and rationality is the sensitive soul contemplating reasoning [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: Thought is only a capacity to feel, and the rational soul is only the sensitive soul applied to the contemplation of ideas and to reasoning. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.33) | |
A reaction: What a very nice idea. La Mettrie wants to bring us closer to animals. Because we can pursue a train of rational thought, it does not follow that we have a faculty called 'rationality'. A dog can follow a clever series of clues that lead to food. |
7651 | With wonderful new machines being made, a speaking machine no longer seems impossible [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: If wonderful machines like Huygens's planetary clock can be made, it would take even more cogs and springs to make a speaking machine, which can no longer be considered impossible, particularly at the hands of a new Prometheus. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.34) | |
A reaction: Compare Descartes in Idea 3614. The idea of artificial intelligence does not arise with the advent of computers; it follows naturally from the materialist view of the mind, along with a bit of ambition to build complex machines. |
7648 | The sun and rain weren't made for us; they sometimes burn us, or spoil our seeds [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The sun was not made in order to heat the earth and all its inhabitants - whom it sometimes burns - any more than the rain was created in order to grow seeds - which it often spoils. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747]) | |
A reaction: This denial of Aristotelian (and divine) teleology is as much part of the movement against religion, as are concerns about natural evil, and about the weakness of arguments for God's existence. These facts were obvious long before La Mettrie. |
7646 | There is no abrupt transition from man to animal; only language has opened a gap [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: From animals to man there is no abrupt transition. What was man before he invented words and learnt languages? An animal of a particular species, with much less natural instinct than the others. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747], p.13) | |
A reaction: This shows how strongly the evolutionary idea was in the air, a century before Darwin proposed a mechanism for it. This thought is the beginning of a very new view of man, and also of a very new view of animals. |
7649 | There is no clear idea of the soul, which should only refer to our thinking part [La Mettrie] |
Full Idea: The soul is merely a vain term of which we have no idea and which a good mind should use only to refer to that part of us which thinks. | |
From: Julien Offray de La Mettrie (Machine Man [1747]) | |
A reaction: I have always found the concept of the soul particularly baffling. It seems that it is only believed in to make immortality possible, with no other purpose to the belief, let alone evidence. I suspect that Descartes agreed with La Mettrie on this. |