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11175
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Logical concepts rest on certain inferences, not on facts about implications [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
The nature of the logical concepts is given, not by certain logical truths, but by certain logical inferences. What properly belongs to disjunction is the inference from p to (p or q), rather than the fact that p implies (p or q).
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From:
Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §3)
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A reaction:
Does this mean that Fine is wickedly starting with the psychology, rather than with the pure truth of the connection? Frege is shuddering. This view seems to imply that the truth table for 'or' is secondary.
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11176
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The property of Property Abstraction says any suitable condition must imply a property [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
According to the principle of Property Abstraction, there is, for any suitable condition, a property that is possessed by an object just in case it conforms to the condition. This is usually taken to be a second-order logical truth.
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From:
Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §4)
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A reaction:
Fine objects that it is implied that if Socrates is essentially a man, then he essentially has the property of being a man. Like Fine, I think this conclusion is distasteful. A classification is not a property, at least the way most people use 'property'.
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11173
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Being a man is a consequence of his essence, not constitutive of it [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
If we distinguish 'constitutive' from 'consequential' essence, ..then the essence of Socrates will, in part, be constituted by his being a man. But being a man (or a mountain) will merely be consequential upon, and not constitutive of, his essence.
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From:
Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §3)
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A reaction:
Yes yes yes. I think it is absurd to say that the class to which something belongs is part of its essential nature, given that it presumably can only belong to the class if it already has a certain essential nature. What did Frankenstein construct?
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11179
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If there are alternative definitions, then we have three possibilities for essence [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
If there are alternative definitions for an essence, we must distinguish three notions. There is the essence as the manifold (the combined definitions), or as the range of alternative definitions (with component essences), or there is the common essence.
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From:
Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §8)
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A reaction:
Fine opts for the third alternative (what the definitions all have in common) as the best account. He says (p.68) 'definitive' properties come from one definition, and 'essential' properties from every possible definition.
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16700
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In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff]
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Full Idea:
It is clear from the way in which one must speak about time and other successive entities that talk about 'the present' must be enlarged. Otherwise it would have to be denied that any successive entity could exist, which is impossible.
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From:
John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
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A reaction:
This is a lovely idea, even if it is not quite clear what it means. The mind seems to stretch out the now anyway (as the 'specious present'), so why not embrace that in language and conscious thought?
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16701
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To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant [Wycliff]
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Full Idea:
If something is successive, it is successive with respect to its individual parts, which cannot exist at the same instant. Therefore it follows that many of its parts are lodged outside that instant.
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From:
John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
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A reaction:
An obvious would be to say that there are therefore no successive entities, but Wycliff is appealing to our universal acceptance of them, and offering a transcendental argument. Nice move.
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