14 ideas
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. |
10242 | I apply structuralism to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately [Quine] |
Full Idea: My own line is a yet more sweeping structuralism (than David Lewis's account of classes), applying to concrete and abstract objects indiscriminately. | |
From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.6), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9 | |
A reaction: Shapiro calls this 'breathtaking', and retreats from it, but it is something like my own view, starting from Mill's pebbles and working up. |
10243 | My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine] |
Full Idea: My tentative ontology continues to consist of quarks and their compounds, also classes of such things, classes of such classes, and so on. | |
From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.9), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9 | |
A reaction: I would call this the Hierarchy of Abstraction (just coined it - what do you think?). Unlike Quine, I don't see why its ontology should include things called 'sets' in addition to the things that make them up. |
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. |
14221 | Serious essentialism says everything has essences, they're not things, and they ground necessities [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: Serious essentialism is the position that a) everything has an essence, b) essences are not themselves things, and c) essences are the ground for metaphysical necessity and possibility. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Intro') | |
A reaction: If a house is being built, it might acquire an identity first, and only get an essence later. Essences can be physical, but if you extract them you destroy thing thing of which they were the essence. Does all of this apply to abstract 'things'. |
14222 | Essences are what it is to be that (kind of) thing - in fact, they are the thing's identity [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: The route into essentialism is, first, a recognition that the essence of a thing is "what it is to be" that (kind of) thing; the essence of a thing is just its identity. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
A reaction: The first half sounds right, and very Aristotelian. The second half is dramatically different, controversial, and far less plausible. Slipping in 'kind of' is also highly dubious. This remark shows, I think, some confusion about essences. |
14226 | We distinguish objects by their attributes, not by their essences [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: In ordinary contexts, we distinguish objects not by their essences but by their attributes. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
A reaction: Hence we have a gap between what bestows identity intrinsically, and how we bestow identity conventionally. If you could grasp the essence of something, you might predict a new attribute, as yet unobserved. |
14225 | Critics say that essences are too mysterious to be known [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: According to critics, the thorniest problem for essentialism is the question of our knowledge of essence. It is usually at this point that terms of abuse such as 'dark', 'mysterious', and 'occult' are wheeled out. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Ess and Know') | |
A reaction: I'm inclined to think that the existence of essences can be fairly conclusively inferred, but that attributing a precise identity to them is the biggest challenge. |
14223 | De dicto necessity has linguistic entities as their source, so it is a type of de re necessity [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: De dicto necessity is a species of de re necessity. Anyone prone to countenance de dicto necessity must recognise mental and/or linguistic entities, thus counting each of them as a res to which necessity attaches. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Essent') | |
A reaction: This seems to rest on the Kit Fine thought that analytic necessities seem to derive from the essences of words such as 'bachelor'. I like this idea: all necessity is de re, but some of the 'things' are words. |
14224 | Equilateral and equiangular aren't the same, as we have to prove their connection [Shalkowski] |
Full Idea: That 'all and only equilateral triangles are equiangular' required proof, and not for mere curiosity, is grounds for thinking that being an equilateral triangle is not the same property as being an equiangular triangle. | |
From: Scott Shalkowski (Essence and Being [2008], 'Serious') | |
A reaction: If you start with equiangularity, does equilateralness then require proof? This famous example is of two concepts which seem to be coextensional, but seem to have a different intension. Does a dependence relation drive a wedge between them? |