14 ideas
| 8956 | What is a singleton set, if a set is meant to be a collection of objects? [Szabó] |
| Full Idea: The relationship between an object and its singleton is puzzling. Our intuitive conception of a set is a collection of objects - what are we to make of a collection of a single object? | |
| From: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: The ontological problem seems to be the same as that of the empty set, and indeed the claim that a pair of entities is three things. For logicians the empty set is as real as a pet dog, but not for me. |
| 14650 | Maybe proper names involve essentialism [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the notion of a proper name itself involves essentialism. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.43) | |
| A reaction: This is just before Kripke's announcement of 'rigid designation', which seems to have relaunched modern essentialism. The thought is that you can't name something, if you don't have a stable notion of what is (and isn't) being named. |
| 14648 | Could I name all of the real numbers in one fell swoop? Call them all 'Charley'? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Can't I name all the real numbers in the interval (0,1) at once? Couldn't I name them all 'Charley', for example? | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.40) | |
| A reaction: Plantinga is nervous about such a sweeping move, but can't think of an objection. This addresses a big problem, I think - that you are supposed to accept the real numbers when we cannot possibly name them all. |
| 8953 | Abstract entities don't depend on their concrete entities ...but maybe on the totality of concrete things [Szabó] |
| Full Idea: It is better not to include in the definition of abstract entities that they ontologically depend on their concrete correlates. Note: ..but they may depend on the totality of concreta; maybe 'the supervenience of the abstract' is part of ordinary thought. | |
| From: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: [the quoted phrase is from Gideon Rosen] It certainly seems unlikely that the concept of the perfect hexagon depends on a perfect hexagon having existed. Human minds have intervened between the concrete and the abstract. |
| 14647 | Surely self-identity is essential to Socrates? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: If anything is essential to Socrates, surely self-identity is. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.37) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern move of Plantinga and Adams, to make 'is identical with Socrates' the one property which assures the identity of Socrates (his 'haecceity'). My view is that self-identity is not a property. Plantinga wonders about that on p.44. |
| 14646 | An object has a property essentially if it couldn't conceivably have lacked it [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: An object has a property essentially just in case it couldn't conceivably have lacked that property. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.35) | |
| A reaction: Making it depend on what we can conceive seems a bit dubious, for someone committed to real essences. The key issue is how narrowly or broadly you interpret the word 'property'. The word 'object' needs a bit of thought, too! |
| 14649 | Can we find an appropriate 'de dicto' paraphrase for any 'de re' proposition? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: To explain the 'de re' via the 'de dicto' is to provide a rule enabling us to find, for each de re proposition, an equivalent de dicto proposition. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.41) | |
| A reaction: Many 'de dicto' paraphrases will change the modality of a 'de re' statement, so the challenge is to find the right equivalent version. Plantinga takes up this challenge. The 'de dicto' statement says the object has the property, and must have it. |
| 14642 | Expressing modality about a statement is 'de dicto'; expressing it of property-possession is 'de re' [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Some statements predicate modality of another statement (modality 'de dicto'); but others predicate of an object the necessary or essential possession of a property; these latter express modality 'de re'. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.26) | |
| A reaction: The distinction seems to originate in Aquinas, concerning whether God knows the future (or, how he knows the future). 'De dicto' is straightforward, but possibly the result of convention. 'De re' is controversial, and implies deep metaphysics. |
| 14643 | 'De dicto' true and 'de re' false is possible, and so is 'de dicto' false and 'de re' true [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Aquinas says if a 'de dicto' statement is true, the 'de re' version may be false. The opposite also applies: 'What I am thinking of [17] is essentially prime' is true, but 'The proposition "what I am thinking of is prime" is necessarily true' is false. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.27) | |
| A reaction: In his examples the first is 'de re' (about the number), and the second is 'de dicto' (about that proposition). |
| 14651 | What Socrates could have been, and could have become, are different? [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Is there a difference between what Socrates could have been, and what he could have become? | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (De Re and De Dicto [1969], p.44) | |
| A reaction: That is, I take it, 1) how different might he have been in the past, given how he is now?, and 2) how different might he have been in the past, and now, if he had permanently diverged from how he is now? 1) has tight constraints on it. |
| 8954 | Geometrical circles cannot identify a circular paint patch, presumably because they lack something [Szabó] |
| Full Idea: The vocabulary of geometry is sufficient to identify the circle, but could not be used to identify any circular paint patch. The reason must be that the circle lacks certain properties that can distinguish paint patches from one another. | |
| From: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be support for the traditional view, that abstractions are created by omitting some of the properties of physical objects. I take them to be fictional creations, reified by language, and not actual hidden entities that have been observed. |
| 8955 | Abstractions are imperceptible, non-causal, and non-spatiotemporal (the third explaining the others) [Szabó] |
| Full Idea: In current discussions, abstract entities are usually distinguished as 1) in principle imperceptible, 2) incapable of causal interaction, 3) not located in space-time. The first is often explained by the second, which is in turn explained by the third. | |
| From: Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Szabó concludes by offering 3 as the sole criterion of abstraction. As Lewis points out, the Way of Negation for defining abstracta doesn't tell us very much. Courage may be non-spatiotemporal, but what about Alexander the Great's courage? |
| 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 |
| 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. |