93 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. |
11832 | We learn a concept's relations by using it, without reducing it to anything [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can achieve a lot by elucidations that put a concept to use without attempting to reduce it but, in using the concept, exhibit its connexions with other concepts that are established. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.3) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the best line of defence for analytic philosophy, given the much-cited observation that no one has successful reduced any concept by pure analysis. |
16512 | Semantic facts are preferable to transcendental philosophical fiction [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Semantical fact is almost always more interesting than transcendental philosophical fiction. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1 n4) | |
A reaction: An interesting expression of a more sophisticated recent allegiance to linguistic philosophy. There is still a strong allegiance to semantics as a major branch of philosophy, despite caution (e.g. from Nathan Salmon) about its scope. |
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? |
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. |
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. |
11863 | (λx)[Man x] means 'the property x has iff x is a man'. [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The Lambda Abstraction Operator: We can write (λx)[Man x], which may be read as 'the property that any x has just if x is a man'. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This technical device seems to be a commonplace in modern metaphysical discussions. I'm assuming it can be used to discuss properties without venturing into second-order logic. Presumably we could call the property here 'humanity'. |
17529 | Maybe the concept needed under which things coincide must also yield a principle of counting [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: My thesis C says that to specify something or other under which a and b coincide is to specify a concept f which qualifies for this purpose only if it yields a principle of counting for fs. ...I submit that C is false, though a near miss. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.1) |
17530 | The sortal needed for identities may not always be sufficient to support counting [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: My principle C seems unnecessary ...since it is one thing to see how many fs there are...but another to have a perfectly general method. ...One could answer whether this f-compliant is the same as that one, but there are too many ways to articulate it. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.8) | |
A reaction: His famous example is trying to count the Pope's crown, which is made of crowns. A clearer example might be a rectangular figure divided up into various overlapping rectangles. Individuation is easy, but counting is contextual. |
14746 | What exists can't depend on our conceptual scheme, and using all conceptual schemes is too liberal [Sider on Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It would be incredible if what there is, rather than what we select for attention, depends on human activity and our conceptual scheme. One might expand to possible sortal concepts, rather than our language, but that amounts to four-dimensionalism. | |
From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: [compression of a nice anti-Wiggins paragraph] He suggests that Wiggins is seeking an intermediate course (between narrow chauvinism about concepts, and excessive liberalism) in a discussion of natural kinds versus artifacts. |
16523 | Realist Conceptualists accept that our interests affect our concepts [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The realist conceptualist may cheerfully admit that the sortal concepts of which we are possessed are the creatures of our interests; …and also that there need be no one way in which we must articulate reality. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.2) | |
A reaction: Wiggins calls himself a 'realist conceptualist'. In his terminology, I seem to be an 'anti-conceptualist realist'. The issue concerns aspects of reality that extend beyond our concepts. The 99th d.p. of the mass of the electron. |
16524 | Conceptualism says we must use our individuating concepts to grasp reality [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: What Conceptualism entails is that, although horses and stars are not inventions or artefacts, in order to single out these things we must deploy a conceptual scheme which has been formed in such a way as to make singling them out possible. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.5) | |
A reaction: I don't quite see why the 'singling out' role of the concepts is the only one that generates them, or makes them fit for purpose. In general, of course, our conceptual scheme is necessarily a response to our experience of the world. |
16526 | Animal classifications: the Emperor's, fabulous, innumerable, like flies, stray dogs, embalmed…. [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A Chinese encyclopedia classifies animals as belonging to the Emperor, embalmed, tame, sucking pigs, sirens, fabulous, stray dogs, included in this classification, frenzied, innumerable, drawn with a fine brush, etcetera, or look for afar like flies. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.7 n18) | |
A reaction: [This glorious quotation comes from a story by Borges, first spotted by Foucault] |
16492 | Individuation needs accounts of identity, of change, and of singling out [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A theory of individuation must comprise at least three things: an elucidation of the primitive concept of identity or sameness; what it is to be a substance that persists through change; and what it is for a thinker to single out the same substance. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Metaphysics seems to need a theory of identity, but I am not yet convinced that it also needs a theory of 'individuation'. Never mind, press on and create one, and see how it looks. Aristotle wanted to explain predication too. |
16493 | Individuation can only be understood by the relation between things and thinkers [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Understanding the concepts involved in individuation can only be characterised by reference to observable commerce between things singled out and thinkers who think or find their way around the world precisely by singling them out. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 1) | |
A reaction: I take individuation to be relatively uninteresting, because I understand identity independently of how we single things out, but Wiggins's reliance on sortals implies that the very identity of things in the world is knee deep in mental activity. |
11900 | We can accept criteria of distinctness and persistence, without making the counterfactual claims [Mackie,P on Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We might agree with Wiggins's theory of individuation, but reject his thesis that a thing's principle of individuation (of distinctness and persistence) must be preserved in all counterfactual situations. | |
From: comment on David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 8.7 | |
A reaction: I'm not even convinced that initial individuation consists of falling under a sortal, and I prefer to discuss the powers of the thing, rather than counterfactual facts about behaviour. |
11870 | Activity individuates natural things, functions do artefacts, and intentions do artworks [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: What a principle of activity does completely for a natural thing, and the function does imperfectly for an ordinary artefact, the artist's conception of his own making of the work must do for the painting. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.12) | |
A reaction: This nicely sums up Wiggins on individuation, and he seems to effectively elide individuation with essence. I certainly feel uneasy that a work of art needs a quite separate account from other artefacts. Surely it is just that we are fussier about them? |
16496 | Singling out extends back and forward in time [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The singling out of a substance at a time reaches backwards and forwards to time before and after that time. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
A reaction: Presumably this is an inferred history and persistence conditions. Sounds fine in a stable world. We assume (a priori?) that any object will have a space-time line for its duration. |
11866 | The idea of 'thisness' is better expressed with designation/predication and particular/universal [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It is hard to think of anything true and significant that could not be said using the idea of thisness not better said while respectiving the distinctions designation/predication and particular/universal. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.7) | |
A reaction: Politis calls 'thisness' the 'ultimate subject of predication', so it is covered in logic by the name for an object. But we need to understand objects, and not just refer to them, and I'm not sure that 'universals' advance our understanding. |
16495 | The only singling out is singling out 'as' something [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: There could be no singling out tout court unless there could be singling out 'as'. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
A reaction: I find this claim baffling. Do animals categorise everything they engage with? Are we unable to engage with something if we have not yet categorised it? Surely picking it out is prior to saying that sort of thing it is? |
16501 | In Aristotle's sense, saying x falls under f is to say what x is [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: To say that x falls under f - or that x is an f - is to say what x is (in the sense Aristotle isolated). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This is a key claim in Wiggins's main principle. I'm not convinced. He wants one main sortal to do all the work. I don't think Aristotle at all intended the 'nature' of an individual thing to be given by a single sortal under which it falls. |
16506 | Every determinate thing falls under a sortal, which fixes its persistence [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can expect that, for every completely determinate continuant, there will be at least one sortal concept that it falls under and that determines a principle of persistence for it. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.4) | |
A reaction: I think he has the 'determines' relation the wrong way round! Being a tiger doesn't determine anything about persistence. It is having that nature and those persistence conditions which make it a tiger. And why does he optimistically 'expect' this? |
11896 | A sortal essence is a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
A reaction: This idea has failed to make much impression on me. I seem to be the only person who doesn't understand the concept of 'individuation'. Please let me know exactly what it means. Type individuation is not individual individuation, I presume. |
15835 | Wiggins's sortal essentialism rests on a thing's principle of individuation [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins bases sortal essentialism on the notion that a thing's principle of individuation is essential to it. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 7.1 | |
A reaction: My problem with this is that individuation is a human activity, not an intrinsic feature of the entities in the external world. Entities presumably have a 'unity', but I'm not sure about a 'principle' that does that job, though Aristotle is sympathetic. |
11841 | The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star, since it is not a star [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The evening star is the same planet but not the same star as the morning star. For Venus is not a star. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
A reaction: This is a nice objection to the idea that identity is entirely a matter of falling under the same sortal category. |
10679 | 'Sortalism' says parts only compose a whole if it falls under a sort or kind [Wiggins, by Hossack] |
Full Idea: 'Sortalism' endorses the view that some things have parts, but denies that every collection of things composes something. Whenever there is a particular, there must be a sort or kind to which it belongs. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 7 | |
A reaction: What is the status of 'the first of its kind'? This seems to say that a token only has identity if it has type-identity. This sounds wildly wrong to me. I've made a 'thing' for you, but I haven't decided what it is yet. |
14363 | Identity a=b is only possible with some concept to give persistence and existence conditions [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins says an identity a=b stands no chance of being true unless there is some concept f under which a falls and under which b falls, which 'determines identity, persistence and existence conditions for members of its extension'. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.604 | |
A reaction: This is the first clear statement I have met of Wiggins's central idea, upon which his sortal essentialism is built. Strawson's exposition adds that each thing necessarily falls under the 'highest' appropriate sortal ('dog', rather than 'terrier'). |
14364 | A thing is necessarily its highest sortal kind, which entails an essential constitution [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: In Wiggins's theory, necessity carries over from the kind to constitution. If Toby is necessarily a dog and 'dog' is a natural kind term, then Toby necessarily has the constitution of a dog, the features of which make up the real essence of being a dog. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.605 | |
A reaction: The essence will then presumably consist of all and only the characteristics which are shared by all dogs whatsoever. So how do you decide the borderline between wolf and dog? Why isn't a wolf a dog? |
11851 | Many predicates are purely generic, or pure determiners, rather than sortals [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: There are countless predicates in English that have the appearance of sortal predicates but are purely generic (animal, machine, artefact), or are pure determinables for sortal determination (space-occupier, entity, substance). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
A reaction: This is preparing the ground for a specification of a sortal which defines something essential as being the hallmark of identity. It is never quite clear to me whether Wiggins's case rests on a nominal or a real essence. |
11865 | The possibility of a property needs an essential sortal concept to conceive it [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A thing could have a property only if its having the property could be conceived, and that requires some sortal concept which adequately answers the Aristotelian question what the thing is. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.5) | |
A reaction: [Algebra omitted!] The core idea of Wiggins's theory. It seems at first glance to be a revival of Aristotelian essentialism, but his view of that seems to merely involve falling into a category. He treats sortal concepts as Aristotle's 'primary being'. |
14744 | Objects can only coincide if they are of different kinds; trees can't coincide with other trees [Wiggins, by Sider] |
Full Idea: Wiggins says that coincidence is possible only between objects of different kinds. Trees and cats coincide with aggregates of matter, but never trees with trees or cats with cats. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: At first glance this sounds quite plausible, but I think this commitment to the priority of kinds produces huge confusion, given that we only derive our notions of kinds from inductions derived from individuals. Language perpetuates old inductions. |
11852 | Is the Pope's crown one crown, if it is made of many crowns? [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The Pope's crown is made of crowns. There is no definite answer, when the Pope is wearing his crown, to the question 'how many crowns does he have on his head?' | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
A reaction: A very nice example, in which the identity of the item seems clear enough, until you try to apply a sortal to it. I can't get excited about it, though, because calling it one 'crown' creates uncertainty, but calling it the 'Pope's crown' doesn't. |
11875 | Boundaries are not crucial to mountains, so they are determinate without a determinate extent [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It can be perfectly determinate which mountain x is without x's extent's being determinate. A mountain is not, after all, something essentially demarcated by its extent or boundary. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.5) | |
A reaction: This endorses something I have always wanted to assert ('a vague boundary is still a boundary'), but with the interesting addition that one might think about vagueness in terms of what is essential to a thing. Hm.... |
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. |
14749 | Identity is an atemporal relation, but composition is relative to times [Wiggins, by Sider] |
Full Idea: Wiggins points out that identity is an atemporal relation whereas composition, like parthood, holds only relative to times. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.3 | |
A reaction: If David Cameron is identical to the Prime Minister, that doesn't seem to be atemporal. If x=7 in this problem, I can change x to something else in the next problem. x had better not be equal to 7 and to 9. |
11844 | If I destroy an item, I do not destroy each part of it [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: If I repair or destroy an item, I do not repair or destroy each part of it (and since each part of a part is a part this would be difficult). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.6) | |
A reaction: This seems like a nice refutation of any attempt to claim that a thing is no more than the sum of its parts, but one could analyse the notion of 'destroy', and find it just meant introducing gaps between parts. |
11861 | We can forget about individual or particularized essences [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Let us be realistic, and forget about individual or particularized essences. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This is the rather weird position you reach if you follow Wiggins's 'modest' essentialism, deriving from a thing merely falling under a sortal, or into a category. What is a natural kind, if its members don't each have a shared essence? |
16509 | Natural kinds are well suited to be the sortals which fix substances [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Among the best candidates to play the roles of sortal and substantial predicates are the natural kind words. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
A reaction: There is always a danger of circularity with this kind of approach. How do we distinguish the genuine natural kinds from the dubious ones? |
11871 | Essences are not explanations, but individuations [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Essences of natural things are not fancified vacuities parading themselves ...as the ultimate explanation of everything that happens in the world. They are natures whose possession is a precondition of their owners being divided from the rest of reality. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 5.2) | |
A reaction: Thus Wiggins rejects the explanation account of essence, with an assertion of his own (highly implausible) view that essence is about individuation rather than about behaviour. Individuation strikes me as an entirely human activity, and not 'real'. |
11879 | Essentialism is best represented as a predicate-modifier: □(a exists → a is F) [Wiggins, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins's proposal of a predicate-modifier account is the best formal representation of essential statements. ...This simple version is perfectly adequate to represent the claim that a is essentially-F: □(a exists → a is F). | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Ch.4) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.2 | |
A reaction: I suppose that is right. Having an essence is a feature of an entity, but it has to boil done to characteristics that define the entity, and which it must presumably always have. Could an entity ever lack its essence? |
16514 | Artefacts are individuated by some matter having a certain function [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Ordinary artefacts are individuated, rather indeterminately and arbitrarily, by reference to a parcel of matter so organised as to subserve a certain function. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) |
16510 | Nominal essences don't fix membership, ignore evolution, and aren't contextual [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Nominal essences are unsatisfactory because they fail either of necessity or of sufficiency for membership of the intended kind, they leave unexplained how sortals can evolve, and there is no room for culture or context in our reference to kinds. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
A reaction: [a compression of a paragraph] I would have thought that Locke would just say it is tough luck if nominal essences can't do all these things, because that's just the way it is, folks. |
11835 | The nominal essence is the idea behind a name used for sorting [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Things being ranked under Names into sorts only as they agree with certain abstract ideas, to which we have annexed the Names, the essence of each sort comes to nothing but that abstract idea which the sortal name stands for. This is the nominal Essence. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], III.iii.15) | |
A reaction: He contrasts 'nominal essence' with 'real essence'. A key passage for David Wiggins. One shouldn't put too much emphasis on nominal essence, since it means that someone referred to as 'that idiot over there' (you, perhaps) is necessarily an idiot. |
16503 | 'What is it?' gives the kind, nature, persistence conditions and identity over time of a thing [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The question 'what is it?' refers to the persistence and lifespan of an entity, and so manifests the identity over time of an entity and its persistence, between persistence and existence, and between its existence and being the kind of thing it is. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
A reaction: The idea that establishing the kind of a thing can do all this work strikes me as false. The lifespan of a 'human' can be between five minutes and a hundred years. Humans have a clear death, but thunderstorms don't. |
11876 | It is easier to go from horses to horse-stages than from horse-stages to horses [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: If horse-stages made sense at all, it would be easier to go from horses to horse-stages than to go from horse-stages to horses. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 6.9) | |
A reaction: A nice remark, analogous to 'it is easier to break a vase than to mend it'. Going from horse-stages to horses is the classic difficulty for 'bundle theories' (of objects, or persons): what is it that unites the bundle? |
16499 | A restored church is the same 'church', but not the same 'building' or 'brickwork' [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can say of Hume's church that the present church is the same 'church' as the old parish church but not the same 'building' or the same 'stonework' as the old parish church. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.5) | |
A reaction: Unconvinced. This seems to make a 'church' into an abstraction, which might even exist in the absence of any building. And it seems to identify a building with its stonework. Wiggins yearns for a neat solution, but it ain't here. |
16515 | A thing begins only once; for a clock, it is when its making is first completed [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A thing starts existing only once; and in the case of a clock its proper beginning was at about the time when its maker finished it. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) | |
A reaction: I love the example that challenges this. Take the clock's parts and use them to make other clocks, then collect them up and reassemble the first clock. If the first clock has persisted through this, you have too many clocks. Wiggins spots some of this. |
11858 | The question is not what gets the title 'Theseus' Ship', but what is identical with the original [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Let us remember that the title in question is not the title to the sobriquet 'Theseus' Ship'; it is the title to identity with Theseus' ship, a particular ship originating from the eighth century B.C. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.4) | |
A reaction: There is an assumption here that identity is defined by origin. What is the origin of the identity of those huge football clubs that began under the name of some village team in 1875? What is the origin of 'England' as a single entity? |
16517 | Priests prefer the working ship; antiquarians prefer the reconstruction [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Dispute might break out between priests who favoured the working ship and antiquarians who preferred the reconstruction. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.3) | |
A reaction: This captures the contextual nature of the dispute very succinctly. Wiggins, of course, thinks that sortals will settle the matter. Fat chance. |
11843 | Identity over a time and at a time aren't different concepts [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: People often speak of identity over time and distinguish it from identity at a time. But identity is just identity. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.3) | |
A reaction: I myself am guilty of such usage, but it doesn't imply a commitment to a multivocal concept. The epistemological issues (of explaining what it is now, and simply reidentifying it later) seem profoundly different. Hume only admits identity over time. |
11864 | Hesperus=Hesperus, and Phosphorus=Hesperus, so necessarily Phosphorus=Hesperus [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The simple proof (from Ruth Barcan Marcus) is: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, then Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.3) | |
A reaction: This is the famous idea which she noticed well before Kripke. The point is that the simple logic of the case bestows a necessity on the identity. We shouldn't be confused by the a posteriori and contingent nature of the discovery. |
16498 | Identity cannot be defined, because definitions are identities [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Since any definition is an identity, identity itself cannot be defined. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2 n7) | |
A reaction: This sounds too good to be true! I can't think of an objection, so, okay, identity cannot possibly be defined. We can give synonyms for it, I suppose. [Wrong, says Rumfitt! Definitions can also be equivalences!] |
16497 | Leibniz's Law (not transitivity, symmetry, reflexivity) marks what is peculiar to identity [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The principle of Leibniz's Law marks off what is peculiar to identity and differentiates it in a way in which transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity (all shared by 'exact similarity, 'equality in pay', etc.) do not. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 1.2) |
16502 | Identity is primitive [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Identity is a primitive notion. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.1) | |
A reaction: To be a true primitive it would have to be univocal, but it seems to me that 'identity' comes in degrees. The primitive concept is the minimal end of the degrees, but there are also more substantial notions of identity. |
11831 | The formal properties of identity are reflexivity and Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The formal properties of identity are the reflexivity of identity, and Leibniz's Law (if x is the same as y, then whatever is true of one is true of the other). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.2) | |
A reaction: Presumably transitivity will also apply, and, indeed, symmetry. He seems to mean something like the 'axiomatic formal properties'. |
14362 | Relative Identity is incompatible with the Indiscernibility of Identicals [Wiggins, by Strawson,P] |
Full Idea: Wiggins argues that Geach's Relative Identity is incompatible with the formal properties of identity, which include, besides transitivity, symmetry and reflexivity, the complete community of properties defined by the Indiscernibility of Identicals. | |
From: report of David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001]) by Peter F. Strawson - Review of 'Sameness and Substance' p.603 | |
A reaction: The tricky part is that Wiggins then goes on to say that identity depends on sortals, which sounds very close to the Geach view. I find disentangling them tricky. See Idea 14363 for a helpful comment from Strawson. |
11838 | Relativity of Identity makes identity entirely depend on a category [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The thesis of Relativity of Identity (which I steadfastly oppose) ..suggests that it makes all the difference to keeping track of continuants through space and time which concept one subsumes something under. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [Geach I take to be the villain of this idea] The point is that identity is entirely relative to the sortal concept, where Wiggins wants to make identity a combination of the object itself and our concept of it (I think). |
11847 | To identify two items, we must have a common sort for them [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: As a necessary condition of the truth of an identity claim, some common sort f will have to be found to which they each belong. That is the point at which the primary question of identity can come into focus. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
A reaction: This is the plainest English expression I can find of Wiggins's main thesis. He maintains this thesis, while adamantly denying the idea that identity consists entirely of falling under a concept. |
16521 | A is necessarily A, so if B is A, then B is also necessarily A [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The famous proof of Barcan Marcus about necessity of identity comes down to simply this: Hesperus is necessarily Hesperus, so if Phosphorus is Hesperus, Phosphorus is necessarily Hesperus. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.3) | |
A reaction: Since the identity of Hesperus and Phosphorus was an a posteriori discovery, this was taken to be the inception of the idea that there are a posteriori necessities. The conclusion seems obvious. One thing is necessarily one thing. |
16505 | By the principle of Indiscernibility, a symmetrical object could only be half of itself! [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The full Identity of Indiscernibles excludes the existence in this world of a symmetrical object, which is reduced to half of itself by the principle. If symmetrical about all planes that bisect it, it is precluded altogether from existence. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 2.2) | |
A reaction: A really nice objection. Do the parts even need to be symmetrical? My eyeballs can't be identical to one another, presumably. Electrons already gave the principle big trouble. |
11839 | Do both 'same f as' and '=' support Leibniz's Law? [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Is Leibniz's Law as true for 'is the same as' as it is for '='? | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 1.2) | |
A reaction: [By Leibniz's Law he means if they are the same, they support the same truths] |
11845 | Substitutivity, and hence most reasoning, needs Leibniz's Law [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law underwrites the substitutivity of identity and this is a principle not long dispensable in any form of reasoning. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.7) | |
A reaction: Thus the modern fashion of deriving our metaphysics from our logic. Presumably we can derive it from our epistemology too, or even from our intuitions, if we thought they were good enough as evidence. |
16494 | We want to explain sameness as coincidence of substance, not as anything qualitative [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The notion of sameness or identity that we are to elucidate is not that of any degree of qualitative similarity but of coincidence as a substance - a notion as primitive as predication. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], Pre 2) | |
A reaction: This question invites an approach to identity through our descriptions of it, rather than to the thing itself. There is no problem in ontology of two substances being 'the same', because they are just one substance. |
16522 | It is hard or impossible to think of Caesar as not human [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It is hard or impossible to conceive of Caesar's not being a man (human). | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 4.5) | |
A reaction: So is it 'hard' or is it 'impossible'? Older generations of philosophers simply didn't read enough science fiction. Any short story could feature Caesar's failure to be a man. His assassination was a disaster for the Martian invasion of 44 BCE. |
11869 | Possible worlds rest on the objects about which we have suppositions [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Worlds are the shadows of our suppositions and they take on their identity from these. Suppositions take on their identity from (inter alia) the objects they relate to. If they sever themselves from these objects, then they collapse. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.11) | |
A reaction: Sounds good. My picture is of possibilities which are suggested by objecfs in the actual world, with extreme possibilities being at fifth-remove from actuality. Any worlds that go beyond natural possibility are just there for fun. |
11850 | Not every story corresponds to a possible world [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: It is perfectly notorious that not every story corresponds to a possible world. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.4) | |
A reaction: Thus a fantasy castle might be decorated with 'beautiful circular squares', or be threatened by a lump of enriched uranium twenty feet in diameter. Wiggins is replying to the claim that a possible world represents a 'story'. |
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. |
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). |
16525 | Our sortal concepts fix what we find in experience [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: What sortal concepts we can bring to bear upon experience determines what we can find there. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 5.6) | |
A reaction: Wiggins would wince at being classed among linguistic relativists of the Sapir-Whorf type, but that's where I'm putting this idea. Wiggins is a realist, who knows there are things out there our concepts miss. He compares it to a fishing net. He's wrong. |
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. |
11848 | Asking 'what is it?' nicely points us to the persistence of a continuing entity [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The special effectiveness of the 'what is it?' question is that, in the case of continuants, it refers us back to our constantly exercised idea of the persistence and life-span of an entity. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Compare 'this is a human' with 'this is a member of a family noted for its longevity'. We can't simply answer 'what is it?' by tossing it into the nearest category. I say we need an individual essence for explanation, not just a sortal. |
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. |
11859 | The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The mind conceptualizes objects; yet objects impinge upon the mind. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 3.6) | |
A reaction: I like this piece of simple common sense. I personally don't think you can reach first base in a sensible discussion if you don't face up to both sides of this idea (especially the second half, which many philosophers, especially of language, neglect). |
16518 | We conceptualise objects, but they impinge on us [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: The mind conceptualises objects, yet objects impinge upon the mind. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.5) | |
A reaction: A very nice statement of the relationship, and the fact that we don't just make our concepts up. |
11836 | We can use 'concept' for the reference, and 'conception' for sense [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: We can use the Fregean 'concept' on the level of reference and naming, and prefer the word 'conception' for the Kantian idea of the sense, or the information needed to understand the concept. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], Pr.5) | |
A reaction: This is a nice suggestion, and at first blush I think it should be adopted. Sometimes philosophers regret adopting a terminology several hundred years after it has been agreed. |
16511 | A 'conception' of a horse is a full theory of what it is (and not just the 'concept') [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: A 'conception' of horse is a theory of what a horse is, or what it is to be a horse. The conception is in no way the same as the concept. The conception is of the concept. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance [1980], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Wiggins sounds confident about a sharp distinction here, which I doubt, but some such distinction seems to required. I quite like Williams's 'fat' and 'thin' concepts. |
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. |
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. |
11860 | Lawlike propensities are enough to individuate natural kinds [Wiggins] |
Full Idea: For all the purposes of identity and individuation of things that belong to natural kinds..., it is enough to have regard for the lawlike propensities of members of the kind. | |
From: David Wiggins (Sameness and Substance Renewed [2001], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This may have got things in reverse, since it is hard to see how you could pick out any laws if you didn't assume the existence of natural kinds which were causing the regularities in the behaviour. |
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). |