8 ideas
| 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. |
| 6383 | Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The concept of cause is what holds together our picture of the universe, a picture that would otherwise disintegrate into a diptych of the mental and the physical. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: Davidson seems to be the one who put mental causation at the centre of philosophy. By then denying that there are any 'psycho-physical' laws, he seems to me to have re-opened the metaphysical gap he says he was trying to close. |
| 6385 | The causally strongest reason may not be the reason the actor judges to be best [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: I defend my causal view of action by arguing that a reason that is causally strongest need not be a reason deemed by the actor to provide the strongest (best) grounds for acting. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xii) | |
| A reaction: If I smoke a cigarette against my better judgement, it is not clear to me how the desire to smoke it, which overcomes my judgement not to smoke it, counts as the causally strongest 'reason'. We seem to have two different senses of 'reason' here. |
| 6384 | The notion of cause is essential to acting for reasons, intentions, agency, akrasia, and free will [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that the ordinary notion of cause is essential to understanding what it is to act with a reason, to have an intention to act, to be an agent, to act counter to one's own best judgement, or to act freely. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: I cautiously agree, particularly with idea that causation is essential to acting as an agent. Since I believe 'free will' to be a complete delusion, that part of his thesis doesn't interest me. The hard part is understanding acting for a reason. |
| 21788 | The moral will is self-determining, but the ethical will is met in society [Houlgate] |
| Full Idea: Whereas the moral will understands the good to be something which it can recognise or determine by itself, the ethical will acknowledges the good to be something actual which it encounters in the world about it. | |
| From: Stephen Houlgate (An Introduction to Hegel [1991], 08 'Freedom') | |
| A reaction: I think these two terms have become blurred - or at least I have thoroughly lost track of them. I'm not sure whether it is good to have distinct terms for (Kantian) personal choice and for social expectations. Ethics is what Nietzsche attacks. |
| 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'? |