90 ideas
19693 | There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb] |
Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro | |
A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea. |
15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics. |
18835 | Logic doesn't have a metaphysical basis, but nor can logic give rise to the metaphysics [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: There is surely no metaphysical basis for logic, but equally there is no logical basis for metaphysics, if that implies that we can settle the choice of logic in advance of settling any seriously contested metaphysical-cum-semantic issues. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.5) | |
A reaction: Is this aimed at Tim Williamson's book on treating modal logic as metaphysics? I agree with the general idea that logic won't deliver a metaphysics. I might want to defend a good metaphysics giving rise to a good logic. |
1575 | For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value. | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26 |
1589 | Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos | |
From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95 |
8200 | Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine] |
Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'. |
4385 | Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157 | |
A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus? |
15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Truth is a relation between two things - a representation (the truth 'bearer') and the world or some part of it (the 'truthmaker'). | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.1) | |
A reaction: That truth is about representations seems to me to be exactly right. That it is about truthmakers is more controversial. There are well known problems with negative truths, general truths, future truths etc. I'm happy with 'facts'. |
18819 | The idea that there are unrecognised truths is basic to our concept of truth [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The realist principle that a statement may be true even though no one is able to recognise its truth is so deeply embedded in our ordinary conception of truth that any account that flouts it is liable to engender confusion. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 5.1) |
18826 | 'True at a possibility' means necessarily true if what is said had obtained [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: A statement is 'true at a possibility' if, necessarily, things would have been as the statement (actually) says they are, had the possibility obtained. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 6.6) | |
A reaction: This is deliberately vague about what a 'possibility' is, but it is intended to be more than a property instantiation, and less than a possible world. |
18803 | Semantics for propositions: 1) validity preserves truth 2) non-contradition 3) bivalence 4) truth tables [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The classical semantics of natural language propositions says 1) valid arguments preserve truth, 2) no statement is both true and false, 3) each statement is either true or false, 4) the familiar truth tables. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) |
18814 | 'Absolute necessity' would have to rest on S5 [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If there is such a notion as 'absolute necessity', its logic is surely S5. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 3.3) | |
A reaction: There are plenty of people (mainly in the strict empiricist tradition) who don't believe in 'absolute' necessity. |
18798 | It is the second-order part of intuitionistic logic which actually negates some classical theorems [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Although intuitionistic propositional and first-order logics are sub-systems of the corresponding classical systems, intuitionistic second-order logic affirms the negations of some classical theorems. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) |
18799 | Intuitionists can accept Double Negation Elimination for decidable propositions [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Double Negation Elimination is a rule of inference which the classicist accepts without restriction, but which the intuitionist accepts only for decidable propositions. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This cures me of my simplistic understanding that intuitionists just reject the rules about double negation. |
18830 | Most set theorists doubt bivalence for the Continuum Hypothesis, but still use classical logic [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Many set theorists doubt if the Generalised Continuum Hypothesis must be either true or false; certainly, its bivalence is far from obvious. All the same, almost all set theorists use classical logic in their proofs. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.2) | |
A reaction: His point is that classical logic is usually taken to rest on bivalence. He offers the set theorists a helping hand, by defending classical logic without resorting to bivalence. |
18843 | The iterated conception of set requires continual increase in axiom strength [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: We are doomed to postulate an infinite sequence of successively stronger axiom systems as we try to spell out what is involved in iterating the power set operation 'as far as possible'. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 9.3) | |
A reaction: [W.W. Tait is behind this idea] The problem with set theory, then, especially as a foundation of mathematics, is that it doesn't just expand, but has to keep reinventing itself. The 'large cardinal axioms' are what is referred to. |
18836 | A set may well not consist of its members; the empty set, for example, is a problem [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: There seem strong grounds for rejecting the thesis that a set consists of its members. For one thing, the empty set is a perpetual embarrassment for the thesis. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 8.4) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt also says that if 'red' has an extension, then membership of that set must be vague. Extensional sets are precise because their objects are decided in advance, but intensional (or logical) sets, decided by a predicate, can be vague. |
18837 | A set can be determinate, because of its concept, and still have vague membership [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Vagueness in respect of membership is consistent with determinacy of the set's identity, so long as a set's identity is taken to consist, not in its having such-and-such members, but in its being the extension of the concept A. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 8.4) | |
A reaction: To be determinate, it must be presumed that there is some test which will decide what falls under the concept. The rule can say 'if it is vague, reject it' or 'if it is vague, accept it'. Without one of those, how could the set have a clear identity? |
18845 | If the totality of sets is not well-defined, there must be doubt about the Power Set Axiom [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Someone who is sympathetic to the thesis that the totality of sets is not well-defined ought to concede that we have no reason to think that the Power Set Axiom is true. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 9.6) | |
A reaction: The point is that it is only this Axiom which generates the vast and expanding totality. In principle it is hard, though, to see what is intrinsically wrong with the operation of taking the power set of a set. Hence 'limitation of size'? |
13282 | Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12 | |
A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit. |
18815 | Logic is higher-order laws which can expand the range of any sort of deduction [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: On the conception of logic recommended here, logical laws are higher-order laws that can be applied to expand the range of any deductive principles. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 3.3) | |
A reaction: You need the concept of a 'deductive principle' to get this going, but I take it that might be directly known, rather than derived from a law. |
18804 | The case for classical logic rests on its rules, much more than on the Principle of Bivalence [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: I think it is a strategic mistake to rest the case for classical logic on the Principle of Bivalence: the soundness of the classical logic rules is far more compelling than the truth of Bivalence. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The 'rules' to which he is referring are those of 'natural deduction', which make very few assumptions, and are intended to be intuitively appealing. |
18805 | Classical logic rules cannot be proved, but various lines of attack can be repelled [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: There is not the slightest prospect of proving that the rules of classical logic are sound. ….All that the defender of classical logic can do is scrutinize particular attacks and try to repel them. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This is the agenda for Rumfitt's book. |
18827 | If truth-tables specify the connectives, classical logic must rely on Bivalence [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: If we specify the senses of the connectives by way of the standard truth-tables, then we must justify classical logic only by appeal to the Principle of Bivalence. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt proposes to avoid the truth-tables, and hence not to rely on Bivalence for his support of classical logic. He accepts that Bivalence is doubtful, citing the undecidability of the Continuum Hypothesis as a problem instance. |
18813 | Logical consequence is a relation that can extended into further statements [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Logical consequence, I argue, is distinguished from other implication relations by the fact that logical laws may be applied in extending any implication relation so that it applies among some complex statements involving logical connectives. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 3.3) | |
A reaction: He offers implication in electronics as an example of a non-logical implication relation. This seems to indicate that logic must be monotonic, that consequence is transitive, and that the Cut Law always applies. |
18808 | Normal deduction presupposes the Cut Law [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Our deductive practices seem to presuppose the Cut Law. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 2.3) | |
A reaction: That is, if you don't believe that deductions can be transitive (and thus form a successful chain of implications), then you don't really believe in deduction. It remains a well known fact that you can live without the Cut Law. |
18840 | When faced with vague statements, Bivalence is not a compelling principle [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: I do not regard Bivalence, when applied to vague statements, as an intuitively compelling principle which we ought to try to preserve. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 8.7) | |
A reaction: The point of Rumfitt's book is to defend classical logic despite failures of bivalence. He also cites undecidable concepts such as the Continuum Hypothesis. |
4730 | For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady] |
Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4 | |
A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional. |
18802 | In specifying a logical constant, use of that constant is quite unavoidable [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: There is no prospect whatever of giving the sense of a logical constant without using that very constant, and much else besides, in the metalinguistic principle that specifies that sense. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) |
18800 | Introduction rules give deduction conditions, and Elimination says what can be deduced [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: 'Introduction rules' state the conditions under which one may deduce a conclusion whose dominant logical operator is the connective. 'Elimination rules' state what may be deduced from some premises, where the major premise is dominated by the connective. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 1.1) | |
A reaction: So Introduction gives conditions for deduction, and Elimination says what can actually be deduced. If my magic wand can turn you into a frog (introduction), and so I turn you into a frog, how does that 'eliminate' the wand? |
18809 | Logical truths are just the assumption-free by-products of logical rules [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Gentzen's way of formalising logic has accustomed people to the idea that logical truths are simply the by-products of logical rules, that arise when all the assumptions on which a conclusion rests have been discharged. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 2.5) | |
A reaction: This is the key belief of those who favour the natural deduction account of logic. If you really believe in separate logic truths, then you can use them as axioms. |
18807 | Monotonicity means there is a guarantee, rather than mere inductive support [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Monotonicity seems to mark the difference between cases in which a guarantee obtains and those where the premises merely provide inductive support for a conclusion. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 2.3) | |
A reaction: Hence it is plausible to claim that 'non-monotonic logic' is a contradiction in terms. |
18842 | Maybe an ordinal is a property of isomorphic well-ordered sets, and not itself a set [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Menzel proposes that an ordinal is something isomorphic well-ordered sets have in common, so while an ordinal can be represented as a set, it is not itself a set, but a 'property' of well-ordered sets. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 9.2) | |
A reaction: [C.Menzel 1986] This is one of many manoeuvres available if you want to distance mathematics from set theory. |
18834 | Infinitesimals do not stand in a determinate order relation to zero [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Infinitesimals do not stand in a determinate order relation to zero: we cannot say an infinitesimal is either less than zero, identical to zero, or greater than zero. ….Infinitesimals are so close to zero as to be theoretically indiscriminable from it. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.4) |
18846 | Cantor and Dedekind aimed to give analysis a foundation in set theory (rather than geometry) [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: One of the motivations behind Cantor's and Dedekind's pioneering explorations in the field was the ambition to give real analysis a new foundation in set theory - and hence a foundation independent of geometry. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 9.6) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt is inclined to think that the project has failed, although a weaker set theory than ZF might do the job (within limits). |
15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: I take properties to have a dual nature; in virtue of possessing a property, an object possesses both a particular dispositionality and a particular qualitative character. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: That leaves you with the question of the relationship between the disposition and the quality. I say you must choose, and I choose the disposition. Qualities (which are partly subjective, obviously) arise from fundamental dispositions. |
15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: If objects belong to classes in virtue of resemblances they bear to one another, they resemble one another in virtue of their properties. Objects resemble in some way or respect, and you could think of these ways or respects as 'properties'. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: If you pare the universe down to one object with five distinct properties, they resemble nothing, and fail this definition. Resemblance seems like the epistemology, not the ontology. |
15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: The redness or sphericity of this tomato cannot migrate to another tomato. This is a consequence of the idea that properties are particular ways things are. The identity of a property is bound up with the identity of its possessor. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: This is part of his declaration that he believes in tropes. At the very least, properties can be thought of separately, and have second-order properties that don't seem tied to the particulars. |
15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: The bundle theory for tropes treats properties inappositely as parts of objects. Objects can have parts, but an object's properties are not its parts, they are particular ways the object is. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: The 'way an object is' seems a very vague concept. Most things that get labelled as tropes are actually highly complex. Without mention of causal powers I think these discussions drift in a muddle. |
15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: A property that is intrinsically incapable of affecting or being affected by anything else, actual or possible, is not merely a case of inertness - it amounts to a no-thing. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
A reaction: In the end Martin rejects Shoemaker's purely causal account of properties, but he clearly understands Shoemaker's point well. |
15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Given a realist view of dispositions as fully actual, even without manifestations or partners, a purely dispositional account of properties has a degree of plausibility, which is enhanced because properties lack purely qualitative characterisations. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.4) | |
A reaction: In the end Martin opts for a mixed account, as in Idea 15484, but he gives reasons here for the view which I favour. If he concedes that dispositions may exist without manifestation, they must surely lack qualities. Are they not properties, then? |
15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Each property endows a ball with a distinctive qualitative character and a distinctive range of powers or dispositionalities. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. Do properties support powers, or powers support properties? I favour the latter. Properties are much vaguer than powers. Powers generate the required causation and activity. |
15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: For any intrinsic and irreducible property, what is qualitative and what is dispositional are one and the same property considered as what that property exhibits of its nature and what that property is directive and selective for in its manifestation. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
A reaction: This is supposed to support qualities and dispositions as equal partners, but I don't see how 'what a property exhibits' can have any role in fundamental ontology. What it exhibits may be very misleading about its nature. |
15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Three forms of dispositionality are illustrated by explosives (which are destroyed by manifestation), being soluble (where the dispositions is lost but recoverable), and being stable (where the disposition is unchanged). | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.7) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Presumably the explosives could be recovered after the explosion, since the original elements are still there, but it would take a while. The retina remains stable by continually changing. There are no simple distinctions! |
15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Nobody believes, or ought to believe, that manifestations of powers follow upon the single event mentioned in the antecedent of the conditional independently of the circumstances. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.4) | |
A reaction: Another way of putting it would be that the behaviour of powers is more ceteris paribus than law. |
15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: According to the conditional analysis of 'the wire is live', if the wire is touched then it gives off electricity. What ultimately defeats this analysis is the acknowledged possibility of objects gaining or losing powers. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.3) | |
A reaction: He offers his 'electro-fink' as a counterexample, where touching the wire changes its disposition. The conditional analysis is simple and clearcut, but dispositions in reality are complex and unstable. |
18839 | An object that is not clearly red or orange can still be red-or-orange, which sweeps up problem cases [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: A borderline red-orange object satisfies the disjunctive predicate 'red or orange', even though it satisfies neither 'red' or 'orange'. When applied to adjacent bands of colour, the disjunction 'sweeps up' objects which are reddish-orange. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 8.5) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt offers a formal principle in support of this. There may be a problem with 'adjacent'. Different colour systems will place different colours adjacent to red. In other examples the idea of 'adjacent' may make no sense. Rumfitt knows this! |
18838 | The extension of a colour is decided by a concept's place in a network of contraries [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: On Sainsbury's picture, a colour has an extension that it has by virtue of its place in a network of contrary colour classifications. Something is determined to be 'red' by being a colour incompatible with orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 8.5) | |
A reaction: Along with Idea 18839, this gives quite a nice account of vagueness, by requiring a foil to the vague predicate, and using the disjunction of the predicate and its foil to handle anything caught in between them. |
15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: It is self-defeating to try to explain dispositionality in terms of structural states because structural states are themselves dispositional. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 01.2) | |
A reaction: No doubt structures have dispositions, but are they entirely dispositional? Might there be 'emergent' dispositions which can only be explained by the structure itself, rather than by the dispositions that make up the structure? |
15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: I take it as obvious that any structural property involves dispositionality and, therefore, cannot be used to 'explain' dispositionality. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
A reaction: I think this is the right way round. The so-called 'categorical' properties seem to be close in nature to the 'structural' properties. |
13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: I favour the old idea of substratum: the haver of properties not itself had as a property. Space-time might itself be the bearer of properties, not itself borne as a property. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: A very nice idea. The choice is between saying either that fundamentals like space-time and physical fields are the propertyless bearers of properties, or that they purely consist of properties (so properties are fundamental, not substrata). |
15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: There is no causal work for the whole that is not done by the parts, provided the complex role of the parts is fully appreciated. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.1) | |
A reaction: It seems like a truth that because some parts are doing particular causal work (e.g. glue), the whole can acquire causal powers that the mereological sum of parts lacks. |
15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Abstract entities (as nonspatiotemporal) seem to be the only candidates for specific and full identity specifications. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.2 n1) | |
A reaction: Martin says that only the 'mad logician' seeks such specifications elsewhere. Some people like persons to have perfect identity. God is a popular candidate too. Can objects have perfect 'macroscopic' identity? |
15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: We must avoid a use of 'identity' that implies that any entity over time must be said to lack continuing identity simply because it has changed properties or has lost, added, or had substituted some parts. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
A reaction: This may the key area where the logical-mathematical type of philosophy comes into contact with the natural-metaphysical type. Imagine Martin's concept of 'identity' in mathematics. π changes to 3.1387... during the calculation! |
18816 | Metaphysical modalities respect the actual identities of things [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The central characteristic mark of metaphysical necessity is that a metaphysical possibility respects the actual identities of things - in a capacious sense of 'thing'. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 3.4) | |
A reaction: He contrast this with logical necessity, and concludes that some truths are metaphysically but not logically necessary, such as 'Hesperus is identical with Phosphorus'. Personally I like the idea of a 'necessity-maker', so that fits. |
18825 | S5 is the logic of logical necessity [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: I accept the widely held thesis that S5 is the logic of logical necessity. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 6.4 n16) | |
A reaction: It seems plausible that S5 is also the logic of metaphysical necessity, but that does not make them the same thing. The two types of necessity have two different grounds. |
18824 | Since possibilities are properties of the world, calling 'red' the determination of a determinable seems right [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers describe the colour scarlet as a determination of the determinable red; since the ways the world might be are naturally taken to be properties of the world, it helps to bear this analogy in mind. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 6.4) | |
A reaction: This fits nicely with the disposition accounts of modality which I favour. Hence being 'coloured' is a real property of objects, even in the absence of the name of its specific colour. |
18828 | If two possibilities can't share a determiner, they are incompatible [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Two possibilities are incompatible when no possibility determines both. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.1) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as just the right sort of language for building up a decent metaphysical picture of the world, which needs to incorporate possibilities as well as actualities. |
15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: To claim that the truthmaker for a counterfactual, for example, is a set of possible worlds, but to deny that these worlds really exist, seems pointless. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.3) | |
A reaction: Lewis therefore argues that they do exist. Martin argues that possible worlds are not truthmakers. He rests his account of modality on dispositions. I prefer Martin. |
18821 | Possibilities are like possible worlds, but not fully determinate or complete [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Possibilities are things of the same general character as possible worlds, on one popular conception of the latter. They differ from worlds, though, in that they are not required to be fully determinate or complete. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 6) | |
A reaction: A rather promising approach to such things, even though a possibility is fairly determinate at its core, but very vague at the edges. It is possible that the UK parliament might be located in Birmingham, for example. Is this world 'complete'? |
5991 | For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code] |
Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle | |
A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap. |
18831 | Medieval logicians said understanding A also involved understanding not-A [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Mediaeval logicians had a principle, 'Eadem est scientia oppositorum': in order to attain a clear conception of what it is for A to be the case, one needs to attain a conception of what it is for A not to be the case. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.2) | |
A reaction: Presumably 'understanding' has to be a fairly comprehensive grasp of the matter, so understanding the negation sounds like a reasonable requirement for the real thing. |
11239 | The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240. |
23312 | Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173 | |
A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences. |
16111 | Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5 | |
A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages). |
18820 | In English 'evidence' is a mass term, qualified by 'little' and 'more' [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: In English, the word 'evidence' behaves as a mass term: we speak of someone's having little evidence for an assertion, and of one thinker's having more evidence than another for a claim. One the other hand, we also speak of 'pieces' of evidence. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 5.2) | |
A reaction: And having 'more' evidence does not mean having a larger number of pieces of evidence, so it really is like an accumulated mass. |
16971 | Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik] |
Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1 |
11243 | Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us). | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1 | |
A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century. |
3320 | Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10 |
12000 | Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung] |
Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV | |
A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object. |
15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.2) | |
A reaction: I don't think you can rule out the 'real' explanation, as the one dominant causal predecessor, such as the earthquake producing a tsunami. |
15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: The long-derided way of analogy works! Otherwise why, when someone else is relishing a food we have not tried, is it reasonable for us to try it ourselves? | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 12.2) | |
A reaction: Why wouldn't we rush to eat something an animal was relishing? Nice idea. |
15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Selectivity and abstraction are required for the development of memory, because reminders and promptings are rarely replicas of what is being remembered. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.3) | |
A reaction: I take the key idea of mental life to be that of a 'label'. This need not be verbal, so 'conceptual label'. It could be an image, as on a road sign. Labelling is the most indispensable aspect of thought. We label objects, parts, properties and groups. |
23300 | Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji] |
Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial' | |
A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived. |
18817 | We understand conditionals, but disagree over their truth-conditions [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: It is striking that our understanding of conditionals is not greatly impeded by widespread disagreement about their truth-conditions. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Compare 'if you dig there you might find gold' with 'if you dig there you will definitely find gold'. The second but not the first invites 'how do you know that?', implying truth. Two different ifs. |
11240 | The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis] |
Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5 | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239. |
18829 | The truth grounds for 'not A' are the possibilities incompatible with truth grounds for A [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: The truth-grounds of '¬A' are precisely those possibilities that are incompatible with any truth-ground of A. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (The Boundary Stones of Thought [2015], 7.1) | |
A reaction: This is Rumfitt's proposal for the semantics of 'not', based on the central idea of a possibility, rather than a possible world. The incompatibility tracks back to an absence of shared grounding. |
6559 | Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin] |
Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1 | |
A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586! |
11150 | It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it. | |
From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) | |
A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance. |
3037 | Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead." | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11 |
8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: The two-event cause-and-effect view is easily avoided and replaced by the view of mutual manifestations of reciprocal disposition partners, suggesting a natural contemporaneity. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.1) | |
A reaction: This view, which I find much more congenial than the traditional one, is explored in the ideas of Mumford and Anjum. |
15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Disposition and manifestation are the basic categories by means of which cause and effect are to be explained. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 07.8) | |
A reaction: 'Manifestation' sounds a bit subjective. The manifestation evident to us may not indicate what is really going on below the surface. I like his basic picture. |
15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: 'Causal' counterfactuals have a place, of course, but only as clumsy and inexact linguistic gestures to dispositions, and they should be kept in that place. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.6) | |
A reaction: Counterfactuals only seem to give a regularity account of causation, by correlating an effect with a minimal context which will give rise to it. Surely dispositions run deeper than that? |
15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: Causal laws are summaries of what entities are capable and incapable of. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.8) | |
A reaction: That's a pretty good formulation. Personally I favour a Humean analysis, perhaps along Lewis's lines, but on a basis of real powers. This remark of Martin's has got me rethinking. |
15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
Full Idea: It makes no sense in ontology or modern physics to think of space-time as empty and propertyless. Space-time nicely fulfils the condition of a substratum. | |
From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
A reaction: At the very least, space-time seems to be 'curved', so it had better be something. Time has properties like being transitive. Space-time (or fields) might be a pure bundle of properties (the only pure bundle?), rather than a substratum. |
22729 | The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20 | |
A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul). |