Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Sign of Four', 'Clarification and Defense of Grounding' and 'The Guide of the Perplexed'

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15 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out.
Ground relations depend on the properties [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding relations depend on the natures of the properties involved in them.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: I'm cautious about this if we don't find out more exactly what properties are (and they had better not just be predicates). Maybe properties are the only apparatus we have here, though I prefer 'powers' for the fundamentals.
A ball's being spherical non-causally determines its power to roll [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The fact that a given thing is spherical non-causally determines the fact that it has the power to roll.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Quine won't accept this, because you have added something called a 'power' to the ball (intrinsically, it seems), over and above its observable sphericity. Does being a ball 'determine' that it can't be in two places at once? Order of explanation?
Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8)
     A reaction: [It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed]
The best critique of grounding says it is actually either identity or elimination [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I think the most promising skeptical strategy is to insist on either identity or elimination wherever grounding is alleged to hold.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.9)
     A reaction: This comes after an assessment of the critiques of grounding by Oliver, Hofweber and Daly. So we don't say chemistry grounds biology, we either say biology is chemistry, or that there is no biology. Everything is just simples. Not for me.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / b. Relata of grounding
Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry.
If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4)
     A reaction: It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / c. Grounding and explanation
We must accept grounding, for our important explanations [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The reason we must countenance grounding is that it is indispensible to certain important explanations.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: I like this a lot. The first given of all philosophy is the drive to exlain. However, we mustn't go inventing features of the world, simply to give us the possibility of explaining it. The objective fact seems to be the without-which-not relation.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / d. Grounding and reduction
Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5)
     A reaction: Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact
Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: The 'worldly' view of facts says they are obtaining states of affairs, individuated by their constituents and their combination. On the 'conceptual' view, facts will differ if they pick out an object or property via different concepts.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2)
     A reaction: Might it be that conceptual differences between facts are supervenient on worldly differences (with the worldly facts in charge)?
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
If you eliminate the impossible, the truth will remain, even if it is weird [Conan Doyle]
     Full Idea: When you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.
     From: Arthur Conan Doyle (The Sign of Four [1890], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: A beautiful statement, by Sherlock Holmes, of Eliminative Induction. It is obviously not true, of course. Many options may still face you after you have eliminated what is actually impossible.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Two things being identical (like water and H2O) is not an explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: If there is identity between water and H2O, we have neither the asymmetry nor the irreflexivity that explanations require.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Once you realise it is H2O, you understand its deeper features, which will open up new explanations. He's right, though.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P]
     Full Idea: There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological.
     From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3)
     A reaction: Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
We can approach knowledge of God by negative attributes [Maimonides]
     Full Idea: You will come nearer to the knowledge and comprehension of God by the negative attributes.
     From: Moses Maimonides (The Guide of the Perplexed [1190], p.86), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 2 'Negation'
     A reaction: Illustrated by grasping what a ship is by eliminating other categories it might belong to. The assumption is that you have a known and finite list - something like Aristotle's categories. Maimonides fears we know too little for positive attributes.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
Thinking of God as resembling humans results from a bad translation of Genesis 1:26 [Maimonides]
     Full Idea: Mistranslation of 'image' has been the cause of a crass anthropomorphism because of the verse 'Let us make man in Our image after Our likeness' (Gen.1:26). They think God has the shape and outline of man, ..with face and hands like themselves.
     From: Moses Maimonides (The Guide of the Perplexed [1190], I.1)
     A reaction: It's interesting that Michelangelo still visualises God as an old man. The idea won't go away, presumably because God is understood as a 'person', in Locke's sense, though of a very special kind.