11 ideas
16664 | Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident [Albert of Saxony] |
Full Idea: Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident. | |
From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], I.18), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to be the view of those who base their ontology on first-order classical logic. The more austere reading of that makes the accidents into sets of substances, so it's just substances. All the non-substance stuff cries out for recognition. |
15642 | If kinds depend only on what can be observed, many underlying essences might produce the same kind [Eagle] |
Full Idea: If the kinds there are depend not on the essences of the objects but on their observed distinguishing particulars, ...then for any kind that we think there is, it is possible that there are many underlying essences which are observably indistinguishable. | |
From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
A reaction: Eagle is commenting on Locke's reliance on nominal essences. This seems to be the genuine problem with jadeite and nephrite (both taken to be 'jade'), or with 'fool's gold'. This isn't an objection to Locke; it just explains the role of science. |
15645 | Nominal essence are the observable properties of things [Eagle] |
Full Idea: It is clear the nominal essences really are the properties of the things which have them: they are (a subset of) the observable properties of the things. | |
From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
A reaction: I think this is wrong. The surface characteristics are all that is available to us, so our classifications must be based on those, but it is on the ideas of them, not their intrinsic natures. That is empiricsm! What makes the properties 'essential'? |
15643 | Nominal essence mistakenly gives equal weight to all underlying properties that produce appearances [Eagle] |
Full Idea: Nominal essence does not allow for gradations in significance for the underlying properties. Those are all essential for the object behaving as it observably does, and they must all be given equal weight when deciding what the object does. | |
From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
A reaction: This is where 'scientific' essentialism comes in. If we take one object, or one kind of object, in isolation, Eagle is right. When we start to compare, and to set up controlled conditions tests, we can dig into the 'gradations' he cares about. |
16703 | God could make a successive thing so that previous parts cease to exist [Albert of Saxony] |
Full Idea: Something can be conceived of as successive simpliciter, with respect to both its substance and its state. For example, if Socrates were continually made and made again by the First Cause, as the Seine flow, so nothing of what preexists remains. | |
From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.4 | |
A reaction: This is precisely the problem that modern stage theory faces, of knowing how to connect the stages together. |
16699 | Successive entities just need parts to succeed one another, without their existence [Albert of Saxony] |
Full Idea: For existence to hold of completely successive entities it is not required that their parts exist, but that one part succeed another, as a future part succeeds a past part. | |
From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3 ad 2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3 | |
A reaction: A nice move, but it doesn't quite solve it. How can non-existent things 'succeed one another'? It is worrying for metaphysics that some things have entirely different concepts of persistence from other things. |
9086 | The idea of abstract objects is not ontological; it comes from the epistemological idea of abstraction [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: The notion of an abstract object comes from the notion of abstraction; it is in origin an epistemological rather than an ontological category. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.232) | |
A reaction: Etymology doesn't prove anything. However, if you define abstract objects as not existing in space or time, you must recognise that this may only be because that is how humans imaginatively created them in the first place. |
9087 | Theists may see abstract objects as really divine thoughts [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: Theists may find attractive a view popular among medieval philosophers from Augustine on: that abstract objects are really divine thoughts. More exactly, propositions are divine thoughts, properties divine concepts, and sets divine collections. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.233) | |
A reaction: Hm. I pass this on because we should be aware that there is a theological history to discussions of abstract objects, and some people have vested interests in keeping them outside of the natural world. Aren't properties natural? Does God gerrymander sets? |
9085 | If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: Someone who believes propositions are concrete cannot agree that some propositions are necessary. For propositions are contingent beings, and could have failed to exist. But if they fail to exist, then they fail to be true. | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.230) | |
A reaction: [compressed] He implies the actual existence of an infinity of trivial, boring or ridiculous necessary truths. I suspect that he is just confusing a thought with its content. Or we might just treat necessary propositions as hypothetical. |
9084 | Propositions can't just be in brains, because 'there are no human beings' might be true [Plantinga] |
Full Idea: If propositions are brain inscriptions, then if there had been no human beings there would have been no propositions. But then 'there are no human beings' would have been true, so there would have been at least one truth (and thus one proposition). | |
From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.229) | |
A reaction: This would make 'there are no x's' true for any value of x apart from actual objects, which implies an infinity of propositions. Does Plantinga really believe that these all exist? He may be confusing propositions with facts. |
15641 | Kinds are fixed by the essential properties of things - the properties that make it that kind of thing [Eagle] |
Full Idea: The natural thought is to think that real kinds are given only by classification on the basis of essential properties: properties that make an object the kind of thing that it is. | |
From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], II) | |
A reaction: Circularity alert! Circularity alert! Essence gives a thing its kind - and hence we can see what the kind is? Test for a trivial property! Eagle is not unaware of these issues. Does he mean 'necessary' rather than 'essential'? |