Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Carving Content at the Joints' and 'Humean metaphysics vs metaphysics of Powers'

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4 ideas

18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 7. Abstracta by Equivalence

10805	A sentence should be recarved to reveal its content or implication relations [Yablo]
	Full Idea: A sentence invites recarving iff it will then do better justice to the internal structure of its content and/or its implication relations.
	From: Stephen Yablo (Carving Content at the Joints [2002], §11)
	A reaction: This invites human intervention in a logical process (by choosing which recarvings to do, instead of allowing all equivalences to generate them). He seems to think we should abstract in order to reveal logical form.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature

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

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / g. Time's arrow

13440	Causation is the power of one property to produce another, and this gives time its direction [Esfeld]
	Full Idea: The metaphysics of causation in terms of powers is linked with an intrinsic direction of time. There is a causal connection if an F-property produces a G. One can argue that causation thus is the basis for the direction of time.
	From: Michael Esfeld (Humean metaphysics vs metaphysics of Powers [2010], 7.2)
	A reaction: I think this is my preferred metaphysic - that both time and causation are primitive, but the direction of time is the result of the causal process. Viewing some new world, we would just say that time went in whichever direction the causation went.

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

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.