16 ideas
| 4037 | Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Ockham's Razor is the principle that we need reasons to believe in entities. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §9) | |
| A reaction: This presumably follows from an assumption that all beliefs need reasons, but is that the case? The Principle of Sufficient Reason precedes Ockham's Razor. |
| 9175 | We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by a description, but thereafter the name is rigid [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: We may fix the reference of 'Cicero' by use of some descriptive phrase, such as 'author of these works'. But once we have this reference fixed, we then use the name 'Cicero' rigidly to designate the man who in fact we have identified by his authorship. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.183) | |
| A reaction: Even supposedly rigid names can shift reference, as Evans's example of 'Madagascar' shows (Idea 9041). Reference is a much more social activity than Kripke is willing to admit. There is a 'tradition' of reference (Dummett) for the name 'Cicero'. |
| 9171 | The function of names is simply to refer [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: The function of names is simply to refer. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.167) | |
| A reaction: This is Kripke reverting to the John Stuart Mill view of names. If I say "you are a right Casanova" I don't simply refer to Casanova. In notorious examples like 'Homer' reference is fine, but the object of reference is a bit elusive. |
| 4027 | Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Properties are respects in which particular objects may be alike or differ. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §1) | |
| A reaction: Note that this definition does not mention a causal role for properties. |
| 4029 | Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Nominalists ask why we should postulate properties at all. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §3) | |
| A reaction: Objects might be grasped without language, but events cannot be understood, and explanations of events seem inconceivable without properties (implying that they are essentially causal). |
| 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'? |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 9174 | It is necessary that this table is not made of ice, but we don't know it a priori [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Although the statement that this table (if it exists at all) was not made of ice, is necessary, it certainly is not something that we know a priori. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.180) | |
| A reaction: One of the key thoughts in modern philosophy. Kit Fine warns against treating it as a new and exciting toy, but it is a new and exciting toy. Scientific essentialism, which I so want to be true, is built on this proposal. |
| 9172 | A 'rigid designator' designates the same object in all possible worlds [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: By 'rigid designator' I mean a term that designates the same object in all possible worlds. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971]) | |
| A reaction: I am persistently troubled by the case of objects which are slightly different in another possible world. Does 'Aristotle' refer to him as young or old? Might the very same man have had a mole on his cheek? |
| 9173 | We cannot say that Nixon might have been a different man from the one he actually was [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: It seems that we cannot say "Nixon might have been a different man from the man he in fact was", unless we mean it metaphorically. He might have been a different sort of person. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.176) | |
| A reaction: The problem is that being a 'different sort of person' could become more and more drastic, till Nixon is unrecognisable. I don't see how I can stipulate that a small and dim mouse is Richard Nixon, even in a possible world with magicians. |
| 9176 | Modal statements about this table never refer to counterparts; that confuses epistemology and metaphysics [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: Statements about the modal properties of this table never refer to counterparts. However, if someone confuses the epistemological problems and the metaphysical problems he will be well on the way to the counterpart theory of Lewis. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.184 n16) | |
| A reaction: I can't make out what we should say about a possible object which is very nearly this table. Kripke needs the table to have a clear and unwavering essence, but tables are not that sort of thing. How would Kripke define 'physical object'? |
| 9177 | Identity theorists must deny that pains can be imagined without brain states [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: The identity theorist has to hold that we are under some illusion in thinking that we can imagine that there could have been pains without brain states. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190) | |
| A reaction: The origin of Robert Kirk's idea that there might be zombies. Kripke is wrong. Of course Kripke and his friends can imagine disembodied pains; the question is whether being able to imagine them makes them possible, which it doesn't. |
| 9178 | Pain, unlike heat, is picked out by an essential property [Kripke] |
| Full Idea: 'Heat' is a rigid designator, which is picked out by the contingent property of being felt in a certain way; pain, on the other hand, is picked out by an essential (indeed necessary and sufficient) property. | |
| From: Saul A. Kripke (Identity and Necessity [1971], p.190 n19) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I could pick out your pain by your contingent whimpering behaviour. I can spot my own potential pain by a combination of bodily damage and pain killing tablets. I suspect him of the same blunder as Descartes on this one. |
| 4039 | Abstractions lack causes, effects and spatio-temporal locations [Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (such as sets) are usually understood as lacking causes, effects, and spatio-temporal location. | |
| From: DH Mellor / A Oliver (Introduction to 'Properties' [1997], §10) | |
| A reaction: This seems to beg some questions. Has the ideal of 'honour' never caused anything? Young men dream of pure velocity. |
| 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'? |