4 ideas
| 10121 | Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor lack of contradiction a sign of truth [Pascal] |
| Full Idea: Contradiction is not a sign of falsity, nor the lack of contradiction a sign of truth. | |
| From: Blaise Pascal (works [1660]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: [Quoted in Auden and Kronenberger's Book of Aphorisms] Presumably we would now say that contradiction is a purely formal, syntactic notion, and not a semantic one. If you hit a contradiction, something has certainly gone wrong. |
| 16627 | If you remove the accidents from a horse and a lion, the intellect can't tell them apart [Francis of Marchia] |
| Full Idea: Let all accidents be removed from a lion and a horse. Nothing remains in the intellect to distinguish them. We distinguish a lion and a horse only by analogy to the accidents proper to each. The intellect does not have an essential concept of either one. | |
| From: Francis of Marchia (Commentary on Sentences [1330], I.3.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.3 | |
| A reaction: What a very nice thought experiment, and very convincing about how the mind perceives such things. But we don't believe horse and lion just consists of the surface properties of them which we experience. |
| 8406 | Not all explanations are causal, but if a thing can be explained at all, it can be explained causally [Sanford] |
| Full Idea: Although not all explanations are causal, anything which can be explained in any way can be explained causally. | |
| From: David H. Sanford (Causation [1995], p.79) | |
| A reaction: A nice bold claim with which I am in sympathy, but he would have a struggle proving it. Does this imply that causal explanations are basic, or in some way superior? Note that functional explanations would thus have underlying causal explanations. |
| 8407 | A totality of conditions necessary for an occurrence is usually held to be jointly sufficient for it [Sanford] |
| Full Idea: A totality of conditions necessary for an occurrence is jointly sufficient for it. This is a widely held but controversial view, and it is not a logical truth. | |
| From: David H. Sanford (Causation [1995], p.82) | |
| A reaction: This wouldn't work for an impossible occurrence. What are the necessary conditions to produce a large planet made of uranium? One of them would have to be a naturally impossible necessity. |