13 ideas
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: It might be said that Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: I don't buy this, if it meant to be dismissive of the relevance of the principle to truth. A deep question might be, what is so aesthetically attractive about simplicity? I'm inclined to think that application of the Razor has delivered terrific results. |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A Meinongian has already posited everything that could, or even could not, be; how, then, can any subsequent brandishing of Ockham's Razor be to the point? | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: See the ideas of Alexius Meinong. Presumably these crazy Meinongians must make some distinction between what actually exists in front of your nose, and the rest. So the Razor can use that distinction too. |
| 13168 | My formal unifying atoms are substantial forms, which are forces like appetites [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: To find real entities I had recourse to a unified formal atom. Hence I rehabilitated the substantial forms in a way to render them intelligible. I found that their nature consists in force, from which follows something analogous to sensation and appetite. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.139) | |
| A reaction: [several lines are here compressed] This passage sums up the key to Leibniz's essentialism, which I take to be a connection between Aristotelian form and the physicists' notion of force. This gives us a modern version of Aristotelianism for science. |
| 13169 | I call Aristotle's entelechies 'primitive forces', which originate activity [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Forms establish the true general principles of nature. Aristotle calls them 'first entelechies'; I call them, perhaps more intelligibly, 'primitive forces', which contain not only act or the completion of possibility, but also an original activity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.139) | |
| A reaction: As in Idea 13168, I take Leibniz to be unifying Aristotle with modern science, and offering an active view of nature in tune with modern scientific essentialism. Laws arise from primitive force, and are not imposed from without. |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Meinong's Objects have sometimes been construed as sets of properties. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: [Lycan cites Castaņeda and T.Parsons] You still seem to have the problem with any 'bundle' theory of anything. A non-existent object is as much intended to be an object as anything on my desk right now. It just fails to be. |
| 13170 | The analysis of things leads to atoms of substance, which found both composition and action [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There are only atoms of substance, that is, real unities absolutely destitute of parts, which are the source of actions, the first absolute principles of the composition of things, and, as it were, the final elements in the analysis of substantial things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.142) | |
| A reaction: I like this because it addresses the pure issue of the identity of an individuated object, but also links it with an active view of nature, and not some mere inventory of objects. |
| 13171 | Substance must necessarily involve progress and change [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The nature of substance necessarily requires and essentially involves progress or change, without which it would not have the force to act. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.144) | |
| A reaction: Bravo. Most metaphysical musings regarding 'substance' seem entirely wrapped up in the problem of pure identity, and forget about the role of objects in activity and change. |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A mentalistic approach to possible worlds is daunted by the paucity of actual mental events. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Why do they have to be actual, any more than memories have to be conscious? The mental events just need to be available when you need them. They are never all required simultaneously. This isn't mathematical logic! |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: I believe the only promising choice of actual entities to serve as 'worlds' is that of sets of intensional objects, such as propositions or properties with stipulated interrelations. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 12) | |
| A reaction: This is mainly in response to Lewis's construction of them out of actual concrete objects. It strikes me as a bogus problem. It is just a convenient way to think precisely about possibilities, and occasionally outruns our mental capacity. |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: If a 'world' is understood as a set of sentences, then possibility may be understood as consistency, ...but this seems circular, in that 'consistency' of sentences cannot adequately be defined save in terms of possibility. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: [Carnap and Hintikka propose the view, Lewis 'Counterfactuals' p.85 objects] Worlds as sentences is not, of course, the same as worlds as propositions. There is a lot of circularity around in 'possible' worlds. |
| 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 |
| 13167 | We need the metaphysical notion of force to explain mechanics, and not just extended mass [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Considering 'extended mass' alone was not sufficient to explain the principles of mechanics and the laws of nature, but it is necessary to make use of the notion of 'force', which is very intelligible, despite belonging in the domain of metaphysics. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.139) | |
| A reaction: We may find it surprising that force is a metaphysical concept, but that is worth pondering. It is a mysterious notion within physics. Notice the emphasis on what explains, and what is intelligible. He sees Descartes's system as too passive. |
| 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. |