27 ideas
| 15063 | Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is a distinction between worldly and unworldly sentences, between sentences that depend for their truth upon the worldly circumstances and those that do not. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine is fishing around in the area between the necessary, the a priori, truthmakers, and truth-conditions. He appears to be attempting a singlehanded reconstruction of the concepts of metaphysics. Is he major, or very marginal? |
| 15078 | There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Just as we recognise different levels of reality, so we should recognise different levels of existence. Each object will exist at the lowest level at which it can enjoy its characteristic form of life. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10) | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling with this claim, despite my sympathy for much of Fine's picture. I'm not sure that the so-called 'levels' of reality have different degrees of reality. |
| 15072 | Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: At the bottom are tensed or temporal facts, subject to the vicissitudes of time and hence of the world. Then come the timeless though worldly facts, subject to the world but not to time. Top are transcendental facts, subject to neither world nor time. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08) | |
| A reaction: For all of Fine's awesome grasp of logic and semantics, when he divides reality up as boldly as this I start to side a bit with the sceptics about modern metaphysics (like Ladyman and Ross). I daresay Fine acknowledges that it is 'speculative'. |
| 15071 | Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A tensed fact is stated by a tensed sentence while a tenseless fact is stated by a tenseless sentence, and they belong to two 'realms' of reality. That Socrates drank hemlock is in the temporal realm, while 2+2=4 is presumably in the timeless realm. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 07) | |
| A reaction: Put so strongly, I suddenly find sales resistance to his proposal. All my instincts favour one realm, and I take 2+2=4 to be a highly general truth about that realm. It may be a truth of any possible realm, which would distinguish it. |
| 15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is natural to suggest that to be a man is to have certain kind of temporal-modal profile. ...but it seems natural that being a man accounts for the profile, ...so one should not appeal to an object's modal features in stating what the object is. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a correct and very helpful point, as I am tempted to think that the modal dispositions of a thing are intrinsic to its identity. If we accept 'powers', must they be modal in character? Fine backs a sortal approach. That's ideology. |
| 15065 | What it is is fixed prior to existence or the object's worldly features [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The identity of an object - what it is - is not a worldly matter; essence will precede existence in that the identity of an object may be fixed by its unworldly features even before any question of its existence or other worldly features is considered. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not clear how this cashes out. If I remove the 'worldly features' of an object, what is there left which establishes identity? Fine carefully avoids talk of 'a priori' knowledge of identity. |
| 15076 | Essential features of an object have no relation to how things actually are [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is the core essential features of the object that will be independent of how things turn out, and they will be independent in the sense of holding regardless of circumstances, not whatever the circumstances. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09) | |
| A reaction: The distinction at the end seems to be that 'regardless' pays no attention to circumstances, whereas 'whatever' pays attention to all circumstances. In other words, essence has no relationship to how things are. Plausible. Nice to see 'core'. |
| 15073 | Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The existential identity of an object with itself needs analysis into two components, one the neutral identity of the object with itself, and the other its existence. The existence of the object appears to be merely a gratuitous addition to its identity. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08) | |
| A reaction: This is at least a step towards clarification of the notion, which might be seen as just a way of asserting that something 'has an identity'. Fine likes the modern Fregean way of expressing this, as an equality relation. |
| 15074 | We would understand identity between objects, even if their existence was impossible [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If there were impossible objects, ones that do not possibly exist, we would have no difficulty in understanding what it is for such objects to be identical or distinct than in the case of possible objects. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08) | |
| A reaction: Thus, a 'circular square' seems to be the same as a 'square circle'. Fine is arguing for identity to be independent of any questions of existence. |
| 15064 | Proper necessary truths hold whatever the circumstances; transcendent truths regardless of circumstances [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We distinguish between the necessary truths proper, those that hold whatever the circumstances, and the transcendent truths, those that hold regardless of the circumstances. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine's project seems to be dividing the necessities which derive from essence from the necessities which tended to be branded in essentialist discussions as 'trivial'. |
| 15070 | It is the nature of Socrates to be a man, so necessarily he is a man [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is of the nature of Socrates to be a man; and from this it appears to follow that necessarily he is a man. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 04) | |
| A reaction: I'm always puzzled by this line of thought, because it is only the intrinsic nature of beings like Socrates which decides in the first place what a 'man' is. How can something help to create a category, and then necessarily belong to that category? |
| 15069 | Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: An alternative conception of a possible world says it is constituted, not by the totality of facts, or of how things might be, but by the totality of circumstances, or how things might turn out. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 02) | |
| A reaction: The general idea is to make a possible world more limited than in Idea 15068. It only contains properties arising from 'engagement with the world', and won't include timeless sentences. It is a bunch of possibilities, not of actualities? |
| 15068 | The actual world is a totality of facts, so we also think of possible worlds as totalities [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We are accustomed think of the actual world as the totality of facts, and so we think of any possible world as being like the actual world in settling the truth-value of every single proposition. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 02) | |
| A reaction: Hence it is normal to refer to a possible world as a 'maximal' set of of propositions (sentences, etc). See Idea 15069 for his proposed alternative view. |
| 7404 | Nations are not obliged to help one-another, but are obliged not to harm one another [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius explored the implications of the idea that nation-states were under no obligation to help one another, but they were obliged not to harm each other. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: This is quite a striking disanalogy between accepted personal morality and political morality. There are signs in recent years of some recognition that other nations should not just sit and watch suffering. |
| 7402 | Everyone has a right of self-preservation, and harming others is usually unjustifiable [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said that all men would agree that everyone has a fundamental right to preserve themselves, and that wanton or unnecessary injury to another person is unjustifiable. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Who cares if it is 'justifiable'? Do I have to 'justify' killing a mosquito if it lands on my arm? Grotius is taking a step beyond saying that people should defend themselves, to say that they have a 'right' to - the only truly basic right. |
| 21938 | Democracy needs respect for individuality, but the 'community of friends' implies strict equality [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: There is no democracy without respect for irreducible singularity, but there is no democracy with the 'community of friends' without the calculation of majorities, without identifiable representable subjects, all equal. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]), quoted by Simon Glendinning - Derrida: A Very Short Introduction 7 | |
| A reaction: [source not given] Derrida calls this conflict 'tragic'. The obvious reply is that equality is not an absolute. We can be equal in voting rights while being unequal in height or musical talent. |
| 19845 | A person is free to renounce their state, as long as it is not a moment of crisis [Grotius, by Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Grotius thinks that each person can renounce his state and leave the country. (n15: provided it is not to evade one's duty the moment the homeland needs us; this would be criminal and punishable; it would not be withdrawal, but desertion) | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - The Social Contract (tr Cress) III.18 | |
| A reaction: The obvious example is Britons going to America in 1939, or (more controversially) conscripts going to Canada to avoid fighting in Vietnam. I'm unclear whether the idea in the note is that of Grotius or of Rousseau). Is tax exile OK, then? |
| 22133 | Grotius and Pufendorf based natural law on real (rather than idealised) humanity [Grotius, by Ford,JD] |
| Full Idea: Grotius and Pufendorf transformed the natural law tradition by starting from identifiable traits of human nature rather than ideas about what human beings ought to be. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by J.D. Ford - Pufendorf, Samuel p.863 |
| 7406 | A natural right of self-preservation is balanced by a natural law to avoid unnecessary harm [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: For Grotius, there was a fundamental 'natural right' of self-preservation upon which all known moralities and codes of social behaviour must have been constructed, but it is balanced by a fundament duty or 'natural law' to abstain from harming others. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This theory has the virtue of economy, but I don't see how you can clearly justify those particular natural rights and laws, without allowing others to creep in, such as a right to a decent share of food, or a law requiring some fairness. |
| 7403 | Grotius ignored elaborate natural law theories, preferring a basic right of self-preservation [Grotius, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Grotius said there was a minimum core of morality (based on self-preservation), and disregarded the elaborate accounts of principles of natural law which Aristotelians had always sought to develop. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Aquinas would be the key Aristotelian here. I tend towards the Aristotelian view. If you go for the minimal view, it is not clear why there is a 'right' to self-preservation, rather than a mere desire for it. |
| 23585 | It is permissible in a just cause to capture a place in neutral territory [Grotius] |
| Full Idea: It is permissible for one who is waging a just war to take possession of a place situated in a country free from hostilities. | |
| From: Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625], II.ii.x), quoted by Michael Walzer - Just and Unjust Wars 15 n | |
| A reaction: This rejects Combatant Equality, allowing the just to do what is morally forbidden to the unjust. |
| 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 |
| 15077 | It is said that in the A-theory, all existents and objects must be tensed, as well as the sentences [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is said that there is no room in the A-theorists' ontology for a realm of timeless existents. Just as there is a tendency to think that every sentence is tensed, so there is a tendency to think that every object must enjoy a tensed form of existence. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10) | |
| A reaction: Fine is arguing for certain things to exist or be true independently of time (such as arithmetic, or essential identities). I struggle with the notion of timeless existence. |
| 15067 | A-theorists tend to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Most A-theorists have been inclined to reject the tensed/tenseless distinction. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 01) | |
| A reaction: Presumably this is because they reject the notion of 'tenseless' truths. But sentences like 'two and two make four' seem not to be very tensy. |
| 15066 | B-theorists say tensed sentences have an unfilled argument-place for a time [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: B-theorists regard tensed sentences as incomplete expressions, implicitly containing an unfilled argument-place for the time at which they are to be evaluated. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 01) | |
| A reaction: To distinguish past from future it looks as if you would need two argument-places, not one. Then there are 'used to be' and 'had been' to evaluate. |
| 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. |
| 6892 | Moral principles have some validity without a God commanding obedience [Grotius, by Mautner] |
| Full Idea: In the Prolegomena to his work there is a famous statement that moral principles laid down in the work would have some degree of validity even if there was no God commanding obedience. | |
| From: report of Hugo Grotius (On the Law of War and Peace [1625]) by Thomas Mautner - Penguin Dictionary of Philosophy p.229 | |
| A reaction: I am not clear why Grotius felt obliged to qualify his claim with the phrase 'some degree'. I don't see how God's command can affect the 'validity' of morality, or how there can be a middle ground between dependence on and independence of God. |