16 ideas
| 18851 | Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: In conjunction with Extensionality, Pairing entails that given a single non-set, infinitely many sets exist. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04) |
| 8979 | Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Some changes are slow and continuous and are called 'processes' rather than events; the growth of a tree or the greying of John's hair. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: So making a loaf of bread is an event rather than a process, and World War I was a process rather than an event? If you slow down a dramatic event (on film), you see that it is really a process. I take 'process' to be a much more illuminating word. |
| 8981 | Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There is arguably a parallel between the mass-count distinction among meanings of nouns and the process-event distinction among meanings of verbs. Processes, like stuff, do not connote criteria for counting, whereas events, like things, do. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Hm. You can have several processes, and a process can come to an end - but then you can have several ingredients of a cake, and you can run out of one of them. This may be quite a helpful distinction. |
| 8973 | Einstein's relativity brought events into ontology, as the terms of a simultaneity relationships [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The ontology of events rose in philosophy with the rise of relativity theory in physics. Einstein postulated the relativity of simultaneity to an observer's state of motion. The terms of the relation of simultaneity must be events or their parts. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Philosophers no doubt think they are way ahead of physicists in such a metaphysical area. Personally I regard the parentage of the concept as good grounds for scepticism about it. See Idea 7621 for my reason. |
| 18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Meinongian abstraction principles say that for any (suitably restricted) class of properties, there exists an abstract entity (arbitrary object, subsistent entity) that possesses just those properties. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04) | |
| A reaction: This is 'Meinongian' because there will be an object which is circular and square. The nub of the idea presumably resides in what is meant by 'restricted'. An object possessing every conceivable property is, I guess, a step too far. |
| 18849 | Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: If P is metaphysically necessary, then it is absolutely necessary, and necessary in every real (non-epistemic) sense; and if P is possible in any sense, then it's possible in the metaphysical sense. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
| A reaction: Rosen's shot at defining metaphysical necessity and possibility, and it looks pretty good to me. In my terms (drawing from Kit Fine) it is what is necessitated or permitted 'by everything'. So if it is necessitated by logic or nature, that's included. |
| 18850 | 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: 'Metaphysical' modality is the sort of modality relative to which it is an interesting question whether the laws of nature are necessary or contingent. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
| A reaction: Being an essentialist here, I take it that the stuff of the universe necessitates the so-called 'laws'. The metaphysically interesting question is whether the stuff might have been different. Search me! A nice test of metaphysical modality though. |
| 18858 | Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It may be metaphysically necessary in one sense that sets or universals or mereological aggregates exist, while in another sense existence is always a contingent matter. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
| A reaction: This idea depends on Idea 18856 and 18857. Personally I only think mereological aggregates and sets exist when people decide that they exist, so I don't see how they could ever be necessary. I'm unconvinced about his two concepts. |
| 18857 | Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: According to the Standard Conception of Metaphysical Necessity, P is metaphysically necessary when it holds in every possible world in which the laws of metaphysics (about the form or structure of the actual world) hold | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
| A reaction: Rosen has a second meaning, in Idea 18856. He thinks it is crucial to see that there are two senses, because many things come out as metaphysically necessary on one concept, but contingent on the other. Interesting.... |
| 18856 | Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: According to the Non-Standard conception of Metaphysical Necessity, P is metaphysically necessary when its negation is logically incompatible with the nature of things. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
| A reaction: Rosen's new second meaning of the term. My immediate problem is with it resting on being 'logically' incompatible. Are squares 'logically' incompatible with circles? I like the idea that it rests on 'the nature of things'. (Psst! natures = essences) |
| 18848 | Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity? [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It is one thing to say that P is necessary in some generic sense because it is a truth of logic (true in all models of a language, perhaps). It is something else to say that P therefore enjoys a special sort of necessity. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
| A reaction: This encourages my thought that there is only one sort of necessity (what must be), and the variety comes from the different types of necessity makers (everything there could be, nature, duties, promises, logics, concepts...). |
| 18855 | Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Combinatorial theories of possibility take it for granted ....that possible worlds in general share a syntax, as it were, differing only in the constituents from which they are generated, or in the particular manner of their arrangements. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 08) | |
| A reaction: For instance, it might assume that every world has 'objects', to which 'properties' and 'relations' can be attached, or to which 'functions' can apply. |
| 18853 | A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: To a first approximation, P is correctly conceivable iff it would be conceivable for a logically ominiscient being who was fully informed about the nature of things. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 05) | |
| A reaction: Isn't the last bit covered by 'ominiscient'? Ah, I think the 'logically' only means they have a perfect grasp of what is consistent. This is to meet the standard problem, of ill-informed people 'conceiving' of things which are actually impossible. |
| 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 |
| 18854 | The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: According to the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of the laws of nature, a generalisation is a law just in case it is a theorem of every true account of the actual world that achieves the best overall balance of simplicity and strength. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 08) | |
| A reaction: The obvious objection is that many of the theorems will be utterly trivial, and that is one thing that the laws of nature are not. Unless you are including 'metaphysical laws' about very very fundamental things, like objects, properties, relations. |
| 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. |