69 ideas
| 11912 | Substantive metaphysics says what a property is, not what a predicate means [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The motto of what is presented here is 'less conceptual analysis, more metaphysics', where the distinction is equivalent to the distinction between saying what 'F' means and saying what being F is. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to capture exactly the spirit of metaphysics since Saul Kripke's work, though some people engaged in it seem to me to be trapped in an outdated linguistic view of the matter. Molnar credits Locke as the source of his view. |
| 1627 | Any statement can be held true if we make enough adjustment to the rest of the system [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Any statement can be held true come what may, if we make drastic enough adjustments elsewhere in the system. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.43) |
| 1623 | Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Definition rests on synonymy, rather than explaining it. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.26) |
| 11920 | A real definition gives all the properties that constitute an identity [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: A real definition expresses the sum of the properties that constitute the identity of the thing defined. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a standard modern view among modern essentialists, and one which I believe can come into question. It seems to miss out the fact that an essence will also explain the possible functions and behaviours of a thing. Explanation seems basic. |
| 9204 | Quine's arguments fail because he naively conflates names with descriptions [Fine,K on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's logical argument against modality presupposes a naïve view of singular terms under which no significant distinction is to be drawn between the use of names and descriptions. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Kit Fine - Intro to 'Modality and Tense' p. 6 | |
| A reaction: See Idea 9201 for Quine's argument. The question is whether '9' and 'the number of planets' are names or descriptions. The 'number of planets' is not remotely descriptive of 9, so it must be referential. So '9' is a name? Hm. |
| 17738 | Quine blurs the difference between knowledge of arithmetic and of physics [Jenkins on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine cannot deal with the intuition that there is a difference in kind between our knowledge of arithmetic and our knowledge of physics. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 7.5 | |
| A reaction: The endorses this criticism, which she says is widespread. I'm not convinced that there is a clear notion of 'difference in kind' here. Jenkins gets arithmetic from concepts and physics from the world. Is that a sharp distinction? |
| 11919 | Ontological dependence rests on essential connection, not necessary connection [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Ontological dependence is better understood in terms of an essential connection, rather than simply a necessary connection. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be an important piece in the essentialist jigsaw. Apart from essentialism, I can't think of any doctrine which offers any sort of explanation of the self-evident fact of certain ontological dependencies. |
| 19492 | Quine is hopeless circular, deriving ontology from what is literal, and 'literal' from good ontology [Yablo on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's advice is to countenance numbers iff the literal part of our theory quantifies over them; and to count the part of our theory that quantifies over numbers literal iff there turn out really to be numbers. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Stephen Yablo - Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? XIII | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit devastating. Presumably it is indeed the choice of a best theory which results in the ontological commitment, so it is not much help to then read off the ontology from the theory. |
| 11929 | The three categories in ontology are objects, properties and relations [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The ontologically fundamental categories are three in number: Objects, Properties, and Relations. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 2 Intr) | |
| A reaction: We need second-order logic to quantify over all of these. The challenge to this view might be that it is static, and needs the addition of processes or events. Molnar rejects facts and states of affairs. |
| 11927 | Reflexive relations are syntactically polyadic but ontologically monadic [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Reflexive relations are, and non-reflexive relations may be, monadic in the ontological sense although they are syntactically polyadic. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.5) | |
| A reaction: I find this a very helpful distinction, as I have never quite understood reflexive relations as 'relations', even in the most obvious cases, such as self-love or self-slaughter. |
| 11915 | If atomism is true, then all properties derive from ultimate properties [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: If a priori atomism is a true theory of the world, then all properties are derivative from ultimate properties. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there is a physicalist metaphysic underlying this, which means that even abstract properties derive ultimately from these physical atoms. Unless we want to postulate logical atoms, or monads, or some such weird thing. |
| 11916 | 'Being physical' is a second-order property [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: A property like 'being physical' is just a second-order property. ...It is not required as a first-order property. ...Higher-order properties earn their keep as necessity-makers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.2) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be correct and very important. People who like 'abundant' properties don't make this distinction about orders (of levels of abstraction, I would say), so the whole hierarchy has an equal status in ontology, which is ridiculous. |
| 11956 | 'Categorical properties' are those which are not powers [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The canonical name for a property that is a non-power is 'categorical property'. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: Molnar objects that this implies that powers cannot be used categorically, and refuses to use the term. There seems to be uncertainty over whether the term refers to necessity, or to the ability to categorise. I'm getting confused myself. |
| 11928 | Are tropes transferable? If they are, that is a version of Platonism [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Are tropes transferable? ...If tropes are not dependent on their bearers, that is a trope-theoretic version of Platonism. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.6) | |
| A reaction: These are the sort of beautifully simple questions that we pay philosophers to come up with. If they are transferable, what was the loose bond which connected them? If they aren't, then what individuates them? |
| 11933 | A power's type-identity is given by its definitive manifestation [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: A power's type-identity is given by its definitive manifestation. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably there remains an I-know-not-what that lurks behind the manifestation, which is beyond our limits of cognizance. The ultimate reality of the world has to be unknowable. |
| 11932 | Powers have Directedness, Independence, Actuality, Intrinsicality and Objectivity [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The basic features of powers are: Directedness (to some outcome); Independence (from their manifestations); Actuality (not mere possibilities); Intrinsicality (not relying on other objects) and Objectivity (rather than psychological). | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: [compression of his list] This offering is why Molnar's book is important, because no one else seems to get to grips with trying to pin down what a power is, and hence their role. |
| 11934 | The physical world has a feature very like mental intentionality [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Something very much like mental intentionality is a pervasive and ineliminable feature of the physical world. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I like this, because it offers a continuous account of mind and world. The idea that intentionality is some magic ingredient that marks off a non-physical type of reality is nonsense. See Fodor's attempts to reduce intentionality. |
| 11947 | Dispositions and external powers arise entirely from intrinsic powers in objects [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: I propose a generalization: that all dispositional and extrinsic predicates that apply to an object, do so by virtue of intrinsic powers borne by the object. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest statement of the 'powers' view of nature, and the one with which I agree. An interesting question is whether powers or objects are more basic in our ontology. Are objects just collections of causal powers? What has the power? |
| 11952 | The Standard Model suggest that particles are entirely dispositional, and hence are powers [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: In the Standard Model of physics the fundamental physical magnitudes are represented as ones whose whole nature is exhausted by the dispositionality, ..so there is a strong presumption that the properties of subatomic particles are powers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 8.4.3) | |
| A reaction: A very nice point, because it asserts not merely that we should revise our metaphysic to endorse powers, but that we are actually already operating with exactly that view, in so far as we are physicalist. |
| 11953 | Some powers are ungrounded, and others rest on them, and are derivative [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Some powers are grounded and some are not. ...All derivative powers ultimately derive from ungrounded powers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 8.5.2) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to use the term 'property' for the derivative powers, reserving 'power' for something which is basic. Molnar makes a plausible case, though. |
| 11943 | Dispositions can be causes, so they must be part of the actual world [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions can be causes. What is not actual cannot be a cause or any part of a cause. Merely possible events are not actual, and that makes them causally impotent. The claim that powers are causally potent has strong initial plausibility. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 5) | |
| A reaction: [He credits Mellor 1974 for this idea] He will need to show how dispositions can be causes (other than, presumably, being anticipated or imagined by conscious minds), which he says he will do in Ch. 12. |
| 11939 | If powers only exist when actual, they seem to be nomadic, and indistinguishable from non-powers [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Two arguments against Megaran Actualism are that it turns powers into nomads: they come and go, depending on whether they are being exercised or not. And it stops us from distinguishing between unexercised powers and absent powers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 4.3.1) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 11938 for Megaran Actualism. Molnar takes these objections to be fairly decisive, but if the Megarans are denying the existence of latent powers, they aren't going to be bothered by nomadism or the lack of distinction. |
| 11914 | Platonic explanations of universals actually diminish our understanding [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: We understand less after a platonic explanation of universals than we understand before it was given. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: That pretty much sums up my view, and it pretty well sums up my view of religion as well. I thought I understood what numbers were until Frege told me that they were abstract objects, some sort of higher-order set. |
| 11913 | For nominalists, predicate extensions are inexplicable facts [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: For the nominalist, belonging to the extension of a predicate is just an inexplicable ultimate fact. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I sometimes think of myself as a nominalist, but when it is summarised in Molnar's way I back off. He seem to be offering a third way, between platonic realism and nominalism. It is physical essentialist realism, I think. |
| 11962 | Nominalists only accept first-order logic [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: A nominalist will only countenance first-order logic. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 12.2.2) | |
| A reaction: This is because nominalist will not acknowledge properties as entities to be quantified over. Plural quantification seems to be a strategy for extending first-order logic while retaining nominalist sympathies. |
| 1628 | If physical objects are a myth, they are useful for making sense of experience [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The myth of physical objects is epistemologically superior to most in that it has proved more efficacious than other myths as a device for working a manageable structure into the flux of experience. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.44) |
| 11917 | Structural properties are derivate properties [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Structural properties are clear examples of derivative properties. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.3) | |
| A reaction: This is an important question in the debate. Presumably you can't just reduce structural properties to more basic ones, because one set of basic properties might appear in many different structures. Ellis defends structural properties in metaphysics. |
| 11955 | There are no 'structural properties', as properties with parts [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: There are no 'structural properties', if by that we mean a property that has properties as parts. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 9.1.2) | |
| A reaction: There do seem to be properties that result from arranging more basic properties in one way rather than another (e.g. arranging the metal in a knife to be 'sharp'). But I think Molnar is right that they are not part of basic ontology. |
| 11918 | The essence of a thing need not include everything that is necessarily true of it [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Pre-theoretically it does not seem to be the case that what is essential to a thing includes everything that is necessarily true of that thing. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be true. The simple point, which I take to be obvious, is that essential properties must at the very least be in some way important, whereas necessities can be trivial. I favour the idea that the essences create the necessities. |
| 10929 | Aristotelian essence of the object has become the modern essence of meaning [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The Aristotelian notion of essence was the forerunner of the modern notion of intension or meaning. ...Meaning is what essence becomes when it is divorced from the object of reference and wedded to the word. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], §1) | |
| A reaction: Quine first wants to jettison de re necessity (essence of the object), by shifting it to de dicto necessity (necessity in meaning), but he subsequently rejects that as well, presumably because he doesn't even believe in meanings. |
| 12188 | Contrary to some claims, Quine does not deny logical necessity [Quine, by McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in Quine's argument seems to be said directly against the view that the propositions of logic are necessary truths, ..though Crispin Wright has represented him as saying this at the end of 'Two Dogmas'. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §3 | |
| A reaction: Quine famously denies that logical truths are merely a matter of convention, so the question is, if he believes in logical necessity, what does he think is the basis of it? Answers, as always, on a postcard. |
| 15090 | Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction undermined necessary truths [Quine, by Shoemaker] |
| Full Idea: Quine's attack on the analytic-synthetic distinction sought to contract, if not to empty, the class of truths that are called necessary. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Causal and Metaphysical Necessity I | |
| A reaction: The thought was that absolutely everything, including, for example, basic logic, became potentially revisable. See the last section of Quine's paper. |
| 11963 | What is the truthmaker for a non-existent possible? [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: What is the nature of the truthmaker for 'It is possible that p' in cases where p itself is false? | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 12.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Molnar mentions three views: there is a different type of being for possibilia (Meinong), or possibilia exist, or possibilia are merely represented. The third view is obviously correct, though I presume possibilia to be based on actual powers. |
| 9383 | Metaphysical analyticity (and linguistic necessity) are hopeless, but epistemic analyticity is a priori [Boghossian on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine showed the vacuity of the metaphysical concept of analyticity and the futility of the underwritten project - the linguistic theory of necessity. But that doesn't effect the epistemic notion of analyticity needed for a priori knowledge. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered Concl | |
| A reaction: This summarise Boghossian's view, that a priori knowledge is still analytic, once we get clear about analyticity. See Idea 9368 for his two types of analyticity. Horwich attacks the view. |
| 12424 | Quine challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori [Quine, by Kitcher] |
| Full Idea: The last section of Quine's article challenges the claim that analytic truths are knowable a priori. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 04.5 | |
| A reaction: That is, Quine does not deny that there are truths which rest entirely on meaning. It is a 'dogma of empiricism' that the a priori can be equated with the analytic (and the necessary). |
| 9338 | Quine's objections to a priori knowledge only work in the domain of science [Horwich on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's arguments provide no reason to doubt the existence of a priori knowledge outside the domain of science. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §10 | |
| A reaction: This rather ignores Quine's background view of thoroughgoing physicalism, so that the domain of science is the domain of nature, which is the domain of everything. See his naturalising of epistemology, for example. Maths is part of his science. |
| 9337 | Science is empirical, simple and conservative; any belief can hence be abandoned; so no a priori [Quine, by Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Quine says scientific beliefs follow empirical adequacy, simplicity and conservatism; science and rationality support this view; hence any hypothesis can be abandoned to increase simplicity; so no scientific belief is a priori. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §10 | |
| A reaction: [Compressed] I just don't accept this claim. If science wants to drop simple arithmetic or the laws of thought, so much the worse for science - they've obviously taken a wrong turning somewhere. We must try to infer God's logic. |
| 9340 | Logic, arithmetic and geometry are revisable and a posteriori; quantum logic could be right [Horwich on Quine] |
| Full Idea: I think logic, arithmetic and geometry are subject to Quine's empirical revisability argument: quantum logic may turn out to be the best overall theory; so these things are justified a posteriori. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §11 | |
| A reaction: Not much of an argument, because 'quantum logic' may also turn out to be a will-o'-the-whisp. Until it is established (which I doubt, because quantum theory is so poorly understood), I think we should be highly suspicious of the Quinean view. |
| 1620 | Empiricism makes a basic distinction between truths based or not based on facts [Quine] |
| Full Idea: One dogma of empiricism is that there is some fundamental cleavage between truths that are analytic, or grounded in meanings independently of facts, and truths which are synthetic, or grounded in fact. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.20) |
| 1629 | Our outer beliefs must match experience, and our inner ones must be simple [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The outer edge of our empirical system must be kept squared with experience; the rest, with all its elaborate myths and fictions, has as its objective the simplicity of laws. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.45) |
| 19488 | The second dogma is linking every statement to some determinate observations [Quine, by Yablo] |
| Full Idea: Quine's second dogma of empiricism is the reductionism that finds every statement to be linkable by fixed correspondence rules to a determinate range of confirming observations. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Stephen Yablo - Does Ontology Rest on a Mistake? V | |
| A reaction: Quine's response to this is to embrace holism about theories, instead of precise connections with Humean impressions. I'm thinking that Lewis disagrees with Quine, when his Humean supervenience rests on a 'mosaic' of small qualities. |
| 1625 | Statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience as a corporate body [Quine] |
| Full Idea: My suggestion, following Carnap, is that our statements about the external world face the tribunal of sense experience not individually but only as a corporate body. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.41) |
| 11951 | Hume allows interpolation, even though it and extrapolation are not actually valid [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: In his 'shade of blue' example, Hume is (sensibly) endorsing a type of reasoning - interpolation - that is widely used by rational thinkers. Too bad that interpolation and extrapolation are incurably invalid. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 7.2.3) | |
| A reaction: Interpolation and extrapolation are two aspects of inductive reasoning which contribute to our notion of best explanation. Empiricism has to allow at least some knowledge which goes beyond strict direct experience. |
| 11936 | The two ways proposed to distinguish mind are intentionality or consciousness [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: There have only been two serious proposals for distinguishing mind from matter. One appeals to intentionality, as per Brentano and his medieval precursors. The other, harking back to Descartes, Locke and empiricism, uses the capacity for consciousness. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 3.5.3) | |
| A reaction: Personally I take both of these to be reducible, and hence have no place for 'minds' in my ontology. Focusing on Chalmers's 'Hard Question' was the shift from the intentionality view to the consciousness view which is now more popular. |
| 11935 | Physical powers like solubility and charge also have directedness [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Contrary to the Brentano Thesis, physical powers, such as solubility or electromagnetic charge, also have that direction toward something outside themselves that is typical of psychological attributes. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: I think this decisively undermines any strong thesis that 'intentionality is the mark of the mental'. I take thought to be just a fancy development of the physical powers of the physical world. |
| 11944 | Rule occasionalism says God's actions follow laws, not miracles [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Rule occasionalists (Arnauld, Bayle) say that on their view the results of God's action are the nomic regularities of nature, and not a miracle. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly more plausible that Malebranche's idea that God constantly intervenes. I take it as a nice illustration of the fact that 'laws of nature' were mainly invented by us to explain how God could control his world. Away with them! |
| 1626 | It is troublesome nonsense to split statements into a linguistic and a factual component [Quine] |
| Full Idea: My present suggestion is that it is nonsense, and the root of much nonsense, to speak of a linguistic component and a factual component in the truth of any individual statement. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.42) | |
| A reaction: I take the language and its subject matter to be obviously separate, but it is right that we can't separate these two components within a sample of language. |
| 7317 | 'Renate' and 'cordate' have identical extensions, but are not synonymous [Quine, by Miller,A] |
| Full Idea: It is easy to see that intersubstitutability salva veritate is not a sufficient condition for synonymy. 'Renate' (with kidney) and 'cordate' (with heart) can be substituted in a purely extensional language, but are plainly not synonymous. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a key example (along with Hesperus, and many others) in mapping out synonymy, meaning, analyticity, sense, reference, extension, intension, and all that stuff. |
| 1621 | Once meaning and reference are separated, meaning ceases to seem important [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Once theory of meaning and of reference are separated it is a short step to recognising as the primary business of theory of meaning simply the synonymy of linguistic forms and analyticity of statements; meanings themselves may be abandoned. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.22) | |
| A reaction: I can't buy the abandonment of meaning, because when I introspect my own speech there is clearly what I want to say formulating in my mind before the words are settled. |
| 9371 | Analytic statements are either logical truths (all reinterpretations) or they depend on synonymy [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Analytic statements fall into two classes: 'no unmarried man is married' typifies the first class, of logical truths; it remains true under all reinterpretations. 'No bachelor is married' is analytic if synonyms replace synonyms, and there's the problem. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], §1) | |
| A reaction: Boghossian emphasises this passage. In other papers Quine argues that logical truths also cannot be purely analytic, although he does not deny that there are logical truths. |
| 1622 | Did someone ever actually define 'bachelor' as 'unmarried man'? [Quine] |
| Full Idea: How do we find that 'bachelor' is defined as unmarried man? Who defined it thus, and when? Not the lexicographer, who is a scientist recording antecedent facts. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.24) | |
| A reaction: All mid-20th C philosophy of language is too individualistic in its strategy. Eventually later Wittgenstein sank in, and socially agreed meanings for 'water' and 'elm'. |
| 9366 | Quine's attack on analyticity undermined linguistic views of necessity, and analytic views of the a priori [Quine, by Boghossian] |
| Full Idea: Quine's attack on analyticity devastated the philosophical programs that depend upon a notion of analyticity - specifically, the linguistic theory of necessary truth, and the analytic theory of a priori knowledge. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §I | |
| A reaction: Note that much more would be needed to complete Quine's aim of more or less eliminating both necessity and the a priori from his scientific philosophy. Quine was trying to complete a programme initiated by C.I. Lewis (q.v.). |
| 14473 | Quine attacks the Fregean idea that we can define analyticity through synonyous substitution [Quine, by Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Quine's attack argues against the Fregean attempt to define 'analyticity' in terms of synonymy - where analytical truths are logical truths ('unmarried men are unmarried'), or become logical truths by synonymous replacement ('bachelors are unmarried'). | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 02.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a very helpful explanation of what is going on in Quine. Why won't philosophers explain clearly what they are attacking, before they attack it? |
| 7321 | The last two parts of 'Two Dogmas' are much the best [Miller,A on Quine] |
| Full Idea: The arguments of the final two sections of 'Two Dogmas' have received more acceptance than the arguments of the first four sections, which are now generally acknowledged to be unsuccessful. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Alexander Miller - Philosophy of Language 4 Read | |
| A reaction: The early sections are the 'circular' argument against analyticity; the later parts are further discussions of the concept. We don't have to take Miller's word for this, but it is a useful pointer when reading the paper. |
| 8803 | Erasing the analytic/synthetic distinction got rid of meanings, and saved philosophy of language [Davidson on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Erasing the line between the analytic and the synthetic saved philosophy of language as a serious subject by showing how it could be pursued without what there cannot be: determinate meanings. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Donald Davidson - Coherence Theory of Truth and Knowledge p.158 | |
| A reaction: Note that this comes from the most famous modern champion of one of the main theories of meaning (as truth-conditions). Did anyone ever believe in reified objects called 'meanings'? |
| 17737 | The analytic needs excessively small units of meaning and empirical confirmation [Quine, by Jenkins] |
| Full Idea: Quine rejects the analytic on the grounds that it assumes a smaller unit of meaning than a total theory, and he does not think it makes sense to talk about such smaller units of meaning because there are no smaller units of empirical confirmation. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953]) by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 7.5 | |
| A reaction: A very helpful account of the famous Quine argument, showing how it arises out of his particular holistic view of empiricism. |
| 1624 | If we try to define analyticity by synonymy, that leads back to analyticity [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In defining analyticity an appeal to meanings seems natural, but that reduces to synonymy or definition. Definition is a will-o'-the-wisp, and synonymy is best understood by a priori appeal to analyticity, so we are back at the problem of analyticity. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Two Dogmas of Empiricism [1953], p.32) | |
| A reaction: Quine is full of these over-neat sceptical arguments, saying everything is circular, or can never get started. Compare Aristotle's benign circle of virtuous people and virtuous actions. |
| 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 |
| 11960 | Singular causation is prior to general causation; each aspirin produces the aspirin generalization [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: I take for granted the primacy of singular causation. A singular causal state of affairs is not constituted by a generalization. 'Aspirin relieves headache' is made true by 'This/that aspirin relieves this/that headache'. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Tooley for the opposite view] I wholly agree with Molnar, and am inclined to link it with the primacy of individual essences over kind essences. |
| 11937 | We should analyse causation in terms of powers, not vice versa [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Causal analyses of powers pre-empt the correct account of causation in terms of powers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 4.2.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this is my preferred view. The crucial point is that powers are active, so one is not needing to add some weird 'causation' ingredient to a world which would otherwise be passive and inert. That is a relic from the interventions of God. |
| 11954 | We should analyse causation in terms of powers [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: We should give up any causal analysis of powers, ..so we should try to analyse causation in terms of powers. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 8.5.3) | |
| A reaction: It may be hard to explain what powers are, or identify them, if you can't say that they cause things to happen. I am torn between Molnar's view, and the view that causation is primitive. |
| 11961 | Causal dependence explains counterfactual dependence, not vice versa [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The counterfactual analysis is open to the Euthyphro objection: it is causal dependence that explains any counterfactual dependence rather than vice versa. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: I take views like the counterfactual analysis of causation to arise from empiricists who are bizarrely reluctant to adopt plausible best explainations (such as powers and essences). |
| 11959 | Science works when we assume natural kinds have essences - because it is true [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: Investigations premissed on the assumption that natural kinds have essences, that in particular the fundamental natural kinds have only essential intrinsic properties, tend to be practically successful because the assumption is true. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 11.3) | |
| A reaction: The point is made against a pragmatist approach to the problem by Nancy Cartwright. I take the starting point for scientific essentialism to be an empirical observation, that natural kinds seem to be very very stable. See Idea 8153. |
| 9448 | Location in space and time are non-power properties [Molnar, by Mumford] |
| Full Idea: Molnar argues that some properties are non-powers, and he cites spatial location, spatial orientation, and temporal location. | |
| From: report of George Molnar (Powers [1998], 158-62) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 11.4 | |
| A reaction: Although you might say an event happened 'because' of an item on this list, this doesn't feel right to me. The ability to arrest someone is a power, but being at the scene of the crime isn't. It's an opportunity for a power. |
| 11930 | One essential property of a muon doesn't entail the others [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: The muon has mass 106.2 MeV, unit negative charge, and spin a half. The electron and tauon have unit negative charge, but electrons are 200 times less massive, and tauons 17 times more massive. Its essential properties are not mutually entailing. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This rejects a popular idea of scientific essentialism, that the essence is the set of properties which entail the non-essential properties (and not vice versa), a view which I had hitherto found rather appealing. |
| 11957 | It is contingent which kinds and powers exist in the world [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: It is a contingent matter that the world contains the exact natural kinds it does, and hence it is a contingent matter that it contains the very powers it does. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be correct (for all we know). It would be daft to claim that the regularities of the universe are necessarily that way, but it is not daft to say that the stuff of the universe necessitates the pattern of what happens. |
| 11921 | The laws of nature depend on the powers, not the other way round [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: What powers there are does not depend on what laws there are, but vice versa, what laws obtain in the world is a function of what powers are to be found in that world. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 1.4.5) | |
| A reaction: This old idea may well be the most important realisation of modern times. I take the 'law' view to be based on a religious view of the world (see Idea 5470). There is still room to believe in a divine creator of the bewildering underlying powers. |
| 11931 | Energy fields are discontinuous at the very small [Molnar] |
| Full Idea: We know that all energy fields are discontinuous below the distance measured by Planck's constant h. The physical world ultimately consists of discrete objects. | |
| From: George Molnar (Powers [1998], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This is where quantum theory clashes with relativity, since the latter holds space to be a continuum. I'm not sure about Molnar's use of the word 'objects' here. |
| 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. |