11 ideas
8011 | Aristotle is a buffoon who has misled the Church [Luther, by MacIntyre] |
Full Idea: Aristotle is a buffoon who has misled the Church. | |
From: report of Martin Luther (talk [1525]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
A reaction: Before he became famous, Luther was a university lecturer on Aristotle. This remark was a hundred years before philosophers began serious criticism of Aristotle. Presumably Protestants just stopped reading him. |
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. |
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. |
6613 | The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis] |
Full Idea: There are three hierarchies of natural kinds: objects or substances (substantive universals), events or processes (dynamic universals), and properties or relations (tropic universals). | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: Most interesting here is the identifying of natural kinds with universals, making universals into the families of nature. Universals are high-level sets of natural kinds. To grasp universals you must see patterns, and infer the underlying order. |
6616 | Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The principle of least action is not a causal law, but is what I call a 'global law', which describes the essence of the global kind, which every object in the universe necessarily instantiates. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005]) | |
A reaction: As a fan of essentialism I find this persuasive. If I inherit part of my essence from being a mammal, I inherit other parts of my essence from being an object, and all objects would share that essence, so it would look like a 'law' for all objects. |
6615 | A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis] |
Full Idea: A specific universal can exist only if the generic universal of which it is a species exists, but generic universals don't depend on species; …the essence of any genus is included in its species, but not conversely. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: Thus the species 'electron' would be part of the genus 'lepton', or 'human' part of 'mammal'. The point of all this is to show how individual items connect up with the rest of the universe, giving rise to universal laws, such as Least Action. |
6614 | A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis] |
Full Idea: The hierarchy of natural kinds proposed by essentialism may be more elaborate than is strictly required for purposes of ontology, but it is necessary to explain the necessity of the laws of nature, and the universal applicability of global principles. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91) | |
A reaction: I am all in favour of elaborating ontology in the name of best explanation. There seem, though, to be some remaining ontological questions at the point where the explanations of essentialism run out. |
6612 | Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis] |
Full Idea: It is objected to dispositionalism that without the principle of least action, or some general principle of equal power, the specific dispositional properties of things could tell us very little about how these things would be disposed to behave. | |
From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 90) | |
A reaction: Ellis attempts to meet this criticism, by placing dispositional properties within a hierarchy of broader properties. There remains a nagging doubt about how essentialism can account for space, time, order, and the existence of essences. |
6609 | With respect to religion, reason is a blind whore [Luther] |
Full Idea: With respect to the mysteries of the Christian religion, reason is a blind whore. | |
From: Martin Luther (talk [1525]), quoted by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason n4.2 | |
A reaction: Reason is presumably a blind whore with respect to all impenetrable mysteries. Since the reason of Aquinas endorsed the mysteries of Christianity, the remark seems a bit strong, but it is appropriate if you think that only faith (in Christianity) matters. |