13 ideas
| 16062 | A necessary relation between fact-levels seems to be a further irreducible fact [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: It seems unavoidable that the facts about logically necessary relations between levels of facts are themselves logically distinct further facts, irreducible to the microphysical facts. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
| A reaction: I'm beginning to think that rejecting every theory of reality that is proposed by carefully exposing some infinite regress hidden in it is a rather lazy way to do philosophy. Almost as bad as rejecting anything if it can't be defined. |
| 16061 | If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic. |
| 16060 | Nonreductive materialism says upper 'levels' depend on lower, but don't 'reduce' [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: The root intuition behind nonreductive materialism is that reality is composed of ontologically distinct layers or levels. …The upper levels depend on the physical without reducing to it. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], B) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear statement of a view which I take to be false. This relationship is the sort of thing that drives people fishing for an account of it to use the word 'supervenience', which just says two things seem to hang out together. Fluffy materialism. |
| 16064 | The hallmark of physicalism is that each causal power has a base causal power under it [Lynch/Glasgow] |
| Full Idea: Jessica Wilson (1999) says what makes physicalist accounts different from emergentism etc. is that each individual causal power associated with a supervenient property is numerically identical with a causal power associated with its base property. | |
| From: Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], n 11) | |
| A reaction: Hence the key thought in so-called (serious, rather than self-evident) 'emergentism' is so-called 'downward causation', which I take to be an idle daydream. |
| 16066 | Additional or removal of any part changes a thing, so people are never the same person [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: If you add or take away a pebble, the same number does not remain. If you add to a length or cut off from it, the former measure does not remain. So human beings grow or waste away. Both you and I were, and shall be, other men. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B02), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.12 | |
| A reaction: [The original is in dialogue form from a play. The context is a joke about not paying a debt.] Note the early date for this metaphysical puzzle. My new favourite reply is Chrysippus's Idea 16059; identity actually requires change. |
| 436 | A dog seems handsome to another a dog, and even a pig to another pig [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Dog seems very handsome to dog, and ox to ox, and donkey very handsome to donkey, and even pig to pig. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B05), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 442 | Pleasures are like pirates - if you are caught they drown you in a sea of pleasures [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Pleasures for mortals are like impious pirates, for the man who is caught by pleasures is immediately drowned in a sea of them. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B44), quoted by (who?) - where? | |
| A reaction: Not all slopes are slippery. Plenty of people hold themselves to strict rules about alcohol or gambling. People have occasional treats. |
| 440 | Hands wash hands; give that you may get [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: The hand washes the hand; give something and you may get something. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B30), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 441 | Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Against a villain, villainy is not a useless weapon. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B32), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 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 |
| 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. |
| 439 | God knows everything, and nothing is impossible for him [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing escapes the divine, this you must realise. God himself is our overseer, and nothing is impossible for him. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B23), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 443 | Human logos is an aspect of divine logos, and is sufficient for successful living [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: Man has calculation, but there is also the divine logos. But human logos is sprung from the divine logos, and it brings to each man his means of life, and his maintenance. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B57), quoted by (who?) - where? |