13 ideas
15148 | Powers give explanations, without being necessary for some class membership [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Powers explain behaviours regardless of whether they are necessary for membership in a particular class of things. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: This seems right, and is important for driving a wedge between powers and essences. If there are essences, they are not simply some bunch of powers. |
15145 | A kind essence is the necessary and sufficient properties for membership of a class [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: The modern concept of a kind essence is a set of intrinsic properties that are individually necessary and jointly sufficient for the membership of something in a class of things, or 'kind'. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I am always struck by the problem that the kind itself is constructed from the individuals, so circularity always seems to loom. |
15147 | Cluster kinds are explained simply by sharing some properties, not by an 'essence' [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: The fact that members of some cluster kinds are subjects of causal generalizations reflects the degree to which they share causally efficacious properties, not the fact that they may be composed of essence kinds per se. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I think this is right. I am a fan of individual essences, but not of kind essences. I take kinds, and kind explanations, to be straightforward inductive generalisations from individuals. Extreme stabilities give the illusion of a kind essence. |
15144 | Explanation of causal phenomena concerns essential kinds - but also lack of them [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Scientific practices such as prediction and explanation regarding causal phenomena are concerned not merely with kinds having essences, but also with kinds lacking them. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: Not quite clear what he has in mind, but explanation should certainly involve a coherent picture, and not just the citation of some underlying causal mechanism. |
6387 | A minimum requirement for a theory of meaning is that it include an account of truth [Davidson] |
Full Idea: Whatever else it embraces, a theory of meaning must include an account of truth - a statement of the conditions under which an arbitrary sentence of the language is true. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.132) | |
A reaction: It is a moot point whether we can define meaning if we assume truth, or if we can define truth by assuming meaning. Tarski seems to presuppose meaning when he defines truth (Idea 2345). I like Davidson's taking of truth as basic. |
6391 | A theory of truth tells us how communication by language is possible [Davidson] |
Full Idea: A theory of truth lets us answer the underlying question how communication by language is possible. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.137) | |
A reaction: If, instead, you explain communication by understood intentions (á la Grice), you have to say more about what sort of intentions are meant. If you use reference, you still have more to say about the meaning of sentences. Davidson looks good. |
6388 | Is reference the key place where language and the world meet? [Davidson] |
Full Idea: The essential question is whether reference is the, or at least one, place where there is direct contact between linguistic theory and events, actions, or objects described in nonlinguistic terms. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.134) | |
A reaction: How do you 'describe objects in nonlinguistic terms'? The causal theory of reference (e.g. Idea 4957) is designed to plug language straight into the world via reference. It simplifies things nicely, but I don't quite believe it. |
6390 | With a holistic approach, we can give up reference in empirical theories of language [Davidson] |
Full Idea: I defend a version of the holistic approach, and urge that we must give up the concept of reference as basic to an empirical theory of language. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.136) | |
A reaction: He proposes to connect language to the world via the concept of truth, rather than of reference. It is a brilliant idea, and is the key issue in philosophy of language. I go back to animals, which seem to care about situations rather than things. |
6389 | To explain the reference of a name, you must explain its sentence-role, so reference can't be defined nonlinguistically [Davidson] |
Full Idea: It is inconceivable that one should be able to explain the relationship between 'Kilimanjiro' and Kilimanjiro without first explaining the role of the word in sentences; hence there is no chance of explaining reference directly in nonlinguistic terms. | |
From: Donald Davidson (Reality without Reference [1977], p.135) | |
A reaction: I point at the mountain, and a local says 'Kilimanjiro'? There is a 'gavagai'-type problem with that. The prior question might be 'what is it about this word that enables it to have a role in sentences?' Unlike whimpering or belching. |
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 |
15146 | Some kinds, such as electrons, have essences, but 'cluster kinds' do not [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Many of the kinds we theorize about and experiment on today simply do not have essences. We can distinguish 'essence kinds', such as electrons, and 'cluster kinds', such as biological species. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: This is an important point for essentialists. He offers a strict criterion, in Idea 15145, for mind membership, but we might allow species to have essences by just relaxing the criteria a bit, and acknowledging some vagueness, especially over time. |
15151 | Many causal laws do not refer to kinds, but only to properties [Chakravartty] |
Full Idea: Causal laws often do not make reference to kinds of objects at all, but rather summarize relations between quantitative, causally efficacious properties of objects. | |
From: Anjan Chakravarrty (Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: This would only be a serious challenge if it was not possible to translate talk of properties into talk of kinds, and vice versa. |
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. |