27 ideas
6161 | Structuralism is neo-Kantian idealism, with language playing the role of categories of understanding [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Structuralism is a form of neo-Kantian idealism, in which the job of creating Kant's phenomenal world has been taken over by language instead of forms of sensibility and categories of the understanding. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: A helpful connection, which explains my aversion to any attempt at understanding the world simply by analysing language, either in its ordinary usage, or in its underlying logical form. |
6163 | If bivalence is rejected, then excluded middle must also be rejected [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: If you reject the principle of bivalence (that a proposition is either determinately true or false), then statements are also not subject to the Law of Excluded Middle (P or not-P). | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I think Rowlands is wrong about this. Excluded Middle could be purely syntacti, or its semantics could be 'True or Not-True'. Only bivalent excluded middle introduces 'True or False'. Compare Idea 4752. |
6155 | Supervenience is a one-way relation of dependence or determination between properties [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is essentially a one-way relation of dependence or determination, …which holds, in the first instance, between properties. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This definition immediately shows why supervenient properties are in danger of being epiphenomenal (i.e. causally irrelevant). Carefully thought about the notion of a 'one-way' relation will, I think, make it more obscure rather than clearer. |
6154 | It is argued that wholes possess modal and counterfactual properties that parts lack [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Some have argued that a mereological whole should not be identified with the sum of its parts on the grounds that the former possess certain properties - specifically modal and (perhaps) counterfactual properties - that the latter lacks. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I am not convinced that modal and counterfactual claims should count as properties. If my pen is heated it melts (a property), but if my pen were intelligent it could do philosophy. Intelligence is a property, but the situation isn't. |
6157 | Tokens are dated, concrete particulars; types are their general properties or kinds [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Tokens are dated, concrete, particular occurrences or instances; types are the general properties that these occurrences exemplify or the kinds to which they belong. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: It might be said that types are sets, of which tokens are the members. The question of 'general properties' raises the question of whether universals must exist to make kinds possible. |
6159 | Strong idealism is the sort of mess produced by a Cartesian separation of mind and world [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Neo-Kantian idealism, and the excesses of recent versions of it, are precisely the sort of mess one can get oneself into through an uncritical acceptance of the dichotomizing of mind and world along Cartesian internalist lines. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: I am unconvinced that internalism about the mind (that its contents can be defined without reference to anything external) leads to this disastrous split. We don't have to abandon the links between an internal mind and the world. |
6152 | Minds are rational, conscious, subjective, self-knowing, free, meaningful and self-aware [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The apparent features of mind which are not obviously physical include: rationality, thought, consciousness, subjectivity, infallible first-person knowledge, freedom, meaning and self-awareness. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: A helpful list, some of which can be challenged. Ryle challenges first-person infallibility. Hume challenges self-awareness. Quine challenges meaning. Lots of people (e.g. Spinoza) challenge freedom. The Churchlands seem to challenge consciousness. |
6173 | Content externalism implies that we do not have privileged access to our own minds [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Content externalism threatens the idea of first-person authority in all its forms, and does so because it calls into question the idea that the access we have to our own mental states is privileged in the way required for such authority. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.7) | |
A reaction: I am inclined to respond by saying that since we clearly have privileged access to our own minds, that means there must be something wrong with content externalism. |
6174 | If someone is secretly transported to Twin Earth, others know their thoughts better than they do [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: If someone knew that a thinker had, without realising it, been transported to Twin Earth, they would almost certainly be a higher authority on the content of the thinker's thoughts than would the thinker. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.8) | |
A reaction: They would certainly be a higher authority on the truth of the thinker's thoughts, but only in the way that you might think I hold a diamond when I know it is a club. If the thinker believes it is H2O, the fact that it isn't is irrelevant to content. |
6158 | Supervenience of mental and physical properties often comes with token-identity of mental and physical particulars [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: One often finds a supervenience thesis concerning the relation between mental and physical properties combined with a token identity theory concerning the relation between mental and physical particulars. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This brings out the important clarifying point that supervenience is said to be between properties, not substances. The point is that supervenience will always cry out for an explanation, preferably a sensible one. |
6168 | The content of a thought is just the meaning of a sentence [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The content of the thought that the sky is blue is simply the meaning of the sentence "The sky is blue". | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: This seems to imply that it is logically impossible for a non-language-speaker, such as a chimpanzee, to think that the sky is the same colour as the water. If we allow propositions, we might be able to keep meanings without the sentences. |
6167 | Action is bodily movement caused by intentional states [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: An action is a bodily movement that is caused by intentional states such as beliefs, desires and so on. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A useful definition, and clearly one that has no truck with attempts at giving behaviourist definitions of action. The definition of a 'moral action' needs to be built on this one. Particular types of belief and desire, presumably. |
6177 | Moral intuition seems unevenly distributed between people [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The faculty of moral intuition seems to be unevenly distributed between people. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This would be a good argument if it was thought that the source of moral intuitions was divine, but people vary enormously in their intuitions about maths, about character, about danger. If you believe in any intuition at all, you must accept its variety. |
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 |
6156 | The 17th century reintroduced atoms as mathematical modes of Euclidean space [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: The seventeenth century revolution reintroduced the classical concept of the atom in somewhat new attire as an essentially mathematical entity whose primary qualities could be precisely quantified as modes or aspects of Euclidean space. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: Obviously this very abstract view of atoms didn't last, once they began to identify specific physical atoms, such as oxygen. This view fits in with Newton's use of pure (abstract) points such as the 'centre of gravity'. |
6170 | Natural kinds are defined by their real essence, as in gold having atomic number 79 [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: Part of what it means to be a natural kind is that they are defined by a real essence, a constitution that marks them out as the substance they are (as water is essentially H2O, and gold essentially has atomic number 79). | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.6) | |
A reaction: A 'real essence' would be the opposite of a 'conventional essence', which is just a human way of seeing things. |
8337 | Some says mental causation is distinct because we can recognise single occurrences [Mackie] |
Full Idea: It is sometimes suggested that our ability to recognise a single occurrence as an instance of mental causation is a feature which distinguishes mental causation from physical or 'Humean' causation. | |
From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §9) | |
A reaction: Hume says regularities are needed for mental causation too. Concentrate hard on causing a lightning flash - 'did I do that?' Gradually recovering from paralysis; you wouldn't just move your leg once, and know it was all right! |
8342 | Mackie tries to analyse singular causal statements, but his entities are too vague for events [Kim on Mackie] |
Full Idea: In spite of Mackie's announced aim of analysing singular causal statements, it is doubtful that the entities that he is concerned with can be consistently interpreted as spatio-temporally bounded individual events. | |
From: comment on J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Jaegwon Kim - Causes and Events: Mackie on causation §3 | |
A reaction: This is because Mackie mainly talks about 'conditions'. Nearly every theory I encounter in modern philosophy gets accused of either circular definitions, or inadequate individuation conditions for key components. A tough world for theory-makers. |
8343 | Necessity and sufficiency are best suited to properties and generic events, not individual events [Kim on Mackie] |
Full Idea: Relations of necessity and sufficiency seem best suited for properties and for property-like entities such as generic states and events; their application to individual events and states is best explained as derivative from properties and generic events. | |
From: comment on J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Jaegwon Kim - Causes and Events: Mackie on causation §4 | |
A reaction: This seems to suggest that necessity must either derive from laws, or from powers. It is certainly hard to see how you could do Mackie's assessment of necessary and sufficient components, without comparing similar events. |
8385 | A cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect [Mackie, by Crane] |
Full Idea: The details of Mackie's analysis are complex, but the general idea is that the cause is part of a wider set of conditions which suffices for its effect. | |
From: report of J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Tim Crane - Causation 1.3.3 | |
A reaction: Helpful. Why does something have to be 'the' cause? Immediacy is a vital part of it. A house could be a 'fire waiting to happen'. Oxygen is an INUS condition for a fire. |
8335 | Necessary conditions are like counterfactuals, and sufficient conditions are like factual conditionals [Mackie] |
Full Idea: A necessary causal condition is closely related to a counterfactual conditional: if no-cause then no-effect, and a sufficient causal condition is closely related to a factual conditional (Goodman's phrase): since cause-here then effect. | |
From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §4) | |
A reaction: The 'factual conditional' just seems to be an assertion that causation occurred (dressed up with the logical-sounding 'since'). An important distinction for Lewis. Sufficiency doesn't seem to need possible-worlds talk. |
8336 | The INUS account interprets single events, and sequences, causally, without laws being known [Mackie] |
Full Idea: My account shows how a singular causal statement can be interpreted, and how the corresponding sequence can be shown to be causal, even if the corresponding complete laws are not known. | |
From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §9) | |
A reaction: Since the 'complete' laws are virtually never known, it would be a bit much to require that to assert causation. His theory is the 'INUS' account of causal conditions - see Idea 8333. |
8333 | A cause is an Insufficient but Necessary part of an Unnecessary but Sufficient condition [Mackie] |
Full Idea: If a short-circuit causes a fire, the so-called cause is, and is known to be, an Insufficient but Necessary part of a condition which is itself Unnecessary but Sufficient for the result. Let us call this an INUS condition. | |
From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §1) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why it is necessary, given that the fire could have started without the short-circuit. The final situation must certainly be sufficient. If only one situation can cause an effect, then the whole situation is necessary. |
8395 | Mackie has a nomological account of general causes, and a subjunctive conditional account of single ones [Mackie, by Tooley] |
Full Idea: For general causal statements Mackie favours a nomological account, but for singular causal statements he argued for an analysis in terms of subjunctive conditionals. | |
From: report of J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965]) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience 5.2 | |
A reaction: These seem to be consistent, by explaining each by placing it within a broader account of reality. Personally I think Ducasse gives the best account of how you get from the particular to the general (via similarity and utility). |
8334 | The virus causes yellow fever, and is 'the' cause; sweets cause tooth decay, but they are not 'the' cause [Mackie] |
Full Idea: We may say not merely that this virus causes yellow fever, but also that it is 'the' cause of yellow fever; but we could only say that sweet-eating causes dental decay, not that it is the cause of dental decay (except in an individual case). | |
From: J.L. Mackie (Causes and Conditions [1965], §3) | |
A reaction: A bit confusing, but there seems to be something important here, concerning the relation between singular causation and law-governed causation. 'The' cause may not be sufficient (I'm immune to yellow fever). So 'the' cause is the only necessary one? |
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. |
6178 | It is common to see the value of nature in one feature, such as life, diversity, or integrity [Rowlands] |
Full Idea: In recent environmental philosophy it is common to see the value of nature identified with one or another natural feature of the environment: life, diversity, ecosystemic integrity and so on. | |
From: Mark Rowlands (Externalism [2003], Ch.11) | |
A reaction: This thought seems to be asking for the Open Question argument. What is so good about life, or diversity? Our strongest intuition must be that the survival of the ecosystem, and whatever makes that possible, is the highest value. |