42 ideas
| 1708 | In "Callias is just/not just/unjust", which of these are contraries? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Take, for example, "Callias is just", "Callias is not just", and "Callias is unjust"; which of these are contraries? | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a31) |
| 1703 | It is necessary that either a sea-fight occurs tomorrow or it doesn't, though neither option is in itself necessary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary for a sea-battle to take place tomorrow, nor for one not to take place tomorrow - though it is necessary for one to take place OR not take place tomorrow. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a30) |
| 14480 | Maybe analytic truths do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: It is a venerable view that analytic claims do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world, but this claim has often been challenged. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: She offers two challenges (bottom p.68), but I would have thought that the best response is that the meanings of the words themselves constitute truthmakers - perhaps via the essence of each word, as Fine suggests. |
| 1704 | Statements are true according to how things actually are [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Statements are true according to how things actually are. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a33) |
| 22272 | Aristotle's later logic had to treat 'Socrates' as 'everything that is Socrates' [Potter on Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When Aristotle moved from basic name+verb (in 'De Interpretatione') to noun+noun logic...names had to be treated as special cases, so that 'Socrates' is treated as short for 'everything that is Socrates'. | |
| From: comment on Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Supp' | |
| A reaction: Just the sort of rewriting that Russell introduced for definite descriptions. 'Twas ever the logicians' fate to shoehorn ordinary speech into awkward containers. |
| 9405 | Square of Opposition: not both true, or not both false; one-way implication; opposite truth-values [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Square of Opposition: horizontals - 'contraries' can't both be true, and 'subcontraries' can't both be false; verticals - 'subalternatives' have downwards-only implication; diagonals - 'contradictories' have opposite truth values. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12-13) | |
| A reaction: This is still used in modern discussion (e.g. by Stalnaker against Kripke), and there is a modal version of it (Fitting and Mendelsohn p.7). Corners read: 'All F are G', 'No F are G', 'Some F are G' and 'Some F are not G'. |
| 9730 | Modal Square 3: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contradictories' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 3: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12c) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9728 | Modal Square 1: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'contraries' of □¬P and ¬◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 1: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the contraries (not both true) of 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12a) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9729 | Modal Square 2: ¬□¬P and ◊P are 'subcontraries' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 2: 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P' are the subcontraries (not both false) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12b) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9731 | Modal Square 4: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'contradictories' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 4: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the contradictories (different truth values) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12d) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9732 | Modal Square 5: □P and ¬◊¬P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□¬P and ◊P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 5: 'It is necessary that P' and 'It is not possible that not P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that not P' and 'It is possible that P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12e) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 9733 | Modal Square 6: □¬P and ¬◊P are 'subalternatives' of ¬□P and ◊¬P [Aristotle, by Fitting/Mendelsohn] |
| Full Idea: Modal Square of Opposition 6: 'It is necessary that not P' and 'It is not possible that P' are the subalternatives (first implies second) of 'It is not necessary that P' and 'It is possible that not P'. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], Ch.12f) by M Fitting/R Mendelsohn - First-Order Modal Logic 1.4 |
| 14471 | Analytical entailments arise from combinations of meanings and inference rules [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: 'Analytically entail' means entail in virtue of the meanings of the expressions involved and rules of inference. So 'Jones bought a house' analytically entails 'Jones bought a building'. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: Quine wouldn't like this, but it sounds OK to me. Thomasson uses this as a key tool in her claim that common sense objects must exist. |
| 21593 | In talking of future sea-fights, Aristotle rejects bivalence [Aristotle, by Williamson] |
| Full Idea: Unlike Aristotle, Stoics did not reject Bivalence for future contingencies; it is true or false that there will be a sea-fight tomorrow. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a31) by Timothy Williamson - Vagueness 1.2 | |
| A reaction: I'd never quite registered this simple account of the sea-fight. As Williamson emphasises, one should not lightly reject the principle of bivalence. Has Aristotle entered a slippery slope? Stoics disagreed with Aristotle. |
| 1701 | A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A prayer is a sentence which is neither true nor false. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 17a01) |
| 1706 | Non-existent things aren't made to exist by thought, because their non-existence is part of the thought [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not true to say that what is not, since it is thought about, is something that is; for what is thought about it is not that it is, but that it is not. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 21a31) | |
| A reaction: At least there has been one philosopher who was quite clear about the distinction between a thought and what the thought is about (its content). Often forgotten! |
| 1707 | Maybe necessity and non-necessity are the first principles of ontology [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the necessary and non-necessary are first principles of everything's either being or not being. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 23a18) | |
| A reaction: Is that 'first' in time, or in priority? If they are the grounds of being, how could there ever be non-necessary existents? Why would necessary being permit intruders? |
| 14493 | Existence might require playing a role in explanation, or in a causal story, or being composed in some way [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: A higher standard for saying that entities exist might require that they play an essential role in explanation, or must figure in any complete causal story, or exist according to some uniform and nonarbitrary principle of composition. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: I am struck by the first of these three. If I am defending the notion that essence depends on Aristotle's account of explanation, then if we add that existence also depends on explanation, we get a criterion for the existence of essences. Yay. |
| 14491 | Rival ontological claims can both be true, if there are analytic relationships between them [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Where there are analytic interrelations among our claims, distinct ontological claims may be true without rivalry, redundancy, or reduction. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 10) | |
| A reaction: Thus we might, I suppose, that it is analytically necessary that a lump of clay has a shape, and that a statue be made of something. Interesting. |
| 14489 | Theories do not avoid commitment to entities by avoiding certain terms or concepts [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: A theory does not avoid commitment to any entities by avoiding use of certain terms or concepts. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: This is a salutary warning to those who apply the notion of ontological commitment rather naively. |
| 14485 | Ordinary objects may be not indispensable, but they are nearly unavoidable [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: I do not argue that ordinary objects are indispensable, but rather that they are (nearly) unavoidable. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09) | |
| A reaction: Disappointing, given the blurb and title of the book, but put in those terms it will be hard to disagree. Clearly ordinary objects figure in the most useful way for us to talk. I wonder whether we have a clear ontology of 'simples' in which they vanish. |
| 14487 | The simple existence conditions for objects are established by our practices, and are met [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: The existence conditions for ordinary objects are established by our practices, and they are quite minimal, so it is rather obvious that they are fulfilled, and so there are such things. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3) | |
| A reaction: This is one of her main arguments. The same argument would have worked for witches or ghosts in certain cultures. |
| 21651 | It is analytic that if simples are arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair [Thomasson, by Hofweber] |
| Full Idea: Thomasson argues that the existence of ordinary objects follows analytically from the distribution of simples, assuming that there are any simples. It is an analytic truth that if there are simples arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair. | |
| From: report of Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.3 | |
| A reaction: But how do you distinguish when simples are arranged nearly chair-wise from the point where they click into place as actually chair-wise? What is the criterion? |
| 14467 | Ordinary objects are rejected, to avoid contradictions, or for greater economy in thought [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Objections to ordinary objects are the Causal Redundancy claim (objects lack causal powers), the Anti-Colocation view (statues and lumps overlap), Sorites arguments, a more economical ontology, or a more scientific ontology. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of two paragraphs] The chief exponents of these views are Van Inwagen and Merricks. Before you glibly accept ordinary objects, you must focus on producing a really strict ontology. These arguments all have real force. |
| 14479 | To individuate people we need conventions, but conventions are made up by people [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: The conventionalist faces paradox if they hold that conventions are logically prior to people (since this plurality requires conventions of individuation), and people are logically prior to conventions (if they make up the conventions). | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: [Sidelle is the spokesman for conventionalism] The best defence would be to deny the second part, and say that conventions emerge from whatever is there, but only conventions can individuate the bits of what is there. |
| 14486 | Eliminativists haven't found existence conditions for chairs, beyond those of the word 'chair' [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: The eliminativist cannot claim to have 'discovered' some real existence conditions for chairs beyond those entailed by the semantic rules associated with ordinary use of the word 'chair'. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3) | |
| A reaction: It is difficult to understand atoms arranged 'chairwise' or 'baseballwise' if you don't already know what a chair or a baseball are. |
| 14481 | Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: In a 'modally plenitudinous' ontology, wherever there is an object at all, there are objects with intrinsic modal properties instantiating every consistent modal profile. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.5) | |
| A reaction: [She cites K.Bennett, Hawley, Rea, Sidelle] I love this. At last a label for the view I have been espousing. I am a Modal Plenitudinist. I must get a badge made. |
| 14482 | If the statue and the lump are two objects, they require separate properties, so we could add their masses [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: An objection to the idea that statues are not identical to material lumps of stuff is the proliferation of instances of properties shared by those objects. If the mass of the statue is 500kg, and the mass of the lump is 500kg, do we have 1000kg? | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed; she cites Rea 1997 and Zimmerman 1995] To wriggle out of this we would have to understand 'object' rather differently, so that an independent mass is not intrinsic to it. I leave this as an exercise for the reader. |
| 14483 | Given the similarity of statue and lump, what could possibly ground their modal properties? [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: The 'grounding problem' is that given all that the statue and the lump have in common, what could possibly ground their different modal properties? | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.4) | |
| A reaction: Their modal properties are, of course, different, because only one of them could survive squashing. Thomasson suggests their difference of sort, but I'm not sure what that means, separately from what they actually are. |
| 14476 | Identity claims between objects are only well-formed if the categories are specified [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Identity claims are only well-formed and truth-evaluable if the terms flanking the statement are associated with a certain category of entity each is to refer to, which disambiguates the reference and identity-criteria. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03) | |
| A reaction: The first of her two criteria for identity. She is buying the full Wiggins package. |
| 14477 | Identical entities must be of the same category, and meet the criteria for the category [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Identity claims are only true if the entities referred to are of the same category, and meet the criteria of identity appropriate for things of that category. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03) | |
| A reaction: This may be a little too optimistic about having a set of clear-cut and reasonably objective categories to work with, but attempts at establishing metaphysical categories have not gone especially well. |
| 14478 | Modal Conventionalism says modality is analytic, not intrinsic to the world, and linguistic [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Modal Conventionalism has at least three theses: 1) modal truths are either analytic truths, or combine analytic and empirical truths, 2) modal properties are not intrinsic features of the world, 3) modal propositions depend on linguistic conventions. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: [She cites Alan Sidelle 1989 for this view] I disagree mainly with number 2), since I take dispositions to be key intrinsic features of nature, and I interpret dispositions as modal properties. |
| 14466 | A chief task of philosophy is making reflective sense of our common sense worldview [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Showing how, reflectively, we can make sense of our unreflective common sense worldview is arguably one of the chief tasks of philosophy. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Maybe. The obvious problem is that when you look at weird and remote cultures like the Aztecs, what counts as 'common sense' might be a bit different. She is talking of ordinary objects, though, where her point is reasonable. |
| 18088 | Intentionality is the mark of dispositions, not of the mental [Place] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional. | |
| From: Ullin T. Place (Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford [1999], 1) | |
| A reaction: An idea with few friends, but I really like it, because it offers the prospect of a unified account of physical nature and the mind/brain. It seems reasonable to say my mind is essentially a bunch of dispositions. Mind is representations + dispositions. |
| 2337 | For Aristotle meaning and reference are linked to concepts [Aristotle, by Putnam] |
| Full Idea: In 'De Interpretatione' Aristotle laid out an enduring theory of reference and meaning, in which we understand a word or any other sign by associating that word with a concept. This concept determines what the word refers to. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE]) by Hilary Putnam - Representation and Reality 2 p.19 | |
| A reaction: Sounds right to me, despite all this Wittgensteinian stuff about beetles in boxes. When you meet a new technical term in philosophy, you must struggle to fully grasp the concept it proposes. |
| 14475 | How can causal theories of reference handle nonexistence claims? [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference have problems in handling nonexistence claims | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: This is a very sound reason for shifting from a direct causal baptism view to one in which the baptism takes place by a social consensus. So there is a consensus about 'unicorns', but obviously no baptism. See Evans's 'Madagascar' example. |
| 14474 | Pure causal theories of reference have the 'qua problem', of what sort of things is being referred to [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference face the 'qua problem' - that it may be radically indeterminate what the term refers to unless there is some very basic concept of what sort of thing is being referred to. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: She cites Dummett and Wiggins on this. There is an obvious problem that when I say 'look at that!' there are all sorts of conventions at work if my reference is to succeed. |
| 13763 | Spoken sounds vary between people, but are signs of affections of soul, which are the same for all [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Spoken sounds are symbols of affections in the soul, ...and just as written marks are not the same for all men, neither are spoken sounds. But what these are in the first place signs of - affections of the soul - are the same for all. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 16a03-08) | |
| A reaction: Loux identifies this passage as the source of the 'conceptualist' view of propositions, which I immediately identify with. The view that these propositions are 'the same for all' is plausible for normal objects, but dubious for complex abstractions. |
| 14488 | Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: The analytic interrelations among elements of language become evident through redundancy. It is redundant to utter 'He bought a house and a building', since buying a house analytically entails that he bought a building. | |
| From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4) | |
| A reaction: This appears to concern necessary class membership. It is only linguistically redundant if the class membership is obvious. Houses are familiar, uranium samples are not. |
| 1705 | It doesn't have to be the case that in opposed views one is true and the other false [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary that of every affirmation and opposite negation one should be true and the other false. For what holds for things that are does not hold for things that are not but may possibly be or not be. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a39) | |
| A reaction: Thus even if Bivalence holds, and the only truth-values are T and F, it doesn't follow that Excluded Middle holds, which says that every proposition must have one of those two values. |
| 18089 | Dispositions are not general laws, but laws of the natures of individual entities [Place] |
| Full Idea: Dispositions are the substantive laws, not, as for Armstrong, of nature in general, but of the nature of individual entities whose dispositional properties they are. | |
| From: Ullin T. Place (Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford [1999], 6) | |
| A reaction: [He notes that Nancy Cartwright 1989 agrees with him] I like this a lot. I tend to denegrate 'laws', because of their dubious ontological status, but this restores laws to the picture, in the place where they belong, in the stuff of the world. |
| 1702 | Things may be necessary once they occur, but not be unconditionally necessary [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: To say that everything that is, is of necessity, when it is, is not the same as saying unconditionally that it is of necessity. | |
| From: Aristotle (On Interpretation [c.330 BCE], 19a25) |