Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Katzav on limitations of dispositions', 'At the Existentialist Caf' and 'Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

8 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology

21238	Later phenomenologists tried hard to incorporate social relationships [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Ever since Husserl, phenomenologists and existentialists had been trying to stretch the definition of existence to incorporate our social lives and relationships.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 08)
	A reaction: I see a parallel move in Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. Husserl's later work seems to have been along those lines. Putnam's Twin Earth too.

21237	Phenomenology begins from the immediate, rather than from axioms and theories [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Traditional philosophy often started with abstract axioms or theories, but the German phenomenologists went straight for life as they experienced it, moment to moment.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 01)
	A reaction: Bakewell gives this as the gist of what Aron said to Sartre in 1933, providing the bridge from phenomenology to existentialism. The obvious thought is that everybody outside philosophy starts from immediate experience, so why is this philosophy?

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism

14963	Surely the past phases of a thing are not parts of the thing? [Broad]
	Full Idea: It is plainly contrary to common sense to say that the phases in the history of a thing are parts of the thing.
	From: C.D. Broad (Examination of McTaggart's Philosophy [1933], I.349-50), quoted by Richard Cartwright - Scattered Objects n18
	A reaction: Nicely expressed! To suggest that me ten years ago is a mere part of some huge me, or that you are only talking to a part of me now, is a very long way indeed from normal usage.

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds

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.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws

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.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism

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.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws

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.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / d. Knowing essences

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.