8 ideas
| 4298 | All items of possible human knowledge are interconnected, and can be reached by inference [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: All the items of knowledge that lie within the reach of the human mind are linked together with a marvellous bond, and can be derived from each other by necessary inferences. | |
| From: René Descartes (unfinished dialogue [1649]) | |
| A reaction: It does seem that God ought to be able to infer all empirical facts from first principles. But how do you get started? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 16650 | 'Unity' is a particularly difficult word, because things can have hidden unity [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: I believe that 'unity' is one of the more difficult words in philosophy, for there are in things many hidden (occultae) unities that are obscure to us. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Lectura [1298], I.17.2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 | |
| A reaction: Some examples would be nice. Do the Earth and the Moon form a unity, because of gravity? How ponders whether whiteness and a white man are unified. |