13737
|
The empiricist says that metaphysics is meaningless, rather than false [Schlick]
|
|
Full Idea:
The empiricist does not say to the metaphysician 'what you say is false', but 'what you say asserts nothing at all!' He does not contradict him, but says 'I don't understand you'.
|
|
From:
Moritz Schlick (Positivism and Realism [1934], p.107), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - On What Grounds What 1.1
|
|
A reaction:
I take metaphysics to be meaningful, but at such a high level of abstraction that it is easy to drift into vague nonsense, and incredibly hard to assess what is meant, and whether it is correct. The truths of metaphysics are not recursive.
|
5506
|
If soul was like body, its parts would be separate, without communication [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
If the soul had the nature of the body, it would have isolated members each unaware of the condition of the other;..there would be a particular soul as a distinct entity to each local experience, so a multiplicity of souls would administer an individual.
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 4.2.2), quoted by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.15
|
|
A reaction:
Of course, the modern 'modularity of mind' theory does suggest that we are run by a team, but a central co-ordinator is required, with a full communication network across the modules.
|
21809
|
Our soul has the same ideal nature as the oldest god, and is honourable above the body [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
Our own soul is of that same ideal nature [as the oldest god of them all], so that to consider it, purified, freed from all accruement, is to recognise in ourselves which we have found soul to be, honourable above the body. For what is body but earth?
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.02)
|
|
A reaction:
The strongest versions of substance dualism are religious in character, because the separateness of the mind elevates us above the grubby physical character of the world. I'm with Nietzsche on this one - this view is actually harmful to us.
|
21825
|
The soul is outside of all of space, and has no connection to the bodily order [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
We may not seek any point in space in which to seat the soul; it must be set outside of all space; its distinct quality, its separateness, its immateriality, demand that it be a thing alone, untouched by all of the bodily order.
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.10)
|
|
A reaction:
You can't get more dualist than that. He doesn't seem bothered about the interaction problem. He likens such influence to the radiation of the sun, rather than to physical movement.
|
21815
|
Because the One is immobile, it must create by radiation, light the sun producing light [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
Given this immobility of the Supreme ...what happened then? It must be a circumradiation, which may be compared to the brilliant light encircling the sun and ceaselessly generating from that unchanging substance,
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.06)
|
|
A reaction:
This is the answer given to the problem raised in Idea 21814. The sun produces energy, without apparent movement. Not an answer that will satisfy a physicist, but an interesting answer.
|
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.
|
21808
|
Soul is author of all of life, and of the stars, and it gives them law and movement [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
Soul is the author of all living things, ...it has breathed life into them all, whatever is nourished by earth and sea, the divine stars in the sky; ...it is the principle distinct from all of these to which it gives law and movement and life.
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.02)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to derive from Anaxagoras, who is mentioned by Plotinus. The soul he refers to his not the same as our concept of God. Note the word 'law', which I am guessing is nomos. Not, I think, modern laws of nature, but closer to guidelines.
|
21811
|
Even the soul is secondary to the Intellectual-Principle [Nous], of which soul is an utterance [Plotinus]
|
|
Full Idea:
Soul, for all the worth we have shown to belong to it, is yet a secondary, an image of the Intellectual-Principle [Nous]; reason uttered is an image of reason stored within the soul, and similarly soul is an utterance of the Intellectual-Principle.
|
|
From:
Plotinus (The Enneads [c.245], 5.1.03)
|
|
A reaction:
It then turns out that Nous is secondary to the One, so there is a hierarchy of Being (which only enters at the Nous stage).
|