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All the ideas for 'Confessions', 'An essentialist approach to Truth-making' and 'Scientific Essentialism'

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60 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 4. Metaphysics as Science
Ontology should give insight into or an explanation of the world revealed by science [Ellis]
     Full Idea: A good ontology should provide insight into, or offer some kind of explanation of, the salient general features of the world that has been revealed to us by science.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: I think I agree with this. The difficulty is that the most fundamental level revealed by science is a quantum one, so if you take a reductionist view then your ontology is both crazy, and resting on things which are not understood.
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 2. Truthmaker Relation
Propositions are made true, in virtue of something which explains its truth [Lowe]
     Full Idea: If a proposition is 'made' true, it has to be true 'in virtue of' something, meaning a relationship of metaphysical explanation. Thus a true proposition must have truth conferred on it in some way that explains how it gets to be true.
     From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.202)
     A reaction: It is good to ask what we mean by 'makes'. I like essentialist explanations, but this may be misplaced. Observing that y makes x true seems to be rather less than actually explaining how it does it. What would such explanations look like?
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
Real possibility and necessity has the logic of S5, which links equivalence classes of worlds of the same kind [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The logic of real possibilities and necessities is just S5. This is because the accessibility relation for real possibilities links possible worlds of the same natural kind, which is an equivalence class.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 7.06)
     A reaction: Most people, except Nathan Salmon, agree with this. With full accessibility, you seem to take epistemological problems out of the system, and just focus on reality.
5. Theory of Logic / I. Semantics of Logic / 5. Extensionalism
Humean conceptions of reality drive the adoption of extensional logic [Ellis]
     Full Idea: A Humean conception of reality lies behind, and motivates, the development of extensional logics with extensional semantics.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 8.04)
     A reaction: His proposal seems to be that it rests on the vision of a domain of separated objects. The alternative view seems to be that it is mathematics, with its absolute equality between 'objects', which drives extensionalism.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
I prefer a lack of form to mean non-existence, than to think of some quasi-existence [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I sooner judged that what lacks all form does not exist, than thought of as something in between form and nothing, neither formed nor nothing, unformed and next to nothing.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XII.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1
     A reaction: Scholastics were struck by the contrast between this remark, and the remark of Averroes (Idea 16587) that prime matter was halfway existence. Their two great authorities disagreed! This sort of thing stimulated the revival of metaphysics.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 1. Ontologies
Three main questions seem to be whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I am told that I can ask three sorts of questions - whether a thing is, what it is, and what sort it is.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.10)
     A reaction: This seems to be a very Aristotelian approach. I am pleased to see that what it is and what sort it is are not conflated. The first one must be its individual essence, and the second its generic essence.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
The extension of a property is a contingent fact, so cannot be the essence of the property [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The extension of a property in any given world is just a contingent fact about that world; its extension is not the essence of the property.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 2.07)
     A reaction: The Quinean idea, common among logicians, that a predicate is just a set defined for some model, may be useful in the logic, but is preposterous as an account of what a property actually is in nature, even if the set covers possible worlds.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 5. Natural Properties
There is no property of 'fragility', as things are each fragile in a distinctive way [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There is no natural property of 'fragility'; glasses, parchments, ecosystems and spiders' webs are fragile in their own ways, but they have nothing intrinsic or structural in common.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.06)
     A reaction: This is important (and, I think, correct) because we are inclined to say that something is 'intrinsically' fragile, but that still isn't enough to identify a true property. Ellis wants universals to be involved, and even a nominalist must sort-of agree.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 6. Categorical Properties
The property of 'being an electron' is not of anything, and only electrons could have it [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There is no property of being an electron. It could only be instantiated by electrons, so it does not seem genuine. And what is the thing that supposedly instantiates the property of being an electron?
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 75,92), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature 7.3
     A reaction: I agree entirely. Bird launches an excellent attack on categorial properties.
Typical 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, such as shape [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The paradigmatically 'categorical' properties are spatio-temporal, depending on how things are distributed in space and time. Shape is the obvious example. ...Other examples are number, size and configuration.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.09)
     A reaction: I'm finding it very frustrating that this concept is much discussed in current philosophy of science (e.g. by Bird), but it is exceedingly hard to pin down any exact account of these 'categorical' properties, or even why they are so-called.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes
Modes are beings that are related both to substances and to universals [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Modes are real beings that stand in non-contingent formal ontological relations both to individual substances and to immanent universals.
     From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.212)
     A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I pass it on. 'Modes' seem to invite the Razor, if we already have substances and universals. I am no clear about 'instantiation' because I now have the word 'mode' to play with.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
'Being a methane molecule' is not a property - it is just a predicate [Ellis]
     Full Idea: In my view 'being a methane molecule' is not a property name, but a predicate that is constructed out of a natural kind name, and so pretends to name a property.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 2.03)
     A reaction: I can't tell you how strongly I agree with this. How long have you got? This is so incredibly right that... You get the idea. He observes that such properties cannot be instantiated 'in' anything.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / b. Critique of tropes
Tropes have existence independently of any entities [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Pure trope theorists must apparently hold that each trope has its identity underivatively, not that it depends for it on or owes it to other entities of any sort.
     From: E.J. Lowe (An essentialist approach to Truth-making [2009], p.207)
     A reaction: Lowe defends dependent 'modes' of things, against independent 'tropes'. Good, but he then has to say what the thing is (a modeless 'substance'?), because it can't just be a bundle of modes or tropes.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
Causal powers must necessarily act the way they do [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There can be no question of a causal power's acting one way in one world and another way in a different world.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.12)
     A reaction: Perhaps the very core idea of scientific essentialism. It doesn't feel quite right that when you ask for the source of this necessity, you are only told that it is necessary for the very identity of a power. The truth is that it is a primitive of nature.
Causal powers are often directional (e.g. centripetal, centrifugal, circulatory) [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Causal powers are often directional. For example, they may be centripetal, centrifugal, or circulatory.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11)
     A reaction: The examples all seem to raise a few questions, about whether the directionality arises from the context, rather than from the intrinsic power.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
Basic powers may not be explained by structure, if at the bottom level there is no structure [Ellis]
     Full Idea: It may be that the most fundamental things have no structure, and therefore no structure in virtue of which they have the powers they have.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: Maybe the world has inexplicable powers, so there is a God? It seems obvious that there will be no explanation of the 'lowest level' of reality, and also obvious (to me and Leibniz, anyway) that this lowest level has to be active.
Maybe dispositions can be explained by intrinsic properties or structures [Ellis]
     Full Idea: One view is that there must be an intrinsic property or structure in virtue of which a given thing has the behavioural disposition in question.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.06)
     A reaction: [He cites Prior, Pargetter,Jackson 1982] A key question in the metaphysics of nature - whether dispositions should be taken as primitive, or whether we should try to explain them in other terms. I take powers and dispositions to be prior to properties.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
The most fundamental properties of nature (mass, charge, spin ...) all seem to be dispositions [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The properties of the most fundamental things in nature, including mass, charge, spin, and the like, would all appear to be dispositional.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.05)
     A reaction: This goes with the Leibnizian claim that the most fundamental features of nature must be active in character.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers
A causal power is a disposition to produce forces [Ellis]
     Full Idea: A causal power is a disposition of something to produce forces of a certain kind.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.09)
     A reaction: Hence when Leibniz was putting all his emphasis on the origin of the forces in nature, he was referring to exactly what we mean by 'powers'. From Ellis's formulation, I take powers to be more basic than dispositions. Does he realise this?
Powers are dispositions of the essences of kinds that involve them in causation [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The causal powers of an object are the dispositional properties of that object that are the real essences of the natural kinds of processes that involve that object in the role of cause.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11)
     A reaction: This is Ellis's formal definition at the end of his discussion of causal powers. He only seems to allow powers to the kind rather than to the individual. How do we account for the causal powers of unique genius? I say the powers are the essences.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals
There are 'substantive' (objects of some kind), 'dynamic' (events of some kind) and 'property' universals [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Three categories of universals: 'substantive' universals have instances that are members of natural kinds of objects or substances; 'dynamic' universals are kinds of events or processes; 'property' universals are tropes of real properties or relations.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.01)
     A reaction: I would want to distinguish real properties from relations. It is important to remember that an object can traditionally instantiate a universal, and that they aren't just properties.
Universals are all types of natural kind [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The various kinds of universals are all natural kinds of one sort or another.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.01)
     A reaction: This doesn't sound right. What about the universals of mathematics, or universals which are a matter of social or linguistic convention? I think Ellis is trying to hijack the word 'universal' in response to Armstrong's more idealistic account.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis]
     Full Idea: My current view is that individual essences (about which Kripke's essentialism has a lot to say) do not matter much from the point of view of a scientific essentialist.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: [Kripke parenthesis on p.54] Presumably this is because science is only committed to dealing in generalities, and so natural kinds are needed for such things. I'm inclined to regard individual essences as prior in the pure ontology of the thing.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis]
     Full Idea: The old Aristotelian idea that the identity of a thing might depend on its essential nature, which would dispose it to behave in certain ways, is firmly rejected by empiricists.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.10)
     A reaction: Ellis is accusing empiricists of having a falsely passive concept of objects. This dispute is best captured in the disagreement between Locke and Leibniz on the subject.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
Necessities are distinguished by their grounds, not their different modalities [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Strictly speaking, the distinction between two brands of necessity is one of grounds, rather than modality.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.06)
     A reaction: This idea I associate with Kit Fine. I like it, because it allows 'necessity' to be a univocal concept, which seems right to me. The types of necessity arise from types of things which already occur in our ontology.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 6. Necessity from Essence
Individual essences necessitate that individual; natural kind essences necessitate kind membership [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There are necessities grounded in the individual real essences of things, and necessities grounded in the natural kind essences of things. In the first case, without the property it isn't that individual, and in the second it isn't a member of that kind.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: This is the distinction we must hang onto to avoid a huge amount of confusion in this territory. I just say that ceasing to be that individual will presumably entail ceasing to be that kind, but not necessarily vice versa, so individual essences rule.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 4. Memory
Mind and memory are the same, as shown in 'bear it in mind' or 'it slipped from mind' [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The mind and the memory are one and the same. We even call the memory the mind, for when we tell a person to remember something, we tell them to 'bear this in mind', and when we forget something 'it slipped out of my mind'.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14)
     A reaction: This idea has become familiar in modern neuroscience, I think, presumably because we do not find distinct types of neurons for consciousness and for memory.
Memory contains innumerable principles of maths, as well as past sense experiences [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The memory contains the innumerable principles and laws of numbers and dimensions. None of these can have been conveyed to me by the bodily senses.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.12)
     A reaction: Even if you have a fairly empirical view of the sources of mathematics (a view with which I sympathise), it must by admitted that our endless extrapolations from the sources also reside in memory. So we remember thoughts as well as experiences.
We would avoid remembering sorrow or fear if that triggered the emotions afresh [Augustine]
     Full Idea: If we had to experience sorrow or fear every time that we mentioned these emotions, no one would be willing to speak of them.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14)
     A reaction: Remembering the death of a loved one can trigger fresh grief, but remembering their dangerous illness from which they recovered no longer contains the feeling of fear.
I can distinguish different smells even when I am not experiencing them [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I can distinguish the scent of lilies from that of violets, even though there is no scent at all in my nostrils.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
     A reaction: Augustine has a nice introspective account of how we experience memory, and identifies lots of puzzling features. I know I can identify the smell of vinegar, but I can't bring it to mind, the way I can the appearance of roses.
Why does joy in my mind make me happy, but joy in my memory doesn't? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: How can it be that my mind can be happy because of the joy that is in it, and yet my memory is not sad by reason of the sadness that is in it?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.14)
     A reaction: This seems to contradict his thought in Idea 22981, that memory and mind are the same. Recall seems to be a part of consciousness which is not fully wired up to the rest of the mind.
14. Science / C. Induction / 3. Limits of Induction
If events are unconnected, then induction cannot be solved [Ellis]
     Full Idea: If one believes, as Hume did, that all events are loose and separate, then the problem of induction is probably insoluble.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 8.09)
     A reaction: This points to the essentialist solution of induction - that we can genuinely derive inductive truths if we can inductively identify the essences which give rise to the necessities of further cases. I take that to be a correct account.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
Good explanations unify [Ellis]
     Full Idea: An acceptable explanation must have some unifying power.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.11)
     A reaction: There is a tension here, between the particular and the general. If I say 'why did the building collapse' and you say 'gravity', you have certainly got a unifying explanation, but we want something narrower.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
Explanations of particular events are not essentialist, as they don't reveal essential structures [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Explanations of particular events in history, geology, or evolution, are causal explanations, requiring belief in some causal mechanisms. But they are not essentialist explanations because they do not seek to lay bare the essential structure of anything.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 4.05)
     A reaction: The explanation might be two-stage, as when we explain an earthquake by a plate boundary rupture, which is in turn explained by a theory of plate techtonics. The relationship between mechanistic and essentialist explanation needs study.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
To give essentialist explanations there have to be natural kinds [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There can be no essentialist explanations constructed in any field where the subject matter is not naturally divided into kinds.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: A crux. I like individual essences, such as the character of a particular person. However, Ellis may be right, since while we may identify an individual essence as the source of a behaviour, we may not then be able to give any 'explanation'.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 6. Anti-Individualism
Memory is so vast that I cannot recognise it as part of my mind [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The memory is a vast immeasurable sanctuary. It is part of my nature, but I cannot understand all that I am. Hence the mind is too narrow to contain itself entirely. Is the other part outside of itself, and not within it? How then can it be a part?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
     A reaction: He seems to understand the mind as entirely consisting of consciousness. Nevertheless, this seems to be the first inklings of the modern externalist view of the mind.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
The point of models in theories is not to idealise, but to focus on what is essential [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Most model theories abstract from reality in order to focus on the essential nature of some kind of process or system of relations. ... The point of idealizing in this case is not to simplify, but to eliminate what is not essential.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 4.03)
     A reaction: I like this idea a lot. It is where scientific essentialism cashes out in actual scientific practice. Ellis's example is the idealised Carnot heat engine, which never can exist, but which captures what is essential about the process.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 2. Mental Continuity / a. Memory is Self
Without memory I could not even speak of myself [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I do not understand the power of memory that is in myself, although without it I could not even speak of myself.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.16)
     A reaction: Even if the self is not identical with memory, this idea seems to establish that memory is an essential aspect of the self. This point is neglected by those who see the self as an entity (the 'soul pearl') which persists through all experience.
16. Persons / F. Free Will / 6. Determinism / a. Determinism
If the future does not exist, how can prophets see it? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: How do prophets see the future, if there is not a future to be seen?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.17)
     A reaction: The answer, I suspect, is that prophets can't see the future. The prospect that the future already exists would seem to saboutage human freedom and responsibility, and point to Calvinist predestination, and even fatalism.
18. Thought / B. Mechanics of Thought / 5. Mental Files
Memories are preserved separately, according to category [Augustine]
     Full Idea: In memory everything is preserved separately, according to its category.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.08)
     A reaction: This strikes me as the first seeds of the idea that the mind functions by means of mental files. Our memories of cats are 'close to' or 'linked to' our memories of dogs.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / c. Value of happiness
Everyone wants happiness [Augustine]
     Full Idea: Surely happiness is what everyone wants, so much so that there can be none who do not want it?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], X.20)
     A reaction: His concept of happiness is, of course, religious. Occasionally you meet habitual grumblers about life who give the impression that they are only happy when they are discontented. So happiness is achieving desires, not feeling good?
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 3. Knowing Kinds
There might be uninstantiated natural kinds, such as transuranic elements which have never occurred [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There are reasons to believe that there are natural kinds that might never be instantiated, such as a transuranic element, capable of existing for some fraction of a second, but which has never actually existed anywhere.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 2.05)
     A reaction: He cautiously claims that kinds are ontologically prior to their individual members. I would say that there is no natural kind of the type that he describes. He says you have at least some grounds for predicting what kinds are possible.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 4. Source of Kinds
Natural kinds are distinguished by resting on essences [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Natural kinds are distinguished from other sorts of things by their associations with essential properties and real essences.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.02)
     A reaction: I don't think I agree with this. I rest my notion of natural kind on the elementary realising that to know all about this kind you only have to examine one sample of it, as in the Upanishads. The source of such a phenomenon is an open question.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 7. Critique of Kinds
If there are borderline cases between natural kinds, that makes them superficial [Ellis]
     Full Idea: There cannot be any borderline cases between the real essences of different natural kinds because, if there were, the distinctions between the kinds would be superficial, like the blue/green distinction.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.05)
     A reaction: His particular target here is biological natural kinds, in which he doesn't believe, because they blur across time, in the evolutionary process. Personally I am inclined to relax the notion of a natural kind, otherwise they are too basic to explain.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature
Laws don't exist in the world; they are true of the world [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Laws are not things that exist in the world; they are things that are true of the world.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.09)
     A reaction: I'm happy with this formulation. The one to get rid of is the idea of laws which could precede creation of the universe, and survive its demise. That might be possible, but we have absolutely no grounds for the claim. Humeans ought to agree.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism
A proton must have its causal role, because without it it wouldn't be a proton [Ellis]
     Full Idea: I assume it is metaphysically impossible for a proton to have a different causal role, ...which is plausible because a proton would appear to have no identity at all apart from its role in causal processes.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro)
     A reaction: This seems to be a key idea in scientific essentialism, which links essentialism of identity with essentialism in the laws of nature. Could a proton become not-quite-a-proton?
What is most distinctive of scientific essentialism is regarding processes as natural kinds [Ellis]
     Full Idea: What is most distinctive of the scientific version of essentialism is that scientific essentialists are realists about natural kinds of processes, as well as natural kinds of objects and substances.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.11)
     A reaction: I'm not sure whether other scientific essentialists would agree with this, but I am happy to go along with it. A process like melting or sublimation seems to be a standard widespread phenomenon which is always intrinsically the same, as kinds must be.
Scientific essentialism is more concerned with explanation than with identity (Locke, not Kripke) [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Scientific essentialism is less concerned with questions of identity, and more with questions of explanation, than is the essentialism of Aristotle or of Kripke. It is closest to the kind of essentialism described by Locke.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.12)
     A reaction: Locke is popularly held to be anti-essentialist, but that is only because of his epistemological problems. I think Ellis is here misreading Aristotle, and I would ally Aristotle, Locke (cautiously), Leibniz, Ellis and Fine against Kripkeans on this one.
The ontological fundamentals are dispositions, and also categorical (spatio-temporal and structural) properties [Ellis]
     Full Idea: We do not claim, as some do, that fundamental dispositional properties are the ontological basis of all properties. On the contrary, there are equally fundamental categorical properties - for example, spatio-temporal relations and structures.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 3.09)
     A reaction: The source of disagreement between Bird and Ellis. Bird denies the existence of 'categorical properties'. I think I am with Bird. Space and time are as much part of the given as the elements, and then categorical properties result from dispositions.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / b. Scientific necessity
A primary aim of science is to show the limits of the possible [Ellis]
     Full Idea: Scientific essentialists hold that one of the primary aims of science is to define the limits of the possible.
     From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 7.06)
     A reaction: I like this. It breaks down into the study of modal profiles, and it can work for abstracta as well as for the physical world. It even covers the study of character, and you could say that it is the subject matter of Jane Austen.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / c. Idealist time
Maybe time is an extension of the mind [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I begin to wonder whether time is an extension of the mind itself.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.26)
     A reaction: The observation that the mind creates a 'specious present' (spreading experience out over a short fraction of second) reinforces this. Personally I like David Marshall's proposal that consciousness is entirely memory, which would deny this idea.
To be aware of time it can only exist in the mind, as memory or anticipation [Augustine, by Bardon]
     Full Idea: Augustine answers that for us to be aware of time it must exist only in the mind, …and the difference between past and future is just the difference between memory and anticipation.
     From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's'
     A reaction: This is an extreme idealist view. Are we to say that the past consists only of what can be remembered, and the future only of what is anticipated? Absurd anti-realism, in my view. Where do his concepts come from, asks Le Poidevin.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
How can ten days ahead be a short time, if it doesn't exist? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: A short time ago or a short time ahead we might put at ten days, but how can anything which does not exist be either long or short?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15)
     A reaction: A nice question, which gets at the paradoxical nature of time very nicely. How can it be long, but non-existent? We could break the paradox by concluding '..and therefore time does exist', even though we can't see how.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
If the past is no longer, and the future is not yet, how can they exist? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: Of the three divisions of time, how can two, the past and the future, be, when the past no longer is, and the future is not yet?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14)
     A reaction: This is the oldest bewilderment about time, which naturally leads us to the thought that time cannot actually 'exist'. The remark implies that at least 'now' is safe, but that also succumbs to paradox pretty quickly.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / i. Denying time
The whole of the current year is not present, so how can it exist? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: We cannot say that the whole of the current year is present, and if the whole of it is not present, the year is not present.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.15)
     A reaction: Another nice way of presenting the paradox of time. We are in a particular year, so it has to be real.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / a. Experience of time
I know what time is, until someone asks me to explain it [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I know well enough what time is, provided that nobody asks me; but if I am asked what it is and try to explain, I am baffled.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.14)
     A reaction: A justly famous remark, even though it adds nothing to our knowledge of time. This sort of thought pushes us towards accepting many things as axiomatic, such as time, space, identity, persons, mind.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / h. Change in time
I disagree with the idea that time is nothing but cosmic movement [Augustine]
     Full Idea: I once heard a learned man say that time is nothing but the movement of the sun and the moon and the stars, but I do not agree.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.22)
     A reaction: It is tempting to say that you either take time or movement as axiomatic, and describe one in terms of the other, but you are stuck unable to give the initial statement of the axiom without mentioning the second property you were saving for later.
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 3. The Beginning
Heaven and earth must be created, because they are subject to change [Augustine]
     Full Idea: The fact that heaven and earth are there proclaims that they were created, for they are subject to change and variation; ..the meaning of change and variation is that something is there which was not there before.
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.04)
     A reaction: It seems possible that the underlying matter is eternal (as in various conservation laws, such as that of energy), and that all change is in the form rather than the substance.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 5. God and Time
If God existed before creation, why would a perfect being desire to change things? [Augustine, by Bardon]
     Full Idea: If nothing existed by God before creation, then what could have happened to, or within, God that led God to decide to create the universe at that particular moment? Why would an eternal or perfect being want or need to change?
     From: report of Augustine (Confessions [c.398]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 1 'Augustine's'
     A reaction: I suppose you could reply that change is superior to stasis, but then why did God delay the creation?
If God is outside time in eternity, can He hear prayers? [Augustine]
     Full Idea: O Lord, since you are outside time in eternity, are you unaware of the things that I tell you?
     From: Augustine (Confessions [c.398], XI.01)
     A reaction: This strikes me as the single most difficult and most elusive question about the nature of a supreme divine being. If the being is trapped in time, as we are, it is greatly diminished, and if it is outside, it is hard to see how it could be a participant.