12 ideas
| 7719 | European philosophy consists of a series of footnotes to Plato [Whitehead] |
| Full Idea: The safest general characterization of the European philosophical tradition is that it consists of a series of footnotes to Plato. | |
| From: Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality [1929], p.39) | |
| A reaction: Outsiders think this is a ridiculous remark, but readers of Plato can only be struck by what a wonderful tribute Whitehead has come up with. I would say that at least 80% of this database deals with problems which were discussed at length by Plato. |
| 9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story. |
| 10656 | With 'extensive connection', boundary elements are not included in domains [Whitehead, by Varzi] |
| Full Idea: In Whitehead's theory of extensive connection, no boundary elements are included in the domain of quantification. ...His conception of space contains no parts of lower dimensions, such as points or boundary elements. | |
| From: report of Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality [1929]) by Achille Varzi - Mereology 3.1 | |
| A reaction: [Varzi says we should see B.L.Clarke 1981 for a rigorous formulation. Second half of the Idea is Varzi p.21] |
| 15389 | In Whitehead 'processes' consist of events beginning and ending [Whitehead, by Simons] |
| Full Idea: There are no items in Whitehead's ontology called 'processes'. Rather, the term 'process' refers to the way in which the basic things - which are still events - come into existence and cease to exist. Whitehead called this 'becoming'. | |
| From: report of Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality [1929]) by Peter Simons - Whitehead: process and cosmology 'The mature' |
| 15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here. |
| 15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class? |
| 9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it. |
| 15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
| Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have. | |
| From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
| A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like? |
| 8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
| Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position. | |
| From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5 | |
| A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space. |
| 16157 | Insurance on the original ship would hardly be paid out if the plank version was wrecked! [Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: No insurance company, presented with a policy written for 'Theoris' [the original ship] would pay for damages suffered if the ship contructed from the old planks had been shipwrecked. | |
| From: Michael Frede (Individuals in Aristotle [1978]) | |
| A reaction: A very nicely dramatic way of presenting what is taken to be the usual reading of the basic case - that the original identity tracks the continuity of the original structure, not the matter. |
| 15247 | Whitehead held that perception was a necessary feature of all causation [Whitehead, by Harré/Madden] |
| Full Idea: On Whitehead's view, not only is a volitional sense of 'causal power' projected on to physical events, but 'perception in the causal mode' is literally ascribed to them. | |
| From: report of Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality [1929]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 3.II | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a close relative of Leibniz's monads. 'Perception' is a daft word for it, but in some way everything is 'responsive' to the things adjacent to it. |
| 16962 | Whitehead replaced points with extended regions [Whitehead, by Quine] |
| Full Idea: Whitehead tried to avoid points, and make do with extended regions and sets of regions. | |
| From: report of Alfred North Whitehead (Process and Reality [1929]) by Willard Quine - Existence and Quantification p.93 |