11 ideas
| 6806 | Do not multiply entities beyond necessity [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Do not multiply entities beyond necessity. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]) | |
| A reaction: This is the classic statement of Ockham's Razor, though it is not found in his printed works. It appears to be mainly aimed at Plato's Theory of Forms. It is taken to refer to types of entities, not numbers. One seraph is as bad as a hundred. |
| 16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Whiteness is said to exist not because it subsists in itself, but because by it something has existence-as-white. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], IX.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2 | |
| A reaction: It seems unavoidable to refer to the whiteness as 'it'. It might be called the 'adverbial' theory of properties, as ways of doing something. |
| 22132 | Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056 | |
| A reaction: 'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist. |
| 22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Our imagination and senses grasp only the outer properties of things, not their natures. ...Understanding, however, grasps the very substance and nature of things, so that what is represented in understanding is a likeness of thing's very essence. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly the picture I endorse for modern science. Explanation is the path to understanding, and that must venture beyond immediate experience. |
| 22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: For present in us by nature are certain initial truths everyone knows, in which lie potentially known conclusions our reasons can draw out and make actually known. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
| A reaction: Note that these are truths rather than concepts, but that they have to be 'drawn out' by reason. This is Descartes' view of the matter, where the 'natural light' of reason is needed to articulate what is innate, such as geometry. |
| 22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: What the mind takes in is not some material element of the agent, but a likeness of the agent actualising some potential the patient already has. This, for example, is the way our seeing takes in the colour of a coloured body. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly right. Descartes agreed. It works for colour, but not (obviously) for cheese graters. |
| 7861 | Libet says the processes initiated in the cortex can still be consciously changed [Libet, by Papineau] |
| Full Idea: Libet himself points out that the conscious decisions still have the power to 'endorse' or 'cancel', so to speak, the processes initiated by the earlier cortical activity: no action will result if the action's execution is consciously countermanded. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
| A reaction: This is why Libet's findings do not imply 'epiphenomenalism'. It seems that part of a decisive action is non-conscious, undermining the all-or-nothing view of consciousness. Searle tries to smuggle in free will at this point (Idea 3817). |
| 6660 | Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action. | |
| From: report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness. |
| 19381 | The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Time is composed of non-entities, because it is composed of the past which does not exist now, although it did exist, and of the future, which does not yet exist; therefore time does not exist. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335], 6:496), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist' | |
| A reaction: I've a lot of sympathy with this! I favour Presentism, so the past is gone and the future is yet to arrive. But we have no coherent concept of a present moment of any duration to contain reality. We are just completely bogglificated by it all. |
| 8010 | William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: The most notable philosopher who makes God's commandment the basis of goodness, rather than God's goodness a reason for obeying him, is William of Occam. | |
| From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.9 | |
| A reaction: Either view has problems. Why choose God to obey? Obey anyone who is powerful? But how do you decide that God is good? How do we know the nature of God's commands, or the nature of God's goodness? Etc. |
| 16679 | Even an angel must have some location [William of Ockham, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Ockham dismisses the possibility of non-location out of hand, remarking that even an angel has some location. | |
| From: report of William of Ockham (works [1335]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.4 |