14 ideas
| 8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: A definition of a word is correct if the definition can be substituted for the word being defined in an assertion without in the least changing the meaning which the assertion is felt to have. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good, but a very bland and uninformative rephrasing would fit this account, without offering anything very helpful. The word 'this' could be substituted for a lot of object words. A 'blade' is 'a thing always attached to a knife handle'. |
| 5122 | Maybe consequentialism is a critique of ordinary morality, rather than describing it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: Consequentialism may be put forward not as an attempt to capture intuitive folk morality but rather as a critique of ordinary tuitions. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: It is certainly true that most people are concerned with why an action was performed, and (after initial anger) are prepared to forgive an unintended disaster. We have no moral objections to earthquakes, which have bad consequences. |
| 5123 | Maybe there is no such thing as character, and the virtues and vices said to accompany it [Harman] |
| Full Idea: It may be the case that there is no such thing as character, no ordinary character traits of the sort people think there are, none of the usual moral virtues and vices. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.1) | |
| A reaction: This would be a devastating fact for virtue theory, if it were true. I don't believe it. He thinks patterns of behaviour result from circumstances, but we give accurate and detailed pictures of people's characters (esp. in novels). |
| 5124 | If a person's two acts of timidity have different explanations, they are not one character trait [Harman] |
| Full Idea: If Herbert is disposed to not speak in history class (but not other subjects), and explanation of this is different from his avoidance of roller coaster rides, then these two dispositions are not special cases of a single character trait. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: A basic Harman argument for denying the existence of character (and hence of virtues). I just say that character traits are more complex than his caricature of them. If I keep imagining disaster and humiliation for myself, that is a character trait. |
| 5125 | Virtue ethics might involve judgements about the virtues of actions, rather than character [Harman] |
| Full Idea: There are variants of virtue ethics that do not require character traits in the ordinary sense. For example, moral thinking might be explicated by appeal to judgements about whether particular actions are just or courageous or whatever. | |
| From: Gilbert Harman (Moral Philosophy meets social psychology [1999], 10.7.1.1) | |
| A reaction: A very interesting proposal (from Judith Jarvis Thomson). This would flatly reject Aristotle, and one presumes that the judgement about the virtue of the action would largely be a matter of pondering cultural conventions (or, perhaps, consequences). |
| 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 |
| 8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The correct definition of the causal relation is to be framed in terms of one single case of sequence, and constancy of conjunction is therefore no part of it. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thesis of Ducasse's paper. I immediately warm to it. I take constant conjunction to be a consequence and symptom of causation, not its nature. There is a classic ontology/epistemology confusion to be avoided here. |
| 8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The part of a generalization concerning what is common to one individual concrete event and the causes of certain other events of the same kind is involved in the mere assigning of a name to the cause and its effect, but not in the perceiving them. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: A nice point, that we should keep distinct the recognition of a cause, and the assigning of a general name to it. Ducasse is claiming that we can directly perceive singular causation. |
| 8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: There are four causal connections: an event is sufficient for another if it is its cause; an event is necessary for another if it is a condition for it; it is necessitated by another if it is an effect; it is contingent upon another if it is a resultant. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §2) | |
| A reaction: An event could be a condition for another without being necessary. He seems to have missed the indispensable aspect of a necessary condition. |
| 8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: If a brick and the song of a canary strike a window, which breaks....we can truly say that the song of the canary had nothing to do with it, that is, in so far as what occurred is viewed merely as a case of breakage of window. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of Davidson's view, that causation is entirely dependent on the mode of description, rather than being an actual feature of reality. If one was interested in the sound of the breakage, the canary would become relevant. |
| 8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The cause of the particular change K was such particular change C as alone occurred in the immediate environment of K immediately before. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §3) | |
| A reaction: The obvious immediately difficulty would be overdetermination, as when it rains while I am watering my garden. The other problem would coincidence, as when I clap my hands just before a bomb goes off. |
| 8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The supposition of recurrence is wholly irrelevant to the meaning of cause: that supposition is relevant only to the meaning of law. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, especially if our notion of laws of nature is built up from a series of caused events. But we could just have an ontology of 'similar events', out of which we build laws, and 'causation' could drop out (á la Russell). |
| 8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: We are interested in causes and effects primarily for practical purposes, which needs generalizations; so the interest of concrete individual facts of causation is chiefly an indirect one, as raw material for generalizations. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §6) | |
| A reaction: A nice explanation of why, if causation is fundamentally about single instances, people seem so interested in generalisations and laws. We want to predict, and we want to explain, and we want to intervene. |
| 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. |