15 ideas
| 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. |
| 3444 | If actions are not caused by other events, and are not causeless, they must be caused by the person [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: If the action is not caused by some other event, and it is not causeless, this leaves the possibility that it is caused by something else instead, and this something can only be the agent, the man. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |
| 3446 | For Hobbes (but not for Kant) a person's actions can be deduced from their desires and beliefs [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: According to Hobbes, if we fully know what a man desires and believes, and we know the state of his physical stimuli, we may logically deduce what he will try to do. But Kant says no such statements can ever imply what a man will do. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.32) |
| 9268 | If free will miraculously interrupts causation, animals might do that; why would we want to do it? [Frankfurt on Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm holds the quaint doctrine that human freedom entails an absence of causal determination; a free action is a miracle. This gives no basis for doubting that animals have such freedom; and why would we care whether we can interrupt the causal order? | |
| From: comment on Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964]) by Harry G. Frankfurt - Freedom of the Will and concept of a person §IV | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Chisholm is the spokesman for 'agent causation', Frankfurt for freedom as second-level volitions. I'm with Frankfurt. The belief in 'agents' and 'free will' may sound plausible, until the proposal is spelled out in causal terms. |
| 3442 | Responsibility seems to conflict with events being either caused or not caused [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: The free will problem is that humans seem to be responsible, but this seems to conflict with the idea that every event is caused by some other event, and it also conflicts with the view that the action is not caused at all. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.24) |
| 3443 | Desires may rule us, but are we responsible for our desires? [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: If a flood of desires causes a weak-willed man to give in to temptation, …the question now becomes, is he responsible for the beliefs and desires he happens to have? | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.25) |
| 22709 | We should first decide what are the great works of art, with aesthetic theory following from that [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Our aesthetic must stand to be judged by great works of art which we know to be such independently. …So let us start by saying that Shakespeare is the greatest of all artists, and let our aesthetic be the philosophical justification of this judgement. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sublime and the Good [1959], p.205) | |
| A reaction: She offers this view in specific contradiction of Tolstoy, which says we should first have a theory, and then judge accordingly. I take Murdoch to be entirely right, but it means that our aesthetic theory will shift over time. |
| 22715 | Great art proves the absurdity of art for art's sake [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: The work of the great artists shows up 'art-for-art's-sake' as a flimsy frivolous doctrine. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sublime and the Good [1959], p.218) | |
| A reaction: She keeps referring to tragedy (as the greatest art), but it is hard to see how we learn love and morality from a great pot or a great abstract painting. Wilde makes the doctrine frivolous, but I think it contains a degree of truth. Music. |
| 22714 | Because art is love, it improves us morally [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: It is of course a fact that if art is love then art improves us morally, but this is, as it were, accidental. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sublime and the Good [1959], p.218) | |
| A reaction: Is an enhancement of one's love necessarily a moral improvement? Love is a fine feeling, but how does it motivate? Has no wickedness ever been perpetrated in the name of love? 'All's fair in love and war'. |
| 22712 | Art and morals are essentially the same, and are both identical with love [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Art and morals are (with certain provisos) one. Their essence is the same. The essence of both of them is love. Love is the perception of individuals. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sublime and the Good [1959], p.215) | |
| A reaction: The idea that art, morals and love are all just a single thing seems unhelpful. What about satire? What about duty without love? What about pure abstract painting? What about Stravinsky's highly formal view of his music? |
| 22713 | Love is realising something other than oneself is real [Murdoch] |
| Full Idea: Love is the extremely difficult realisation that something other than oneself is real. | |
| From: Iris Murdoch (The Sublime and the Good [1959], p.215) | |
| A reaction: I suspect that this is a necessary condition for love, but not the thing itself. The realisation she describes may not be love. You would attain her realisation if you shared a prison cell with a terrifying psychopath. |
| 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'? |
| 3445 | Causation among objects relates either events or states [Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Between natural objects we may say that causation is a relation between events or states of affairs. | |
| From: Roderick Chisholm (Human Freedom and the Self [1964], p.28) |