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All the ideas for 'Essence and Potentiality', 'Events as property exemplifications' and 'works'

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16 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 1. Mathematics
All of mathematics is properties of the whole numbers [Kronecker]
     Full Idea: All the results of significant mathematical research must ultimately be expressible in the simple forms of properties of whole numbers.
     From: Leopold Kronecker (works [1885], Vol 3/274), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 09.5
     A reaction: I've always liked Kronecker's line, but I'm beginning to realise that his use of the word 'number' is simply out-of-date. Natural numbers have a special status, but not sufficient to support this claim.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / c. Priority of numbers
God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man [Kronecker]
     Full Idea: God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.
     From: Leopold Kronecker (works [1885]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Intro
     A reaction: This famous remark was first quoted in Kronecker's obituary. A response to Dedekind, it seems. See Idea 10090. Did he really mean that negative numbers were the work of God? We took a long time to spot them.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events
How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated.
     From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2
     A reaction: I don't actually buy the idea that an event could just be an 'exemplification'. Change seems to be required, and processes, or something like them, must be mentioned. Degrees of fine-graining sound good, though, for processes too.
If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim]
     Full Idea: If Kim's events are just the ordered triple of is that such things are standardly conceived as abstract entities, usually sets, whereas events are concretely located in space and time.
     From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1
     A reaction: You might reply that the object, and maybe the attribute, are concrete, and the time is natural, but the combination really is an abstraction, even though it is located (like the equator). Where is the set of my books located?
Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons]
     Full Idea: Kim's events cannot just be the ordered triple of , since many such triples do not yield events, such as . Kim has to specify that the object actually has that property at that time.
     From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1
     A reaction: Why should they even be in that particular order? This requirement rather messes up Kim's plan for a very streamlined, Ockhamised ontology. Circles have symmetry at all times. Is 'near Trafalgar Square' a property?
Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons]
     Full Idea: Kim's events are exemplifications by an object of an attribute at a time...It does not make events basic entities, as the three constituents are more basic, but it gives identity conditions (two events are the same if object, attribute and time the same).
     From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1
     A reaction: [Aristotle is said to be behind this] I am more sympathetic to this view than the claim that events are primitive. If a pebble is ellipsoid for a million years, is that an event? I think the concept of a 'process' is the most fruitful one to investigate.
Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim]
     Full Idea: Since some tautologously universal properties such as self-identity or being such that 2+2=4 apply to all things at all times, that is stretching Kim's events too far. Candidate properties need to be realistically restricted, and it is unclear how.
     From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1
     A reaction: You could deploy Schoemaker's concept of natural properties in terms of the source of causal powers, but the problem would be that you were probably hoping to then use Kim's events to define causation. Answer: treat causation as the primitive.
Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim]
     Full Idea: The criticism most frequently levelled against Kim's theory is that it results in an unacceptable plurality of finely differentiated events, because of the requirement for identity of the constituent property.
     From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 4.4
     A reaction: This may mean that the Battle of Waterloo was several trillion events, which seems daft to the historian, but it doesn't to the physicist. A cannon firing is indeed an accumulation of lots of little events.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter]
     Full Idea: Essence is, as it were, necessity rooted in things, ...but how about possibility rooted in things? ...Having the potential to Φ, unlike being essentially Φ, does not entail being actually Φ.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §2)
     A reaction: To me this invites the question 'what is it about the entity which endows it with its rooted possibilities?' A thing has possibilities because it has a certain nature (at a given time).
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter]
     Full Idea: I can understand the notion of real definition as applying to (some) abstact entities, but I have no idea how to apply it to a concrete object such as Socrates or myself.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1)
     A reaction: She is objecting to Kit Fine's account of essence, which is meant to be clearer than the normal account of essences based on necessities. Aristotle implies that definitions get fuzzy when you reach the level of the individual.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter]
     Full Idea: The modal account was meant, I take it, to make the notion of essence less mysterious by basing it on the supposedly better understood notion of necessity.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1)
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter]
     Full Idea: We support the views of metaphysical modality on which metaphysical necessity is an even more deeply empirical matter than Kripke has argued.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], p.2)
     A reaction: [co-author E. Viebahn] This seems to pinpoint the spirit of scientific essentialism. She cites Bird and Shoemaker. If it is empirical, doesn't that make it a matter of epistemology, and hence further from absolute necessity?
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter]
     Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds affords greater expressive power than mere talk of possibility and necessity. In particular, possible worlds talk allows us to introduce degrees of possibility.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3)
     A reaction: A nice feature, but I'm not sure that either the proportion of possible worlds or the closeness of possible worlds captures what we actually mean by a certain degree of possibility. There is 'accidental closeness', or absence of contingency. See Vetter.
Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter]
     Full Idea: We should look at the claim that possibility is constituted by potentiality.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4)
     A reaction: A problem that comes to mind is possibilities arising from coincidence. The whole of reality must be described, to capture all the possibilities for a particular thing. So potentialities of what? Nice thought, though.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / c. Possible but inconceivable
The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter]
     Full Idea: Some of what metaphysicians take to be metaphysically possible turns out to be only epistemically possible.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4)
     A reaction: A nice clear expression of the increasingly common view that conceivability may be a limited way to grasp possibility.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter]
     Full Idea: The closeness of possible worlds should be determined by similarity in the intrinsic constitution of whatever object it is whose potentialities are at issue.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3)
     A reaction: Nice thought. This seems to be the essentialist approach to possible worlds, but it makes the natures of the objects more fundamental than the framework of the worlds. She demurs because there are also extrinsic potentialities.