Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Quantification and Descriptions', 'Quodlibeta' and 'Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World'

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8 ideas

2. Reason / D. Definition / 7. Contextual Definition

18776	Contextual definitions eliminate descriptions from contexts [Linsky,B]
	Full Idea: A 'contextual' definition shows how to eliminate a description from a context.
	From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 2)
	A reaction: I'm trying to think of an example, but what I come up with are better described as 'paraphrases' than as 'definitions'.

5. Theory of Logic / F. Referring in Logic / 2. Descriptions / b. Definite descriptions

18774	Definite descriptions, unlike proper names, have a logical structure [Linsky,B]
	Full Idea: Definite descriptions seem to have a logical structure in a way that proper names do not.
	From: Bernard Linsky (Quantification and Descriptions [2014], 1.1.1)
	A reaction: Thus descriptions have implications which plain names do not.

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories

16657	Substance, Quantity and Quality are real; other categories depend on those three [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: Among creatures there are only three 'res' belong to the three first categories: Substance, Quantity and Quality. All other are aspects [rationes] and intellectual concepts with respect to them, with reality only as grounded on the res of those three.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
	A reaction: Pasnau connects with the 'arrangement of being', giving an 'ontologically innocent' structure to reality. That seems to be what we all want, if only we could work out the ontologically guilty bit.

8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations

16658	The only reality in the category of Relation is things from another category [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: There is beyond a doubt nothing real in the category of Relation, except what is a thing from another category.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
	A reaction: This seems to have been the fairly orthodox scholastic view of relations.

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes

16645	Accidents are diminished beings, because they are dispositions of substance (unqualified being) [Henry of Ghent]
	Full Idea: Accidents are beings only in a qualified and diminished sense, because they are not called beings, nor are they beings, except because they are dispositions of an unqualified being, a substance.
	From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], XV.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.4
	A reaction: This is aimed to 'half' detach the accidents (as the Eucharist requires). Later scholastics detached them completely. Late scholastics seem to have drifted back to Henry's view. The equivocal use of 'being' here was challenged later.

11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism

22012	Kant says things-in-themselves cause sensations, but then makes causation transcendental! [Henry of Ghent, by Pinkard]
	Full Idea: Kant claimed that things-in-themselves caused our sensations; but causality was a transcendental condition of experience, not a property of things-in-themselves, so the great Kant had contradicted himself.
	From: report of Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], Supplement) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 04
	A reaction: This early objection by the conservative Jacobi (who disliked Enlightenment rational religion) is the key to the dispute over whether Kant is an idealist. Kant denied being an idealist, but how can he be, if this idea is correct?

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism

17093	Causation produces productive mechanisms; to understand the world, understand these mechanisms [Salmon]
	Full Idea: Causal processes, causal interactions, and causal laws provide the mechanisms by which the world works; to understand why certain things happen, we need to see how they are produced by these mechanisms.
	From: Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]), quoted by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 7
	A reaction: I don't think I've ever found a better quotation on explanation. That strikes me as correct, and (basically) there is nothing more to be said. I'm not sure about the 'laws'. This is later Wesley Salmon.

17492	Salmon's interaction mechanisms needn't be regular, or involving any systems [Glennan on Salmon]
	Full Idea: While Salmon's mechanisms are processes involving interactions, the interactions are not necessarily regular, and they do not involve the operation of systems.
	From: comment on Wesley Salmon (Scientific Explanation and the Causal Structure of the World [1984]) by Stuart Glennan - Mechanisms 'hierarchical'
	A reaction: This is why modern mechanistic philosophy only began in 2000, despite Wesley Salmon's championing of the roughly mechanistic approach.