72 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. |
18495 | The best philosophers I know are the best people I know [Heil] |
Full Idea: Philosophers are not invariably the best people, but the best philosophers I know are the best people I know. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], Pref) | |
A reaction: How very nicely expressed. I have often thought the same about lovers of literature, but been horribly disappointed by some of them. On the whole I have found philosophy-lovers to be slightly superior to literature-lovers! |
18494 | Using a technical vocabulary actually prevents discussion of the presuppositions [Heil] |
Full Idea: Sharing a technical vocabulary is to share a tidy collection of assumptions. Reliance on that vocabulary serves to foreclose discussion of those assumptions. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], Pref) | |
A reaction: Love it! I am endlessly frustrated by papers that launch into a discussion using a terminology that is riddled with dubious prior assumptions. And that includes common terms like 'property', as well as obscure neologisms. |
18506 | Questions of explanation should not be confused with metaphyics [Heil] |
Full Idea: There is an unfortunate tendency to conflate epistemological issues bearing on explanation with issues in metaphysics. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.2) | |
A reaction: This is where Heil and I part ways. I just don't believe in the utterly pure metaphysics which he thinks we can do. Our drive to explain moulds our vision of reality, say I. |
18535 | Without abstraction we couldn't think systematically [Heil] |
Full Idea: A capacity for abstraction is central to our capacity to think about the universe systematically. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 09.7) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as obvious. We pick out the similarities, and then discuss them, as separate from their bearers. We explain why things have features in common. Some would just say systematic thinking needs universals, but that's less good. |
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? |
18534 | Truth relates truthbearers to truthmakers [Heil] |
Full Idea: Truth is a relation between a truthbearer and a truthmaker. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.02) | |
A reaction: This implies that all truths have truthmakers, which is fairly controversial. Heil himself denies it! |
18531 | Philosophers of the past took the truthmaking idea for granted [Heil] |
Full Idea: For millenia, philosophers operated with an implicit conception of truthmaking, a conception that remained unarticulated only because it was part of the very fabric of philosophy. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 07.2) | |
A reaction: Presumably it is an advance that we have brought it out into the open, and subjected it to critical study. Does Heil want us to return to it being unquestioned? I like truthmaking, but that can't be right. |
18509 | Not all truths need truthmakers - mathematics and logic seem to be just true [Heil] |
Full Idea: I do not subscribe to the thesis that every truth requires a truthmaker. Mathematical truths and truths of logic are compatible with any way the universe could be. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.5) | |
A reaction: He makes that sound like a knock-down argument, but I'm not convinced. I see logic and mathematics as growing out of nature, though that is a very unfashionable view. I'm almost ashamed of it. But I'm not giving it up. See Carrie Jenkins. |
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. |
18518 | Infinite numbers are qualitatively different - they are not just very large numbers [Heil] |
Full Idea: It is a mistake to think of an infinite number as a very large number. Infinite numbers differ qualitatively from finite numbers. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.5) | |
A reaction: He cites Dedekind's idea that a proper subset of an infinite number can match one-one with the number. Respectable numbers don't behave in this disgraceful fashion. This should be on the wall of every seminar on philosophy of mathematics. |
18500 | How could structures be mathematical truthmakers? Maths is just true, without truthmakers [Heil] |
Full Idea: I do not understand how structures could serve as truthmakers for mathematical truths, ...Mathematical truths are not true in virtue of any way the universe is. ...Mathematical truths hold, whatever ways the universe is. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.08) | |
A reaction: I like the idea of enquiring about truthmakers for mathematical truths (and my view is more empirical than Heil's), but I think it may be a misunderstanding to think that structures are intended as truthmakers. Mathematics just IS structures? |
18539 | Our categories lack the neat arrangement needed for reduction [Heil] |
Full Idea: Categories we use to describe and explain our universe do not line up in the neat way reductive schemes require. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 13.2) | |
A reaction: He takes reduction to be largely a relation between our categories, rather than between entities, so he is bound to get this result. He may be right. |
18505 | Fundamental ontology aims at the preconditions for any true theory [Heil] |
Full Idea: Fundamental ontology is in the business of telling us what the universe must be like if any theory is true. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.1) | |
A reaction: Heil is good at stating simple ideas simply. This seems to be a bold claim, but I think I agree with it. |
18499 | Our quantifications only reveal the truths we accept; the ontology and truthmakers are another matter [Heil] |
Full Idea: Looking at what you quantify over reveals, at most, truths to which you are committed. What the ontology is, what the truthmakers are for these truths, is another matter, one tackled, if at all, only in the pursuit of fundamental physics. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.08) | |
A reaction: Exactly right. Nouns don't guarantee objects, verbs don't guarantee processes. If you want to know my ontological commitments, ask me about them! Don't infer them from the sentences I hold true, because they need interpreting. |
18512 | Ontology aims to give the fundamental categories of being [Heil] |
Full Idea: The task of ontology is to spell out the fundamental categories of being. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 02.5) | |
A reaction: This is the aspiration of 'pure' metaphysics, which I don't quite believe in. There is too much convention involved, on the one hand, and physics on the other. |
18508 | Most philosophers now (absurdly) believe that relations fully exist [Heil] |
Full Idea: It is a measure of how far we have fallen that so few philosophers nowadays see any difficulty at all in the idea that relations have full ontological standing. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.4) | |
A reaction: We have 'fallen' because medieval metaphysicians didn't believe it. Russell seems to have started, and the tendency to derive ontology from logic has secured the belief in relations. How else can you be allowed to write aRb? I agree with Heil. |
18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
Full Idea: If causal relations are the manifesting of powers, then causal relations would appear to be a species of internal relation. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 07.4) | |
A reaction: The point being that any relations formed are entirely dependent on the internal powers of the relata. Sounds right. There are also non-causal relations, of course. |
18510 | We need properties to explain how the world works [Heil] |
Full Idea: When a tomato depresses a scale, it does so in virtue of its mass - how it is masswise - and not in virtue of its colour or shape. Were we barred from saying such things, we would be unable to formulate truths about the fundamental things. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 02.3) | |
A reaction: It doesn't follow that we have an ontological commitment to properties, but we certainly need to point out the obvious fact that things being one way rather than another makes a difference to what happens. |
18522 | Categorical properties were introduced by philosophers as actual properties, not if-then properties [Heil] |
Full Idea: Categorical properties were introduced originally by philosophers bent on distinguishing properties possessed 'categorically', that is, actually, by objects from mere if-then, conditional properties, mere potentialities. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 04.3) | |
A reaction: He cites Ryle on dispositions in support. It is questionable whether it is a clear or useful distinction. Heil says the new distinction foreclosed the older more active view of properties. |
18513 | Emergent properties will need emergent substances to bear them [Heil] |
Full Idea: If you are going to have emergent fundamental properties, you are going to need emergent fundamental substances as bearers of those properties. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 02.6) | |
A reaction: Presumably the theory of emergent properties (which I take to be nonsense, in its hardcore form) says that the substance is unchanged, but the property is new. Or else the bundle gives collective birth to a new member. Search me. |
18540 | Predicates only match properties at the level of fundamentals [Heil] |
Full Idea: Only when you get to fundamental physics, do predicates begin to line up with properties. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 13.2) | |
A reaction: A nice thought. I assume the actual properties of daily reality only connect to our predicates in very sloppy ways. I suppose our fundamental predicates have to converge on the actual properties, because the fog clears. Sort of. |
18533 | In Fa, F may not be a property of a, but a determinable, satisfied by some determinate [Heil] |
Full Idea: It may be that F applies truly to a because F is a determinable predicate satisfied by a's possession of a property answering to a determinate of that determinable predicate. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.01) | |
A reaction: Heil aims to break the commitment of predicates to the existence of properties. The point is that there is no property 'coloured' to correspond to 'a is coloured'. Red might be the determinate that does the job. Nice. |
18511 | Properties have causal roles which sets can't possibly have [Heil] |
Full Idea: Properties are central to the universe's causal order in a way that sets could not possibly be. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 02.3) | |
A reaction: The idea that properties actually are sets is just ridiculous. It may be that you can treat them as sets and get by quite well. The sets can be subsumed into descriptions of causal processes (or something). |
18523 | Are all properties powers, or are there also qualities, or do qualities have the powers? [Heil] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers who embrace properties as powers hold that every property is a power (Bird), or that some properties are qualities and some are powers (Ellis; Molnar). The latter include powers which are 'grounded in' qualities (Mumford). | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 04.4) | |
A reaction: I don't like Heil's emphasis on 'qualities', which seems to imply their phenomenal rather than their real aspect. I'm inclined to favour the all-powers view, but can't answer the question 'but what HAS these powers?' Stuff is intrinsically powerful. |
18524 | Properties are both qualitative and dispositional - they are powerful qualities [Heil] |
Full Idea: In my account of properties they are at once qualitative and dispositional: properties are powerful qualities. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 05.1) | |
A reaction: I have never managed to understand what Heil means by 'qualities'. Is he talking about the phenomenal aspects of powers? Does he mean categorical properties. I can't find an ontological space for his things to slot into. |
18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
Full Idea: It would be difficult to understand the popularity of 'abstract entities' - numbers, sets, propositions - in the absence of an implicit acknowledgement of the importance of truthmakers. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.07) | |
A reaction: I love Idea 18496, because it leads us towards a better account of modality, but dislike this one because it reveals that the truthmaking idea has led us to a very poor theory. Truthmaking is a good question, but not much of an answer? |
18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
Full Idea: Substances, as property bearers, must be simple; substances of necessity lack constituents that are themselves substances. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.3) | |
A reaction: How can he think that this is a truth of pure metaphysics? A crowd has properties because we think of it as a simple substance, not because it actually is one. Can properties have properties? Are tree and leaf both substances? |
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. |
18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
Full Idea: An object is not made up of its spatial parts: spatial parts are regions of some object. ...Complex objects, wholes, are made up of, and so depend on, their substantial parts. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.1) | |
A reaction: Presumably objects also 'depend on' their spatial parts, so I am not convinced that we have a sharp distinction here. |
18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
Full Idea: Blancmange 'gunky' universes are not just universes with an endless number of parts. Rather a blancmange universe is a universe with no simple parts, no parts themselves lacking parts. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.3) | |
A reaction: Hm. Lewis seemed to think it was parts all the way down. Is gunk homogeneous stuff, or what is endlessly subdividable, or an infinite shrinking of parts? We demand clarity. |
18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
Full Idea: A whole - or some wholes - might be thought to survive gradual replacement of its parts, perhaps, but not their elimination. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.1) | |
A reaction: You can't casually replace the precious golden parts of a statue with cheap lead ones. It depends on whether the parts matter. Nevertheless this is a really important idea in metaphysics. It enables the s=Ship of Theseus to survive some change. |
18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
Full Idea: A sand dune depends on the individual grains of sand that make it up. In an important sense, however, a line's segments depend on the line rather than it on them. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.4) | |
A reaction: The illustrations are not clear cut. As you cut off segments of the line, you reduce its length. Heil is hoping for something neat here, but I don't think he has quite got. The difficulty of trying to do pure metaphysics! |
18502 | If basic physics has natures, then why not reality itself? That would then found the deepest necessities [Heil] |
Full Idea: If electrons and gravitational fields have definite natures, why not reality itself? And if reality has a nature, if this makes sense, then reality grounds the deepest necessities of all. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.09) | |
A reaction: Nice speculation! Scientists and verificationists seem to cry 'foul!' when philosophers offer such wild speculations, but I say that's exactly what we pay them do. I'm not sure whether I understand reality having its own nature, though! |
18496 | If possible worlds are just fictions, they can't be truthmakers for modal judgements [Heil] |
Full Idea: If the other possible worlds are merely useful fictions, we are left wondering what the truthmakers for all those modal judgements might be. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.07) | |
A reaction: I suddenly see that this is the train of thought that led me to believe in real powers and dispositions, and which retrospectively led me to love the truthmaker idea. Even real Lewisian worlds don't seem adequate as truthmakers here. |
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). |
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. |
18525 | Mental abstraction does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent [Heil] |
Full Idea: Talk of abstraction and 'partial consideration' (Locke) does not make what is abstracted mind-dependent. In abstracting, you attend to what is there to be considered. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 05.7) | |
A reaction: Quite so. The point is to focus on aspects of reality. Does anyone seriously doubt that reality has 'aspects'? |
18504 | Only particulars exist, and generality is our mode of presentation [Heil] |
Full Idea: Existing things are particular, and generality is a feature of our ways of representing the universe. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.1) | |
A reaction: This is right, and expressed with beautiful simplicity. How could anyone disagree with this? But they do! |
18503 | You can think of tomatoes without grasping what they are [Heil] |
Full Idea: You can entertain thoughts of things like tomatoes without a grasp of what they are. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.10) | |
A reaction: Lowe seemed to think that you had to grasp the generic essence of a tomato before you could think about it, but I agree entirely with Heil. |
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. |
18538 | Non-conscious thought may be unlike conscious thought [Heil] |
Full Idea: Non-conscious thought need not resemble conscious thought occurring out of sight. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 12.10) |
18537 | Linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought [Heil] |
Full Idea: Thinking - ordinary conscious thinking - is imagistic. This is so for 'linguistic' or 'sentential' thoughts as well as for patently non-linguistic thoughts. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 12.10) | |
A reaction: This claim (that linguistic thought is just as imagistic as non-linguistic thought) strikes me as an excellent insight. |
18536 | The subject-predicate form reflects reality [Heil] |
Full Idea: I like to think that the subject-predicate form reflects a fundamental division in reality. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 10.1) | |
A reaction: That is, he defends the idea that there are substances, and powerful qualities pertaining to those substances. I sympathise, but this slogan makes it too simple. |
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! |
18497 | Many reject 'moral realism' because they can't see any truthmakers for normative judgements [Heil] |
Full Idea: It is the difficulty in imagining what truthmakers for normative judgements might be that leads many philosophers to find 'moral realism' unappealing. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.07) | |
A reaction: I like that a lot. My proposal for metaethics is that it should be built on the concept of a 'value-maker' |
20508 | How people vote should be on public record, so they can be held accountable [Mill, by Wolff,J] |
Full Idea: Mill believed in an open vote. People should be held accountable for how they vote, and therefore it should be a matter of public record. | |
From: report of John Stuart Mill (Representative Government [1861]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 3 'Representative' | |
A reaction: Nowadays it is a mantra that voting should be secret, because coercion is an obvious problem, but MPs vote publicly, and are held accountable for their voting records. People like the mafia seem to make open public voting impossible. |
20507 | Voting is a strict duty, like jury service, and must only be aimed at the public good [Mill] |
Full Idea: The citizen's vote is not a thing in which he has an option; it has no more to do with his personal wishes than the verdict of a juryman. ...he is bound to give it according to his best and most conscientious opinion of the public good. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Representative Government [1861], p.299), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 3 'Representative' | |
A reaction: Mill was also concerned that voters might pursue 'class interest' (which they currently do, big time). |
20505 | Direct democracy is inexperience judging experience, and ignorance judging knowledge [Mill] |
Full Idea: At its best [direct democracy] is inexperience sitting in judgement on experience, ignorance on knowledge. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Representative Government [1861], p.232), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Representative' | |
A reaction: Recent experiments have suggested that inexperienced people can become very good at making large decisions, if they are allowed to consult experts when they want to. See Van Reybrouck's 'Against Elections'. |
20504 | People can only participate in decisions in small communities, so representatives are needed [Mill] |
Full Idea: Since all cannot, in a community exceeding a single small town, participate personally in any but some very minor portions of the public business, it follows that the ideal type of a perfect government must be representative. | |
From: John Stuart Mill (Representative Government [1861], p.217-8), quoted by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 4 'Representative' | |
A reaction: Wolff offers Mill as the principal spokesman for representative democracy. It is not only the difficulty of achieving participation, but also the slowness of decision-making. Modern technology may be changing all of this. |
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 |
18519 | If there were infinite electrons, they could vanish without affecting total mass-energy [Heil] |
Full Idea: In a universe containing an infinite number of electrons would mass-energy be conserved? ...Electrons could come and go without affecting the total mass-energy. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.6) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a very persuasive reason for doubting that the universe contains an infinite number of electrons. In fact I suspect that infinite numbers have no bearing on nature at all. (Actually, I suspect them of being fictions). |
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. |
18526 | We should focus on actual causings, rather than on laws and causal sequences [Heil] |
Full Idea: I believe our understanding of causation would benefit from a shift of attention from causal sequences and laws, to instances of causation: 'causings'. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 06.1) | |
A reaction: His aim is to get away from generalities, and focus on the actual operation of powers which is involved. He likes the case of two playing cards propped against one another. I'm on his side. Laws come last in the story, and should not come first. |
18527 | Probabilistic causation is not a weak type of cause; it is just a probability of there being a cause [Heil] |
Full Idea: The label 'probabilistic causation' is misleading. What you have is not a weakened or tentative kind of causing, but a probability of there being a cause. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 06.5) | |
A reaction: The idea of 'probabilistic causation' strikes me as an empty philosophers' concoction, so I agree with Heil. |
18520 | Electrons are treated as particles, but they lose their individuality in relations [Heil] |
Full Idea: Although it is convenient to speak of electrons as particles or elementary substances, when they enter into relations they can 'lose their individuality. Then an electron becomes a kind of 'abstract particular', a way a given system is, a mode. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.7) | |
A reaction: Heil rightly warns us against basing our metaphysics on disputed theories of quantum mechanics. |
18501 | Maybe the universe is fine-tuned because it had to be, despite plans by God or Nature? [Heil] |
Full Idea: Maybe the universe is fine-tuned as it is, not because things happened to fall out as they did during and immediately after the Big Bang, or because God so ordained it, but because God or the Big Bang had no choice. | |
From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.09) | |
A reaction: You'd be hard put to so why it had to be fine-tuned, so this seems to be a nice speculation. Unverifiable but wholly meaningful. Maybe the stuff fine-tunes itself, by mutual interaction. Or it is the result of natural selection (Lee Smolin). |
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). |