60 ideas
11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can achieve a lot by elucidations that put a concept to use without attempting to reduce it but, in using the concept, exhibit its connexions with other concepts that are established. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.3) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the best line of defence for analytic philosophy, given the much-cited observation that no one has successful reduced any concept by pure analysis. |
3969 | There are no ultimate standards of rationality, since we only assess others by our own standard [Davidson] |
Full Idea: It makes no sense to speak of comparing or agreeing on ultimate standards of rationality, since it is our own standards in each case to which we must turn in interpreting others. This is not a failure of objectivity, but where 'questions come to an end'. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
A reaction: This seems wrong, given the commitment to truth and charity in interpretation. He could have said the same about perception, but I doubt if he would. |
3972 | Truth and objectivity depend on a community of speakers to interpret what they mean [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The basis on which the concepts of truth and objectivity depend for application is a community of understanding, agreement among speakers on how each is to be understood. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
A reaction: Obviously all understanding is, in practice, an interpretation by a community, but that isn't what 'truth' means. We mean 'true independently of any community'. |
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. |
11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The Lambda Abstraction Operator: We can write (λx)[Man x], which may be read as 'the property that any x has just if x is a man'. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This technical device seems to be a commonplace in modern metaphysical discussions. I'm assuming it can be used to discuss properties without venturing into second-order logic. Presumably we could call the property here 'humanity'. |
14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It would be incredible if what there is, rather than what we select for attention, depends on human activity and our conceptual scheme. One might expand to possible sortal concepts, rather than our language, but that amounts to four-dimensionalism. | |
From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: [compression of a nice anti-Wiggins paragraph] He suggests that Wiggins is seeking an intermediate course (between narrow chauvinism about concepts, and excessive liberalism) in a discussion of natural kinds versus artifacts. |
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? |
11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We might agree with Wiggins's theory of individuation, but reject his thesis that a thing's principle of individuation (of distinctness and persistence) must be preserved in all counterfactual situations. | |
From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 8.7 | |
A reaction: I'm not even convinced that initial individuation consists of falling under a sortal, and I prefer to discuss the powers of the thing, rather than counterfactual facts about behaviour. |
11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: What a principle of activity does completely for a natural thing, and the function does imperfectly for an ordinary artefact, the artist's conception of his own making of the work must do for the painting. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.12) | |
A reaction: This nicely sums up Wiggins on individuation, and he seems to effectively elide individuation with essence. I certainly feel uneasy that a work of art needs a quite separate account from other artefacts. Surely it is just that we are fussier about them? |
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. |
11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It is hard to think of anything true and significant that could not be said using the idea of thisness not better said while respectiving the distinctions designation/predication and particular/universal. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.7) | |
A reaction: Politis calls 'thisness' the 'ultimate subject of predication', so it is covered in logic by the name for an object. But we need to understand objects, and not just refer to them, and I'm not sure that 'universals' advance our understanding. |
11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
A reaction: This idea has failed to make much impression on me. I seem to be the only person who doesn't understand the concept of 'individuation'. Please let me know exactly what it means. Type individuation is not individual individuation, I presume. |
11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star. For Venus is not a star. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
A reaction: This is a nice objection to the idea that identity is entirely a matter of falling under the same sortal category. |
15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
A reaction: My problem with this is that individuation is a human activity, not an intrinsic feature of the entities in the external world. Entities presumably have a 'unity', but I'm not sure about a 'principle' that does that job, though Aristotle is sympathetic. |
10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
Full Idea: 'Sortalism' endorses the view that some things have parts, but denies that every collection of things composes something. Whenever there is a particular, there must be a sort or kind to which it belongs. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 7 | |
A reaction: What is the status of 'the first of its kind'? This seems to say that a token only has identity if it has type-identity. This sounds wildly wrong to me. I've made a 'thing' for you, but I haven't decided what it is yet. |
14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins says an identity a=b stands no chance of being true unless there is some concept f under which a falls and under which b falls, which 'determines identity, persistence and existence conditions for members of its extension'. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.604 | |
A reaction: This is the first clear statement I have met of Wiggins's central idea, upon which his sortal essentialism is built. Strawson's exposition adds that each thing necessarily falls under the 'highest' appropriate sortal ('dog', rather than 'terrier'). |
14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: In Wiggins's theory, necessity carries over from the kind to constitution. If Toby is necessarily a dog and 'dog' is a natural kind term, then Toby necessarily has the constitution of a dog, the features of which make up the real essence of being a dog. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.605 | |
A reaction: The essence will then presumably consist of all and only the characteristics which are shared by all dogs whatsoever. So how do you decide the borderline between wolf and dog? Why isn't a wolf a dog? |
11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: There are countless predicates in English that have the appearance of sortal predicates but are purely generic (animal, machine, artefact), or are pure determinables for sortal determination (space-occupier, entity, substance). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
A reaction: This is preparing the ground for a specification of a sortal which defines something essential as being the hallmark of identity. It is never quite clear to me whether Wiggins's case rests on a nominal or a real essence. |
11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A thing could have a property only if its having the property could be conceived, and that requires some sortal concept which adequately answers the Aristotelian question what the thing is. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.5) | |
A reaction: [Algebra omitted!] The core idea of Wiggins's theory. It seems at first glance to be a revival of Aristotelian essentialism, but his view of that seems to merely involve falling into a category. He treats sortal concepts as Aristotle's 'primary being'. |
14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
Full Idea: Wiggins says that coincidence is possible only between objects of different kinds. Trees and cats coincide with aggregates of matter, but never trees with trees or cats with cats. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: At first glance this sounds quite plausible, but I think this commitment to the priority of kinds produces huge confusion, given that we only derive our notions of kinds from inductions derived from individuals. Language perpetuates old inductions. |
11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The Pope's crown is made of crowns. There is no definite answer, when the Pope is wearing his crown, to the question 'how many crowns does he have on his head?' | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
A reaction: A very nice example, in which the identity of the item seems clear enough, until you try to apply a sortal to it. I can't get excited about it, though, because calling it one 'crown' creates uncertainty, but calling it the 'Pope's crown' doesn't. |
11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It can be perfectly determinate which mountain x is without x's extent's being determinate. A mountain is not, after all, something essentially demarcated by its extent or boundary. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.5) | |
A reaction: This endorses something I have always wanted to assert ('a vague boundary is still a boundary'), but with the interesting addition that one might think about vagueness in terms of what is essential to a thing. Hm.... |
14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
Full Idea: Wiggins points out that identity is an atemporal relation whereas composition, like parthood, holds only relative to times. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: If David Cameron is identical to the Prime Minister, that doesn't seem to be atemporal. If x=7 in this problem, I can change x to something else in the next problem. x had better not be equal to 7 and to 9. |
11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: If I repair or destroy an item, I do not repair or destroy each part of it (and since each part of a part is a part this would be difficult). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
A reaction: This seems like a nice refutation of any attempt to claim that a thing is no more than the sum of its parts, but one could analyse the notion of 'destroy', and find it just meant introducing gaps between parts. |
11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Let us be realistic, and forget about individual or particularized essences. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This is the rather weird position you reach if you follow Wiggins's 'modest' essentialism, deriving from a thing merely falling under a sortal, or into a category. What is a natural kind, if its members don't each have a shared essence? |
11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Essences of natural things are not fancified vacuities parading themselves ...as the ultimate explanation of everything that happens in the world. They are natures whose possession is a precondition of their owners being divided from the rest of reality. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 5.2) | |
A reaction: Thus Wiggins rejects the explanation account of essence, with an assertion of his own (highly implausible) view that essence is about individuation rather than about behaviour. Individuation strikes me as an entirely human activity, and not 'real'. |
11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins's proposal of a predicate-modifier account is the best formal representation of essential statements. ...This simple version is perfectly adequate to represent the claim that a is essentially-F: □(a exists → a is F). | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Ch.4) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.2 | |
A reaction: I suppose that is right. Having an essence is a feature of an entity, but it has to boil done to characteristics that define the entity, and which it must presumably always have. Could an entity ever lack its essence? |
11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Things being ranked under Names into sorts only as they agree with certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed the Names, the essence of each sort comes to nothing but that abstract idea which the sortal name stands for. This is the nominal Essence. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], III.iii.15) | |
A reaction: He contrasts 'nominal essence' with 'real essence'. A key passage for David Wiggins. One shouldn't put too much emphasis on nominal essence, since it means that someone referred to as 'that idiot over there' (you, perhaps) is necessarily an idiot. |
11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: If horse-stages made sense at all, it would be easier to go from horses to horse-stages than to go from horse-stages to horses. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.9) | |
A reaction: A nice remark, analogous to 'it is easier to break a vase than to mend it'. Going from horse-stages to horses is the classic difficulty for 'bundle theories' (of objects, or persons): what is it that unites the bundle? |
11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Let us remember that the title in question is not the title to the sobriquet 'Theseus' Ship'; it is the title to identity with Theseus' ship, a particular ship originating from the eighth century B.C. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.4) | |
A reaction: There is an assumption here that identity is defined by origin. What is the origin of the identity of those huge football clubs that began under the name of some village team in 1875? What is the origin of 'England' as a single entity? |
11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: People often speak of identity over time and distinguish it from identity at a time. But identity is just identity. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
A reaction: I myself am guilty of such usage, but it doesn't imply a commitment to a multivocal concept. The epistemological issues (of explaining what it is now, and simply reidentifying it later) seem profoundly different. Hume only admits identity over time. |
11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The simple proof (from Ruth Barcan Marcus) is: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, then Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.3) | |
A reaction: This is the famous idea which she noticed well before Kripke. The point is that the simple logic of the case bestows a necessity on the identity. We shouldn't be confused by the a posteriori and contingent nature of the discovery. |
11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The formal properties of identity are the reflexivity of identity, and Leibniz's Law (if x is the same as y, then whatever is true of one is true of the other). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.2) | |
A reaction: Presumably transitivity will also apply, and, indeed, symmetry. He seems to mean something like the 'axiomatic formal properties'. |
14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins argues that Geach's Relative Identity is incompatible with the formal properties of identity, which include, besides transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity, the complete community of properties defined by the Indiscernibility of Identicals. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.603 | |
A reaction: The tricky part is that Wiggins then goes on to say that identity depends on sortals, which sounds very close to the Geach view. I find disentangling them tricky. See Idea 14363 for a helpful comment from Strawson. |
11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The thesis of Relativity of Identity (which I steadfastly oppose) ..suggests that it makes all the difference to keeping track of continuants through space and time which concept one subsumes something under. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [Geach I take to be the villain of this idea] The point is that identity is entirely relative to the sortal concept, where Wiggins wants to make identity a combination of the object itself and our concept of it (I think). |
11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: As a necessary condition of the truth of an identity claim, some common sort f will have to be found to which they each belong. That is the point at which the primary question of identity can come into focus. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
A reaction: This is the plainest English expression I can find of Wiggins's main thesis. He maintains this thesis, while adamantly denying the idea that identity consists entirely of falling under a concept. |
11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law underwrites the substitutivity of identity and this is a principle not long dispensable in any form of reasoning. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
A reaction: Thus the modern fashion of deriving our metaphysics from our logic. Presumably we can derive it from our epistemology too, or even from our intuitions, if we thought they were good enough as evidence. |
11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Is Leibniz's Law as true for 'is the same as' as it is for '='? | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.2) | |
A reaction: [By Leibniz's Law he means if they are the same, they support the same truths] |
11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Worlds are the shadows of our suppositions and they take on their identity from these. Suppositions take on their identity from (inter alia) the objects they relate to. If they sever themselves from these objects, then they collapse. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.11) | |
A reaction: Sounds good. My picture is of possibilities which are suggested by objecfs in the actual world, with extreme possibilities being at fifth-remove from actuality. Any worlds that go beyond natural possibility are just there for fun. |
11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It is perfectly notorious that not every story corresponds to a possible world. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.4) | |
A reaction: Thus a fantasy castle might be decorated with 'beautiful circular squares', or be threatened by a lump of enriched uranium twenty feet in diameter. Wiggins is replying to the claim that a possible world represents a 'story'. |
11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The special effectiveness of the 'what is it?' question is that, in the case of continuants, it refers us back to our constantly exercised idea of the persistence and life-span of an entity. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Compare 'this is a human' with 'this is a member of a family noted for its longevity'. We can't simply answer 'what is it?' by tossing it into the nearest category. I say we need an individual essence for explanation, not just a sortal. |
3960 | There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties [Davidson] |
Full Idea: There are no such things as minds, but people have mental properties. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: I think this is right. It fits with Searle's notion of consciousness as a property, like the liquidity of water. I don't panic if I think "I have no mind, but I have extraordinary properties". |
3964 | If the mind is an anomaly, this makes reduction of the mental to the physical impossible [Davidson] |
Full Idea: If there are no strict psychophysical laws, this rules out reductionism, either by definition of mental predicates in physical terms, or by way of bridging laws. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: But it is by no means clear that there are no psycho-physical laws. How could this be known a priori? |
3963 | There are no strict psychophysical laws connecting mental and physical events [Davidson] |
Full Idea: There are no strict psychophysical laws (that is, laws connecting mental events under their mental descriptions with physical events under their physical descriptions). | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: This is clearly open to question. It may be just that no human mind could ever grasp such laws, given their probable complexity. |
3961 | Obviously all mental events are causally related to physical events [Davidson] |
Full Idea: All mental events are causally related to physical events. ..This seems obvious. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: All mental events are physically caused. Some bodily physical events result from mental events. Probably all mental events have some effect of other mental events (all of which are in some sense physical). |
3965 | Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Mental entities do not add to the physical furniture of the world. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: This seems to me clearly true, however we propose to characterise mental events. |
3966 | The correct conclusion is ontological monism combined with conceptual dualism [Davidson] |
Full Idea: My basic premises lead to the conclusion of ontological monism coupled with conceptual dualism (like Spinoza, except that he denied mental causation). | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: 'Conceptual dualism' implies no real difference, but 'property dualism' is better, suggesting different properties when viewed from different angles. |
3967 | Absence of all rationality would be absence of thought [Davidson] |
Full Idea: To imagine a totally irrational animal is to imagine an animal without thought. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
A reaction: This wouldn't be so clear without the theory of evolution, which suggests that only the finders of truth last long enough to breed. |
3974 | Our meanings are partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant [Davidson] |
Full Idea: What we mean by what we say is partly fixed by events of which we may be ignorant. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.235) | |
A reaction: There is 'strict and literal meaning', which is fixed by the words, even if I don't know what I am saying. But 'speaker's meaning' is surely a pure matter of a state of mind? |
11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.6) | |
A reaction: I like this piece of simple common sense. I personally don't think you can reach first base in a sensible discussion if you don't face up to both sides of this idea (especially the second half, which many philosophers, especially of language, neglect). |
11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can use the Fregean 'concept' on the level of reference and naming, and prefer the word 'conception' for the Kantian idea of the sense, or the information needed to understand the concept. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.5) | |
A reaction: This is a nice suggestion, and at first blush I think it should be adopted. Sometimes philosophers regret adopting a terminology several hundred years after it has been agreed. |
3968 | Propositions explain nothing without an explanation of how sentences manage to name them [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The idea of a proposition is unhelpful, until it is explained how exactly the words in the contained sentence manage to name or describe a proposition (which even Frege failed to achieve). | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.232) | |
A reaction: It seems obvious to me that there are brain events best labelled as propositions, even if their fit with language is puzzling. |
3970 | Thought is only fully developed if we communicate with others [Davidson] |
Full Idea: We would have no fully-fledge thoughts if we were not in communication with others. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
A reaction: This seems a plausible empirical observation, though I would doubt any a priori proof of it. If animals could speak, they would become intellectuals? |
3971 | There is simply no alternative to the 'principle of charity' in interpreting what others do [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The 'principle of charity' is a misleading term, since there is no alternative if we want to make sense of the attitudes and actions of the agents around us. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.233) | |
A reaction: I suppose so, but only with a background of evolutionary theory. I would necessarily assume charity if a robot spoke to me. |
3973 | Without a teacher, the concept of 'getting things right or wrong' is meaningless [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Without a 'teacher', nothing would give content to the idea that there is a difference between getting things right and getting them wrong. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.234) | |
A reaction: Seems right. A group of speculators with no one in the role of 'teacher' would seem to be paralysed with uncertain (except where judgements are very obvious). |
11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: For all the purposes of identity and individuation of things that belong to natural kinds..., it is enough to have regard for the lawlike propensities of members of the kind. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This may have got things in reverse, since it is hard to see how you could pick out any laws if you didn't assume the existence of natural kinds which were causing the regularities in the behaviour. |
3962 | Cause and effect relations between events must follow strict laws [Davidson] |
Full Idea: If two events are related as cause and effect, there is a strict law under which they may be subsumed. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Davidson on himself [1994], p.231) | |
A reaction: Davidson admits that this is open to challenge (though Hume and Kant supported it). It does seem to be central to our understanding of nature. |