103 ideas
| 6779 | Instrumentalists say distinctions between observation and theory vanish with ostensive definition [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Instrumentalists treat the theoretical/non-theoretical and the observational/non-observational distinctions as the same, ..because they think words get their meaning by way of ostensive definition. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: To be honest, I'm not sure I quite understand this, but it sounds interesting... Ostensive definition seems to match the pragmatic spirit of instrumentalism (for which, see Idea 6778). Bird explains it all more fully. |
| 6052 | Definitions identify two concepts, so they presuppose identity [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Any definition must presuppose the notion of identity precisely because a definition affirms the identity of two concepts. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: McGinn is arguing that identity is fundamental to thought, and this seems persuasive. It may be, though, that while identities are inescapable, definitions are impossible. |
| 6064 | Regresses are only vicious in the context of an explanation [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Regresses are only vicious in the context of some explanatory aim, not in themselves. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n11) | |
| A reaction: A nice point. It is not quite clear how 'pure' reason could ever be vicious, or charming, or sycophantic. The problem about a vicious regress is precisely that it fails to explain anything. Now benign regresses are something else… (see Idea 2523) |
| 6088 | Truth is a method of deducing facts from propositions [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Truth is essentially a method of deducing facts from propositions. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Very persuasive. McGinn is offering a disquotational account of truth, but in a robust form. Of course, deduction normally takes the form of moving infallibly from one truth to another, but that model of deduction won't fit this particular proposal. |
| 6084 | 'Snow does not fall' corresponds to snow does fall [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We can say that the proposition that snow does not fall from the sky corresponds to the fact that snow does fall from the sky - in the sense that there is a mapping from fact to proposition. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: A very nice difficulty for the correspondence theory. It becomes essential to say how the two things correspond before it can offer any sort of account of the truth-relation. |
| 6085 | The idea of truth is built into the idea of correspondence [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The correspondence theory has an air of triviality, and hence undeniability, but this is because it implicitly builds the idea of truth into the notion of correspondence. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: If this is accepted, it is a really fatal objection to the theory. Russell tried to use the idea of 'congruency' between beliefs and reality, but that may be open to the same objection. McGinn is claiming that truth is essentially indefinable. |
| 6083 | The coherence theory of truth implies idealism, because facts are just coherent beliefs [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: If 'snow falls from the sky' is true iff it coheres with other beliefs, this is a form of idealism; snow could surely fall from sky even if there were no beliefs in the world to cohere with each other. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: The coherence theory of truth strikes me as yet another blunder involving a confusion of ontology and epistemology. Of course, idealism may be true, but I have yet to hear a good reason why I should abandon commonsense realism. |
| 6086 | Truth is the property of propositions that makes it possible to deduce facts [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Truth is a property of a proposition from which one can deduce the fact stated by the proposition. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This is McGinn's explanation of the disquotational account of truth ('p' is true iff p). The redundancy theorist would reply that you can deduce p from 'p' without mentioning truth, but it remains to ask why this deduction is possible. |
| 6087 | Without the disquotation device for truth, you could never form beliefs from others' testimony [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Imagine being in a community which had no concept of truth; ..you cannot disquote on p and hence form beliefs about the world as a result of testimony, since you lack the device of disquotation that is the essence of truth. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Whether his theory is right or not, the observation that testimony is the really crucial area where we must have a notion of truth is very good. How about 'truth is what turns propositions into beliefs'? |
| 6051 | In 'x is F and x is G' we must assume the identity of x in the two statements [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: If we say 'for some x, x is F and x is G' we are making tacit appeal to the idea of identity in using 'x' twice here: it has to be the same object that is both F and G. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This may well be broadened to any utterances whatsoever. The only remaining question is to speculate about whether it is possible to think without identities. The Hopi presumably gave identity to processes rather objects. How does God think? |
| 6055 | Both non-contradiction and excluded middle need identity in their formulation [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: To formulate the law of non-contradiction ('nothing can be both F and non-F') and the law of excluded middle ('everything is either F or it is not-F'), we need the concept of identity (in 'nothing' and 'everything'). | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Two good examples in McGinn's argument that identity is basic to all thinking. But the argument also works to say that necessity is basic (since both laws claim it) and properties are basic. Let's just declare everything 'basic', and we can all go home. |
| 6059 | Identity is unitary, indefinable, fundamental and a genuine relation [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: I have endorsed four main theses about identity: it is unitary, it is indefinable, it is fundamental, and it is a genuine relation | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: That it is fundamental to our thinking seems certain (but to all possible thought?). That it is a relation looks worth questioning. One might challenge unitary by comparing the identity of numbers, values, electrons and continents. I can't define it. |
| 6042 | The quantifier is overrated as an analytical tool [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The quantifier has been overrated as a tool of logical and linguistic analysis. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I find this proposal quite thrilling. Twentieth century analytical philosophy has been in thrall to logic, giving the upper hand in philosophical discussion to the logicians, who are often not very good at philosophy. |
| 6067 | Existential quantifiers just express the quantity of things, leaving existence to the predicate 'exists' [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: What the existential quantifier does is indicate the quantity of things in question - it says that some are; it is left up to the predicate 'exists' to express existence. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems right. The whole quantification business seems like a conjuring trick to conceal the embarrassingly indefinable and 'metaphysical' notion of 'existence'. Cf Idea 7697. |
| 6069 | 'Partial quantifier' would be a better name than 'existential quantifier', as no existence would be implied [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We would do much better to call 'some' the 'partial quantifier' (rather than the 'existential quantifier'), on analogy with the universal quantifier - as neither of them logically implies existence. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Like McGinn's other suggestions in this chapter, this strikes me as a potentially huge clarification in linguistic analysis. I wait with interest to see whether the philosophical logicians take it up. I bet they don't. |
| 6068 | We need an Intentional Quantifier ("some of the things we talk about.."), so existence goes into the proposition [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We could introduce an 'intentional quantifier' (Ix) which means 'some of the things we talk about..'; we could then say 'some of the things we talk about are F and exist' (Ix, x is F and x exists). | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a promising contribution to the analytical toolkit. McGinn is supporting his view that existence is a predicate, and so belongs inside the proposition, not outside. |
| 6070 | Existence is a primary quality, non-existence a secondary quality [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Existence is like a primary quality; non-existence is like a secondary quality. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2 n29) | |
| A reaction: Since McGinn thinks existence really is a property, and hence, presumably, a predicate, I don't quite see why he uses the word "like". A nicely pithy and thought-provoking remark. |
| 6062 | Existence can't be analysed as instantiating a property, as instantiation requires existence [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Paraphrasing existence statements into statements about the instantiation of a property does not establish that existence is not a predicate, since the notion of instantiation must be taken to have existence built into it. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Thank you, Colin McGinn! This now strikes me as so obvious that it is astonishing that for the whole of the twentieth century no one seems to have said it. For a century philosophers had swept the ontological dirt under the mat. |
| 6065 | We can't analyse the sentence 'something exists' in terms of instantiated properties [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: The problems of the orthodox view are made vivid by analysis of the sentence 'something exists'; this is meaningful and true, but what property are we saying is instantiated here? | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A very nice point. McGinn claims that existence is a property, a very generalised one. Personally I don't think anyone is even remotely clear what a property is, so the whole discussion is a bit premature. Must properties have causal powers? |
| 6082 | If causal power is the test for reality, that will exclude necessities and possibilities [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Whether my body weight is necessary or contingent makes no difference at all to my causal powers, so modality is epiphenomenal; if you took causal potential as a test of reality you would have to declare modes unreal. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: We could try analysing modality into causal terms, as Lewis proposes with quantification across worlds, or as Quine proposes by reduction to natural regularities. I am not sure what it would mean to declare that modes are 'real'. |
| 6780 | Anti-realism is more plausible about laws than about entities and theories [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There is anti-realism with regard to unobservable entities and the theories that purport to mention them, but the more plausible version attaches to theories concerning what laws of nature are. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds right. I certainly find anti-realism about the entities of science utterly implausible. I also doubt whether there is any such thing as a law, above and beyond the behaviour of matter. Theories float between the two. |
| 6075 | Facts are object-plus-extension, or property-plus-set-of-properties, or object-plus-property [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: A fact may be an object and an extension (Quine's view), or a property and a set of properties, or an object and a property; the view I favour is the third one, which seems the most natural. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Personally I tend to use the word 'fact' in a realist and non-linguistic way. There must be innumerable inexpressible facts, such as the single pattern made by all the particles of the universe. McGinn seems to be talking of 'atomic facts'. See Idea 6111. |
| 6058 | Identity propositions are not always tautological, and have a key epistemic role [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Identity propositions are not always analytic or a priori (as Frege long ago taught us) so there is nothing trivial about such propositions; the claim of redundancy ignores the epistemic role that the concept of identity plays. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to Frege's Morning Star/Evening Star distinction (Idea 4972). Wittgenstein wanted to eliminate our basic metaphysics by relabelling it as analytic or tautological, but his project failed. Long live metaphysics! |
| 6053 | Identity is as basic as any concept could ever be [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Identity has a universality and basicness that is hard to overstate; concepts don't get more basic than this - or more indispensable. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. It seems to me to follow that the natural numbers are just as basic, because they are entailed by the separateness of the identities of things. And the whole of mathematics is the science of the patterns within these numbers. |
| 6043 | Type-identity is close similarity in qualities [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Two things are said to be type-identical when they are similar enough to be declared qualitatively identical. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A simple point which brings out the fact that type-identity is unlikely to be any sort of true identity (unless there is absolutely no different at all between two electrons, say). |
| 6044 | Qualitative identity is really numerical identity of properties [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: A statement of so-called qualitative identity is really a statement of numerical identity (that is, identity tout court) about the properties of the objects in question - assuming that there are genuine universals. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: We might agree that two cars are type-identical, even though (under the microscope) we decided that none of their properties were absolutely identical. |
| 6046 | Qualitative identity can be analysed into numerical identity of the type involved [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We can analyse qualitative identity in terms of numerical identity, by saying that x and y are type-identical if there is a single type T that x and y both are, i.e. they both exemplify the same type. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This just seems to shift the problem onto the words 'are' and 'exemplify'. This takes us back to the problem of things 'partaking' of Plato's Forms. Better to say that qualitative identity isn't identity - it is resemblance (see Idea 6045). |
| 6045 | It is best to drop types of identity, and speak of 'identity' or 'resemblance' [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: It would be better to drop talk of 'numerical' and 'qualitative' identity altogether, speaking instead simply of identity and resemblance. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n4) | |
| A reaction: This is the kind of beautifully simple proposal I pay analytical philosophers to come up with. I will attempt in future to talk either of 'identity' (which is strict), or 'resemblance' (which comes in degrees). |
| 6066 | Existence is a property of all objects, but less universal than self-identity, which covers even conceivable objects [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Existence is a property universal to all objects that exist, somewhat like self-identity, but less universal, because self-identity holds of all conceivable objects, not merely those that happen to exist. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a splendidly defiant response to the Kantian slogan that 'existence is not a predicate', and I find McGinn persuasive. I can still not find anyone to explain to me exactly what a property is, so I will reserve judgement. |
| 6054 | Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Sherlock Holmes does not exist, but he is self-identical (he is certainly not indentical to Dr Watson). | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Most significant. Identity does not entail existence; identity is necessary for existence (I think) but not sufficient. But the notion of existence might be prior to the notion of identity, and the creation of Holmes be parasitic on real existence. |
| 6047 | All identity is necessary, though identity statements can be contingently true [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: All identity is necessary, although there can be contingently true identity statements - those that contain non-rigid designators. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n5) | |
| A reaction: A nice case of the need to keep epistemology and ontology separate. An example might be 'The Prime Minister wears a wig', where 'Prime Minister' may not be a rigid designator. 'Winston wears a wig' will be necessary, if true (which it wasn't). |
| 6049 | Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py' [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law says 'x = y iff for all P, Px iff Py'. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: That is, two things are the same if when we say that one thing (x) has a property (P), then we are saying that the other thing (y) also has the property. A usefully concise statement of the Law. |
| 6048 | Leibniz's Law is so fundamental that it almost defines the concept of identity [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law, which a defender of relative identity might opt to reject, is so fundamental to the notion of identity that rejecting it amounts to changing the subject. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1 n8) | |
| A reaction: The Law here is the 'indiscernibility of identicals'. I agree with McGinn, and anyone who loses their grip on this notion of identity strikes me as losing all grip on reality, and threatening their own sanity (well, call it their 'philosophical sanity'). |
| 6050 | Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law presupposes the notion of property identity. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A very important observation, because it leads to recognition of the way in which basic concepts and categories of thought interconnect. Which is more metaphysically basic, identity or properties? It is not easy to say… |
| 6796 | Subjective probability measures personal beliefs; objective probability measures the chance of an event happening [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Subjective probability measures a person's strength of belief in the truth of a proposition; objective probability concerns the chance a certain sort of event has of happening, independently of whether anyone thinks it is likely to occur or not. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: The challenge to the second one is that God would know for certain whether a meteor will hit the Earth next week. The impact looks like 'bad luck' to us, but necessary to one who really knows. |
| 6797 | Objective probability of tails measures the bias of the coin, not our beliefs about it [Bird] |
| Full Idea: In tossing a coin, the objective probability of tails is a measure of the bias of the coin; the bias and the probability are objective features of the coin, like its mass and shape; these properties have nothing to do with our beliefs about the coin. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Despite my reservation that God would not seem to be very interested in the probabilities of coin-tossing, since he knows each outcome with certaintly, this is fairly convincing. God might say that the coin has a 'three-to-two bias'. |
| 6080 | Modality is not objects or properties, but the type of binding of objects to properties [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Modality has a special ontological category: it consists neither in objects (possible worlds theory) nor in properties (predicate modifier view), but items I have called 'modes', ..which can be hard/soft/rigid/pliable binding of objects to properties. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: As so often, McGinn is very persuasive. Essentially he is proposing that modality is adverbial. He associates the middle view with David Wiggins. |
| 6079 | If 'possible' is explained as quantification across worlds, there must be possible worlds [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: If we replace modal words like 'possible' with quantification across worlds, clearly the notion of 'world' must exclude impossible worlds, otherwise 'possibly p' will be true if 'p' holds in an impossible world. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The point here, of course, is that the question is being begged of what 'possible' and 'impossible' actually mean. |
| 6081 | Necessity and possibility are big threats to the empiricist view of knowledge [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: It is clear that modality is a prima-facie threat to the usual kind of naturalistic-causal-empiricist theory of knowledge. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This is why modern empiricists spend of a lot of energy on trying to analyse counterfactuals and laws of nature. Rationalists are much happier to assert necessities a priori, but then they often don't have much basis for their claims. |
| 6800 | Many philosophers rate justification as a more important concept than knowledge [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers take the notion of justification to be more important or more basic than the concept of knowledge. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Given the obvious social and conventional element in 'knowledge' ("do we agree that the candidate really knows the answer?"), justification may well be closer to where the real action is. 'Logos', after all, is at the heart of philosophy. |
| 6786 | As science investigates more phenomena, the theories it needs decreases [Bird] |
| Full Idea: A remarkable fact about modern science is that as the number of phenomena which science has investigated has grown, the number of theories needed to explain them has decreased. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This rebuts the idea that theories are probably false because we are unlikely to have thought of the right one (Idea 6784). More data suggests more theories, yet we end up with fewer theories. Why is simplification of theories possible? |
| 6071 | Scepticism about reality is possible because existence isn't part of appearances [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Scepticism about the external world is possible because you can never build existence into the appearances, so it must always be inferred or assumed. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: When McGinn's claim that existence is a very universal property begins to produce interesting observations like this, I think we should take it very seriously. |
| 6792 | If theories need observation, and observations need theories, how do we start? [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If we cannot know the truth of theories without observation, and we cannot know the truth of observations without theories, where do we start? | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 6793. You make a few observations, under the illusion that they are objective, then formulate a promising theory, then go back and deconstruct the observations, then tighten up the theory, and so on. |
| 6757 | Explanation predicts after the event; prediction explains before the event [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Explanation is prediction after the event and prediction is explanation before the event. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice slogan, fitting Hempel's 'covering law' view of explanation. It doesn't seem quite right, because explanations and predictions are couched in very different language. Prediction implies an explanation; explanation implies a prediction. |
| 6805 | Relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The theories of relativity ousted Newtonian mechanics despite a loss of simplicity. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998]) | |
| A reaction: This nicely demonstrates that simplicity is not essential, even if it is desirable. The point applies to the use of Ockham's Razor (Idea 6806), and to Hume's objection to miracles (Idea 2227), where strange unnatural events may be the truth. |
| 6777 | Realists say their theories involve truth and the existence of their phenomena [Bird] |
| Full Idea: A realist says of their theories that they can be evaluated according to truth, they aim at truth, their success favours their truth, their unobserved entities probably exist, and they would explain the observable phenomena. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be the only sensible attitude towards scientific theories, even if they do become confusing down at the level of quantum theory. Theories aim to be true explanations. |
| 6804 | There is no agreement on scientific method - because there is no such thing [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I find little concurrence as to what scientific method might actually be - the reason being, I conclude, that there is no such thing. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: I take the essence of science to be two things: first, becoming very fussy about empirical evidence; second, setting up controlled conditions to get at the evidence that seems to be needed. I agree that there seems to be no distinctive way of thinking. |
| 6778 | Instrumentalists regard theories as tools for prediction, with truth being irrelevant [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Instrumentalism is so called because it regards theories not as attempts to describe or explain the world, but as instruments for making predictions; for the instrumentalist, asking about the truth of a theory is a conceptual mistake. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: It cannot be denied that theories are used to make predictions, and there is nothing wrong with being solely interested in predictions. I cannot make head or tail of the idea that truth is irrelevant. Why is a given theory so successful? |
| 6775 | Induction is inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Induction can be seen as inference to the best explanation, where the explanation is a law. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I like this. I increasingly think of explanation as central to rational thought, as the key route for empiricists to go beyond their immediate and verifiable experience. Laws can be probabilistic. |
| 6791 | If Hume is right about induction, there is no scientific knowledge [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If Hume is right about induction then there is no scientific knowledge. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: The first step is to recognise that induction is not deductively valid, but that does not make it irrational. If something happens five times, get ready for the sixth. If we discover the necessary features of nature, we can predict the future. |
| 6790 | Anything justifying inferences from observed to unobserved must itself do that [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Whatever could do the job of justifying an inference from the observed to the unobserved must itself be an inference from the observed to the unobserved. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: We must first accept that the unobserved might not be like the observed, no matter how much regularity we have, so it can't possibly be a logical 'inference'. Essences generate regularities, but non-essences may not. |
| 6738 | Any conclusion can be drawn from an induction, if we use grue-like predicates [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It looks as if any claim about the future can be made to be a conclusion of an inductive argument from any premises about the past, as long as we use a strange enough grue-like predicate. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Intro) | |
| A reaction: So don't use strange grue-like predicates. If all our predicates randomly changed their reference each day, we would be unable to talk to one another at all. Emeralds don't change their colour-properties, so why change the predicates that refer to them? |
| 6739 | Several months of observing beech trees supports the deciduous and evergreen hypotheses [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If someone were to observe beech trees every day over one summer they would have evidence that seems to support both the hypothesis that beech trees are deciduous and the hypothesis that they are evergreens. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Bird offers this to anyone who (like me) is tempted to dismiss the 'grue' problem as ridiculous. Obviously he is right; 'deciduous' works like 'grue'. But we invented the predicate 'deciduous' to match an observed property. |
| 6799 | We normally learn natural kinds from laws, but Goodman shows laws require prior natural kinds [Bird] |
| Full Idea: We know what natural kinds there are by seeing which properties appear in the laws of nature. But one lesson of Goodman's problem is that we cannot identify the laws of nature without some prior identification of natural kinds. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: For Goodman's problem, see Idea 4783. The essentialist view is that the natural kinds come first, and the so-called 'laws' are just regularities in events that arise from the interaction of stable natural kinds. (Keep predicates and properties separate). |
| 6798 | Bayesianism claims to find rationality and truth in induction, and show how science works [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Keen supporters of Bayesianism say it can show how induction is rational and can lead to truth, and it can reveal the underlying structure of actual scientific reasoning. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 2798 for Bayes' Theorem. I find it intuitively implausible that our feeling for probabilities could be reduced to precise numbers, given the subjective nature of the numbers we put into the equation. |
| 6752 | The objective component of explanations is the things that must exist for the explanation [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There is an 'objective', non-epistemic component to explanations, consisting of the things that must exist for A to be able to explain B, and the relations those things have to one another. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be some question-begging here, in that you have to decide what explanation you are after before you can decide which existences are of interest. There are objective facts, though, about what causally links to what. |
| 6754 | We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things [Bird] |
| Full Idea: We talk both of 'people' explaining things, and of 'facts' explaining things. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: An important point, and it is the job of philosophers to pull the two apart. How we talk does not necessarily show how it is. The concept of explanation is irrelevant in a universe containing no minds, or one containing only God. People seek the facts. |
| 6750 | Explanations are causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian or functional [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Explanations can be classified as causal, nomic, psychological, psychoanalytic, Darwinian and functional. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: These could be subdivided, perhaps according to different types of cause. Personally, being a reductionist (like David Lewis, see Idea 3989), I suspect that all of these explanations could be reduced to causation. Essences explain causes. |
| 6761 | Contrastive explanations say why one thing happened but not another [Bird] |
| Full Idea: A 'contrastive explanation' explains why one thing happened but not another. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: If I explain why the ship sank, is this contrastive, or just causal, or both? Am I explaining why it sank rather than turned into a giraffe? An interesting concept, but I can't see myself making use of it. |
| 6758 | 'Covering law' explanations only work if no other explanations are to be found [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The fact that something fits the 'covering law' model of explanation is no guarantee that it is an explanation, for that depends on what other explanations are there to be found. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: He gives Achinstein's example of a poisoned man who is run over by a bus. It has to be a basic requirement of explanations that they are the 'best', and not just something that fits a formula. |
| 6759 | Livers always accompany hearts, but they don't explain hearts [Bird] |
| Full Idea: All animals with a liver also have a heart; so we can deduce from this plus the existence of Fido's liver that he also has a heart, but his liver does not explain why he has a heart. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a counterexample to Hempel's deductive-nomological view of explanation. It seems a fairly decisive refutation of any attempt to give a simple rule for explaining things. Different types of explanation compete, and there is a subjective element. |
| 6756 | Probabilistic-statistical explanations don't entail the explanandum, but makes it more likely [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The probabilistic-statistical view of explanation (also called inductive-statistical explantion) is similar to deductive-nomological explanation, but instead of entailing the explanandum a probabilistic-statistical explantion makes it very likely. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: If people have umbrellas up, does that explain rain? Does the presence of a psychopath in the audience explain why I don't go to a rock concert? Still, it has a point. |
| 6760 | An operation might reduce the probability of death, yet explain a death [Bird] |
| Full Idea: An operation for cancer might lead to a patient's death, and so it explains the patient's death while at the same time reducing the probability of death. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This attacks Hempel's 'covering law' approach. Increasing probability of something clearly does not necessarily explain it, though it often will. Feeding you contaminated food will increase the probability of your death, and may cause it. |
| 6785 | Inference to the Best Explanation is done with facts, so it has to be realist [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Explanation of a fact is some other fact or set of facts. And so Inference to the Best Explanation is inference to facts; someone who employs it cannot but take a realist attitude to a theory which is preferred on these grounds. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: So my personal commitment to abduction is entailed by my realism, and my realism is entailed by my belief in the possibility of abduction. We can't explain the properties of a table just by referring to our experiences of tables. |
| 6788 | Maybe bad explanations are the true ones, in this messy world [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It is objected to 'best explanation' that this may well not be the best of all possible worlds - so why think that the best explanation is true? Maybe bad (complicated, unsystematic and weak) explanations are true. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: The only rebuttal of this objection to best explanation seems to be a priori. It would just seem an odd situation if very simple explanations fitted the facts and yet were false, like the points on a graph being a straight line by pure coincidence. |
| 6787 | Which explanation is 'best' is bound to be subjective, and no guide to truth [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It is objected to 'best explanation' that beauty is in the eye of the beholder - the goodness of possible explanations is subjective, and so the choice of best explanation is also subjective, and hence not a suitable guide to truth. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Explanation is indeed dependent both on the knowledge of the person involved, and on their interests. That doesn't, though, mean that you can choose any old explanation. Causal networks are features of the world. |
| 6751 | Maybe explanation is so subjective that it cannot be a part of science [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that explanation is hopelessly subjective, so subjective even that it is should have no part in proper science. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: God requires no explanations, and children require many. If fundamental explanations are causal, then laying bare the causal chains is the explanation, whether you want it or not. God knows all the explanations. See Idea 6752. |
| 6077 | Semantics should not be based on set-membership, but on instantiation of properties in objects [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Semantics should not employ the relationship of set-membership between objects and extensions, but rather the relation of instantiation between objects and properties. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: At least this means that philosophers won't be required to read fat books on set theory, but they will have to think very carefully about 'instantiation'. A good start is the ideas on 'Partaking' of Platonic Forms in this database (in 'Universals'). |
| 6074 | Clearly predicates have extensions (applicable objects), but are the extensions part of their meaning? [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: We are taught that predicates have extensions - the class of objects of which the predicate is true - which seems hard to deny; but a stronger claim is also made - that extensions are semantically relevant features of predicates. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: He cites Quine as a spokesman for this view. McGinn is going on to challenge it, by defending universals. It seems to fit in with other externalist theories of concepts and meanings, none of which seems very appealing to me. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 6776 | Natural kinds are those that we use in induction [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds are the kinds one should make use of in inductive inference (if that is explanation which leads to laws). | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The problem with this is that it is epistemological rather than ontological. In induction we use superficial resemblences that are immediately obvious, whereas the nature of kinds can be buried deep in the chemistry or physics. |
| 6767 | Rubies and sapphires are both corundum, with traces of metals varying their colours [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Both rubies (valuable) and sapphires (less valuable) are corundum (Al2O3), differing only in their colours, for which traces of iron, titanium and chomium are responsible. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: A nice example which illustrates how natural kinds determined by nominal essence could be drastically different from those suggested by real essence. It certainly suggests that corundum might be a natural kind, but ruby isn't. |
| 6768 | Tin is not one natural kind, but appears to be 21, depending on isotope [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If real essences are decided by microstructure, then what we call the element tin is not a natural kind, but a mixture of 21 different kinds, one for each isotope. There also exist two different allotropes of tin - white tin and grey tin. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This example vividly brings out the difficulties of the Kripke-Putnam view. If natural kinds 'overlap', then there would be a very extensive overlap among the 21 isotopes of tin. |
| 6770 | Membership of a purely random collection cannot be used as an explanation [Bird] |
| Full Idea: One might randomly collect diverse things and give the collection a name, but one would not expect it to explain anything to say that a certain object belonged to this collection. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is in support of Bird's view that natural kinds are formulated because of their explanatory role. There is, though, an undeniable subjective aspect to explanation, in that explanations arise from the ignorance and interests of persons. |
| 6771 | Natural kinds may overlap, or be sub-kinds of one another [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It seems clear that in some cases one natural kind may be a subkind of another, while in other cases natural kinds may overlap without one being the subkind of another. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Given the enormous difficulty of pinpointing natural kinds (e.g. Idea 6768), it is hard to know whether the comment is correct or not. Ellis says natural kinds come 'in hierarchies', which would make subkinds normal, but overlapping unlikely. |
| 6773 | If F is a universal appearing in a natural law, then Fs form a natural kind [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The proposal is that if F is a universal appearing in some natural law, then Fs form a natural kind. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Such proposals always invite the question 'What is it about F that enables it to be a universal in a natural law?' Nothing can be ultimately defined simply by its role. The character (essence, even) of the thing makes the role possible. |
| 6769 | In the Kripke-Putnam view only nuclear physicists can know natural kinds [Bird] |
| Full Idea: In the Kripke-Putnam view, it is very difficult for anyone except nuclear physicists to pick out natural kinds, since everything else is made out of compounds of different isotopes. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The concept of a rigid 'natural kind' does not have to be sacred. Tin might be considered a natural kind, despite having 21 isotopes. What matters is protons, not the neutrons. |
| 6774 | Darwinism suggests that we should have a native ability to detect natural kinds [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Creatures that are able to recognise natural kinds and laws have a selective advantage, so Darwinism suggests that we should have some native ability to detect natural kinds. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, but it makes 'natural kind' a rather instrumental concept, relative to our interests. True natural kinds cut across our interests, as when we discover by anatomy that whales are not fish, or that rubies and sapphires are both corundum. |
| 6764 | Nominal essence of a natural kind is the features that make it fit its name [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The nominal essence of a natural kind K consists of those features a thing must have to deserve the name 'a K' by virtue of the meaning of that name. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Some people think 'nominal essence' is the only essence there is, which would make it relative to human languages. The rival view is that there are 'real essences'. I favour the latter view. |
| 6766 | Jadeite and nephrite are superficially identical, but have different composition [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There might be more than one natural kind that shares the same superficial features, …jade, for example, has two forms, jadeite and nephrite, which are similar in superficial properties, but have different chemical composition and structure. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: It might be questioned whether jadeite and nephrite really are natural kinds, either together or separately. |
| 6808 | Reference to scientific terms is by explanatory role, not by descriptions [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I propose that reference to scientific terms, such as natural kinds and theoretical terms, is not determined by a sense or description attached to the term, but by its explanatory role. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: He gives the example of an electron, which had the same role in electrical theory, despite changes in understanding its nature. One might talk of its 'natural' (causal) role, rather than its 'explanatory' role (which implies a human viewpoint). |
| 6753 | Laws are more fundamental in science than causes, and laws will explain causes [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I think laws are fundamental and where there is a cause there is always a set of laws that encompasses the cause; identifying a cause will never be the final word in an scientific investigation, but will be open to supplementation by the underlying law. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. I would say (from the essentialist angle) that essences have causes, and the laws are the regularities that are caused by the essences. If laws are the lowest level of explanation, why these laws and not others? God? |
| 6762 | Newton's laws cannot be confirmed individually, but only in combinations [Bird] |
| Full Idea: None of Newton's laws individually records anything that can be observed; it is only from combinations of Newton's laws that we can derive the measurable motions of bodies. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This certainly scuppers any traditional positivist approach to how we confirm laws of nature. It invites the possibility that a different combination might fit the same observations. Experiments attempt to isolate laws. |
| 6763 | Parapsychology is mere speculation, because it offers no mechanisms for its working [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Wegener's theory of continental drift was only accepted when the theory of plate tectonics was developed, providing a mechanism. While some correlations exist for parapsychology, lack of plausible mechanisms leaves it as speculation. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: But parapsychology is not even on a par with Wegener's speculation, because his was consistent with known physical laws, whereas parapsychology flatly contradicts them. The so-called correlations are also not properly established. |
| 6772 | Existence requires laws, as inertia or gravity are needed for mass or matter [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I suspect that what we mean by 'mass' and 'matter' depends on our identifying the existence of laws of inertia and gravity; hence the idea of a world without laws is incoherent, for there to be anything at all there must be some laws and some kinds. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I find this counterintuitive. Reasonably stable existence requires something reasonably like laws. We only understand the physical world because we interact with it. But neither of those is remotely as strong as Bird's claim. |
| 6740 | 'All uranium lumps are small' is a law, but 'all gold lumps are small' is not [Bird] |
| Full Idea: 'Uranium lumps have mass of less than 1000 kg' is a law, but 'gold lumps have mass of less than 1000kg' is not a law. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice example. Essentialists talk about the nature of the substances; regularity theorists prefer to talk of nested or connected regularities (e.g. about explosions). In induction, how do you decide what your duty requires you to observe? |
| 6741 | There can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Bode's non-law (of 1772, about the gaps between the planets) shows that there can be remarkable uniformities in nature that are purely coincidental. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: If Bode's law really were confirmed, even for asteroids and newly discovered planets, it might suggest that an explanation really is required, and there is some underlying cause. How likely is the coincidence? Perhaps we have no way of telling. |
| 6742 | A law might have no instances, if it was about things that only exist momentarily [Bird] |
| Full Idea: A law might have no instances at all; for example, about the chemical and electrical behaviour of the transuranic elements, which only exist briefly in laboratories. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Nice example. We need to distinguish, though, (as Bird reminds us) between laws and theories. We have no theories in this area, but there are counterfactual truths about what the transuranic elements would do in certain circumstances. |
| 6743 | If laws are just instances, the law should either have gaps, or join the instances arbitrarily [Bird] |
| Full Idea: For the simple regularity theorist, the function ought to be a gappy one, leaving out values not actually instantiated; …one function would fit the actual points on the graph as well as any other. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: The 'simple' theorist says there is nothing more to a law than its instances. Clearly Bird is right; if the points line up, we join them with a straight line, making counterfactual assumptions about points which were not actually observed. |
| 6744 | Where is the regularity in a law predicting nuclear decay? [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If a law of nuclear physics says that nuclei of a certain kind have a probability p of decaying within time t, what is the regularity here? | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Hume gives an answer, in terms of regularities observed among previous instances. Nevertheless the figure p given in the law does not itself have any instances, so the law is predicting something that may never have actually happened before. |
| 6747 | Laws cannot explain instances if they are regularities, as something can't explain itself [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It can be objected that laws cannot do the job of explaining their instances if they are merely regularities, ...because something cannot explain itself. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice point. The objection assumes that a law should explain things, rather than just describing them. I take the model to be smoking-and-cancer; the statistics describe what is happening, but only lung biochemistry will explain it. |
| 6748 | Similar appearance of siblings is a regularity, but shared parents is what links them [Bird] |
| Full Idea: There may be a regularity of siblings looking similar, but the tie that binds them is not their similarity, but rather their being born of the same parents. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: A nice objection to the regularity view. Regularities, as so often in philosophy (e.g. Idea 1364), may be the evidence or test for a law, rather than the law itself, which requires causal mechanisms, ultimately based (I think) in essences. |
| 6749 | We can only infer a true regularity if something binds the instances together [Bird] |
| Full Idea: We cannot infer a regularity from its instances unless there is something stronger than the regularity itself binding the instances together. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Spells out the implication of the example in Idea 6748. The reply to this criticism would be that no account can possibly be given of the 'something stronger' than further regularities, at a lower level (e.g. in the physics). |
| 6803 | If we only infer laws from regularities among observations, we can't infer unobservable entities. [Bird] |
| Full Idea: If the naïve inductivist says we should see well-established regularities among our observations, and take that to be the law or causal connection…this will not help us to infer the existence of unobservable entities. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: The obvious solution to this difficulty is an appeal to 'best explanation'. Bird is obviously right that we couldn't survive in the world, let alone do science, if we only acted on what we had actually observed (e.g. many bodies, but not the poison). |
| 6801 | Accidental regularities are not laws, and an apparent regularity may not be actual [Bird] |
| Full Idea: Many actual regularities are not laws (accidental regularities), and many perceived regularities are not actual ones (a summer's worth of observing green leaves). | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: These problems are not sufficient to refute the regularity view of laws. Accidental regularities can only be short-lived, and perceived regularities support laws without clinching them. There is an awful lot of regularity behind laws concerning gravity. |
| 6746 | There may be many laws, each with only a few instances [Bird] |
| Full Idea: It might be that there is a large number of laws each of which has only a small number of instances. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a problem for the Ramsey-Lewis view (Idea 6745) that the laws of nature are a simple, powerful and coherent system. We must be cautious about bringing a priori principles like Ockham's Razor (Idea 3667) to bear on the laws of nature. |
| 6745 | A regularity is only a law if it is part of a complete system which is simple and strong [Bird] |
| Full Idea: The systematic (Ramsey-Lewis) regularity theory says that a regularity is a law of nature if and only if it appears as a theorem or axiom in that true deductive system which achieves a best combination of simplicity and strength. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I don't accept the regularity view of laws, but this looks like the best account anyone has come up with. Individual bunches of regularities can't add up to or demonstrate a law, but coherence with all regularities might do it. |
| 6802 | With strange enough predicates, anything could be made out to be a regularity [Bird] |
| Full Idea: We learned from Goodman's problem that with strange enough predicates anything could be made out to be a regularity. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.8) | |
| A reaction: For Goodman's problem, see Idea 4783. The point, as I see it, is that while predicates can be applied arbitrarily (because they are just linguistic), properties cannot, because they are features of the world. Emeralds are green. |
| 6789 | If flame colour is characteristic of a metal, that is an empirical claim needing justification [Bird] |
| Full Idea: I might say that flame colours are a characteristic feature of metals, but this is an empirical proposition which is in part about the unobserved, and stands in need of justification. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This draws attention to the fact that essentialism is not just a metaphysical theory, but is also part of the scientific enterprise. Among things to research about metals is the reason why they have a characteristic flame. |
| 6807 | In Newton mass is conserved, but in Einstein it can convert into energy [Bird] |
| Full Idea: According to Newton mass is conserved, while in Einstein's theory mass is not conserved but can be converted into and from energy. | |
| From: Alexander Bird (Philosophy of Science [1998]) | |
| A reaction: Perhaps this is the most fundamental difference between the theories. It certainly suggests that 'mass' was a conventional concept rather than a natural one. Maybe the relative notion of 'weight' is more natural than 'mass'. |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |
| 6072 | If Satan is the most imperfect conceivable being, he must have non-existence [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: Satan cannot exist because he is the most imperfect conceivable being, and existence is one of the perfections. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The logic of this seems right to me. Presumably the theologians would hastily deny this as a definition of Satan; he must have some positive qualities (like power) in order to enact his supreme moral imperfections. NIce, though. |
| 6073 | I think the fault of the Ontological Argument is taking the original idea to be well-defined [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: My own suspicion about the Ontological Argument is that the fault lies in taking notions like 'the most perfect, impressive and powerful being conceivable' to be well-defined. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Logical Properties [2000], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm tempted to put it more strongly: the single greatest challenge for the theist with intellectual integrity is to give a clear and coherent definition of God. There must be no internal contradictions, and it must be within the bounds of possibility. |