8 ideas
| 16415 | Esoteric metaphysics aims to be top science, investigating ultimate reality [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Esoteric metaphysics appeals to those, I conjecture, who deep down hold that philosophy is the queen of sciences after all, since it investigates what the world is REALLY like. | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: He mentions Kit Fine and Jonathan Schaffer as esoteric metaphysicians. I see a pyramid of increasing generality and abstraction, with metaphysics at the top. This doesn't make it 'queen', though, because uncertainties multiply higher up. |
| 16413 | Science has discovered properties of things, so there are properties - so who needs metaphysics? [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Material science has found that some features of metals make them more susceptible to corrosion but more resistant to fracture. Thus this immediately implies that there are features, i.e. properties. What is left for metaphysics to do? | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably economists have discovered 'features' of economies that cause unemployment, and literary critics have discovered 'features' of novels that make them good. |
| 18351 | Propositions are made true, in virtue of something which explains its truth [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: If a proposition is 'made' true, it has to be true 'in virtue of' something, meaning a relationship of metaphysical explanation. Thus a true proposition must have truth conferred on it in some way that explains how it gets to be true. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.202) | |
| A reaction: It is good to ask what we mean by 'makes'. I like essentialist explanations, but this may be misplaced. Observing that y makes x true seems to be rather less than actually explaining how it does it. What would such explanations look like? |
| 16416 | The quantifier in logic is not like the ordinary English one (which has empty names, non-denoting terms etc) [Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: The inferential role of the existential quantifier in first order logic does not carry over to the existential quantifier in English (we have empty names, singular terms that are not even in the business of denoting, and so on). | |
| From: Thomas Hofweber (Ambitious, yet modest, Metaphysics [2009], 2) |
| 18353 | Modes are beings that are related both to substances and to universals [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Modes are real beings that stand in non-contingent formal ontological relations both to individual substances and to immanent universals. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.212) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I pass it on. 'Modes' seem to invite the Razor, if we already have substances and universals. I am no clear about 'instantiation' because I now have the word 'mode' to play with. |
| 18352 | Tropes have existence independently of any entities [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Pure trope theorists must apparently hold that each trope has its identity underivatively, not that it depends for it on or owes it to other entities of any sort. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.207) | |
| A reaction: Lowe defends dependent 'modes' of things, against independent 'tropes'. Good, but he then has to say what the thing is (a modeless 'substance'?), because it can't just be a bundle of modes or tropes. |
| 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. |