47 ideas
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics. |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Truth is a relation between two things - a representation (the truth 'bearer') and the world or some part of it (the 'truthmaker'). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: That truth is about representations seems to me to be exactly right. That it is about truthmakers is more controversial. There are well known problems with negative truths, general truths, future truths etc. I'm happy with 'facts'. |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take properties to have a dual nature; in virtue of possessing a property, an object possesses both a particular dispositionality and a particular qualitative character. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: That leaves you with the question of the relationship between the disposition and the quality. I say you must choose, and I choose the disposition. Qualities (which are partly subjective, obviously) arise from fundamental dispositions. |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: If objects belong to classes in virtue of resemblances they bear to one another, they resemble one another in virtue of their properties. Objects resemble in some way or respect, and you could think of these ways or respects as 'properties'. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: If you pare the universe down to one object with five distinct properties, they resemble nothing, and fail this definition. Resemblance seems like the epistemology, not the ontology. |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The redness or sphericity of this tomato cannot migrate to another tomato. This is a consequence of the idea that properties are particular ways things are. The identity of a property is bound up with the identity of its possessor. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: This is part of his declaration that he believes in tropes. At the very least, properties can be thought of separately, and have second-order properties that don't seem tied to the particulars. |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The bundle theory for tropes treats properties inappositely as parts of objects. Objects can have parts, but an object's properties are not its parts, they are particular ways the object is. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: The 'way an object is' seems a very vague concept. Most things that get labelled as tropes are actually highly complex. Without mention of causal powers I think these discussions drift in a muddle. |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: A property that is intrinsically incapable of affecting or being affected by anything else, actual or possible, is not merely a case of inertness - it amounts to a no-thing. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin rejects Shoemaker's purely causal account of properties, but he clearly understands Shoemaker's point well. |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Given a realist view of dispositions as fully actual, even without manifestations or partners, a purely dispositional account of properties has a degree of plausibility, which is enhanced because properties lack purely qualitative characterisations. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin opts for a mixed account, as in Idea 15484, but he gives reasons here for the view which I favour. If he concedes that dispositions may exist without manifestation, they must surely lack qualities. Are they not properties, then? |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Each property endows a ball with a distinctive qualitative character and a distinctive range of powers or dispositionalities. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. Do properties support powers, or powers support properties? I favour the latter. Properties are much vaguer than powers. Powers generate the required causation and activity. |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: For any intrinsic and irreducible property, what is qualitative and what is dispositional are one and the same property considered as what that property exhibits of its nature and what that property is directive and selective for in its manifestation. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: This is supposed to support qualities and dispositions as equal partners, but I don't see how 'what a property exhibits' can have any role in fundamental ontology. What it exhibits may be very misleading about its nature. |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Three forms of dispositionality are illustrated by explosives (which are destroyed by manifestation), being soluble (where the dispositions is lost but recoverable), and being stable (where the disposition is unchanged). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.7) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Presumably the explosives could be recovered after the explosion, since the original elements are still there, but it would take a while. The retina remains stable by continually changing. There are no simple distinctions! |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Nobody believes, or ought to believe, that manifestations of powers follow upon the single event mentioned in the antecedent of the conditional independently of the circumstances. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: Another way of putting it would be that the behaviour of powers is more ceteris paribus than law. |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: According to the conditional analysis of 'the wire is live', if the wire is touched then it gives off electricity. What ultimately defeats this analysis is the acknowledged possibility of objects gaining or losing powers. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: He offers his 'electro-fink' as a counterexample, where touching the wire changes its disposition. The conditional analysis is simple and clearcut, but dispositions in reality are complex and unstable. |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take it as obvious that any structural property involves dispositionality and, therefore, cannot be used to 'explain' dispositionality. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the right way round. The so-called 'categorical' properties seem to be close in nature to the 'structural' properties. |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It is self-defeating to try to explain dispositionality in terms of structural states because structural states are themselves dispositional. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: No doubt structures have dispositions, but are they entirely dispositional? Might there be 'emergent' dispositions which can only be explained by the structure itself, rather than by the dispositions that make up the structure? |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I favour the old idea of substratum: the haver of properties not itself had as a property. Space-time might itself be the bearer of properties, not itself borne as a property. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: A very nice idea. The choice is between saying either that fundamentals like space-time and physical fields are the propertyless bearers of properties, or that they purely consist of properties (so properties are fundamental, not substrata). |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: There is no causal work for the whole that is not done by the parts, provided the complex role of the parts is fully appreciated. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.1) | |
| A reaction: It seems like a truth that because some parts are doing particular causal work (e.g. glue), the whole can acquire causal powers that the mereological sum of parts lacks. |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (as nonspatiotemporal) seem to be the only candidates for specific and full identity specifications. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.2 n1) | |
| A reaction: Martin says that only the 'mad logician' seeks such specifications elsewhere. Some people like persons to have perfect identity. God is a popular candidate too. Can objects have perfect 'macroscopic' identity? |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: We must avoid a use of 'identity' that implies that any entity over time must be said to lack continuing identity simply because it has changed properties or has lost, added, or had substituted some parts. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: This may the key area where the logical-mathematical type of philosophy comes into contact with the natural-metaphysical type. Imagine Martin's concept of 'identity' in mathematics. π changes to 3.1387... during the calculation! |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: To claim that the truthmaker for a counterfactual, for example, is a set of possible worlds, but to deny that these worlds really exist, seems pointless. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Lewis therefore argues that they do exist. Martin argues that possible worlds are not truthmakers. He rests his account of modality on dispositions. I prefer Martin. |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can rule out the 'real' explanation, as the one dominant causal predecessor, such as the earthquake producing a tsunami. |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The long-derided way of analogy works! Otherwise why, when someone else is relishing a food we have not tried, is it reasonable for us to try it ourselves? | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 12.2) | |
| A reaction: Why wouldn't we rush to eat something an animal was relishing? Nice idea. |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Selectivity and abstraction are required for the development of memory, because reminders and promptings are rarely replicas of what is being remembered. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: I take the key idea of mental life to be that of a 'label'. This need not be verbal, so 'conceptual label'. It could be an image, as on a road sign. Labelling is the most indispensable aspect of thought. We label objects, parts, properties and groups. |
| 3102 | Why don't we experience or remember going to sleep at night? [Magee] |
| Full Idea: As a child it was incomprehensible to me that I did not experience going to sleep, and never remembered it. When my sister said 'Nobody remembers that', I just thought 'How does she know?' | |
| From: Bryan Magee (Confessions of a Philosopher [1997], Ch.I) | |
| A reaction: This is actually evidence for something - that we do not have some sort of personal identity which is separate from consciousness, so that "I am conscious" would literally mean that an item has a property, which it can lose. |
| 23154 | We divide mankind into friend and foe, and cooperate with one and compete with the other [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Instinctively we divide mankind into friends and foes - friends, towards whom we have a morality of co-operation; foes, towards whom we have that of competition. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, because I have though of cooperation and competition as intrinsic features of people, internal to their nature, but this idea observes that it is more external, as two responses to two sharply distinct aspects of experience. |
| 23153 | Gradually loyalty to a creed increased, which could even outweigh nationality [Russell] |
| Full Idea: At a later stage in the development of civilization, a new kind of loyalty began to be developed, based on identity of creed. …Its military strength was displayed in Islam …and later loyalities of Catholics or Protestants could outweigh nationality. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The only examples of creed loyalty that come to mind are religious. With increased migration in the modern world the phenomenon of divided loyalties has grown. Can a political theory cope with divided loyalties? |
| 23152 | Increasingly war expands communities, and unifies them through fear [Russell] |
| Full Idea: From early days down to modern times war has been the chief engine in enlarging the size of communities, and fear has increasingly replaced tribal solidarity as a source of social cohesion. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: It is a feature of modern nationalism to try to generate fear of various outsiders, even in times of peace. Most of us despise such things, but the underlying desire for greater national unity is not unworthy. What enemies would a world state have? |
| 23155 | In early societies the leaders needed cohesion, but the rest just had to obey [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In historical societies such as ancient Egypt only a minority at the top of the social scale - the king, the aristocracy and the priests - needed any psychological mechanism towards social cohesion; all the rest merely obeyed. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is why even now I take obedience to be a key right-wing virtue, though it is usually reinforced through national myths and distorted proganda. Quasi-worship of the leader also seems to be a major ingredient. Obedience unifies armies. |
| 23156 | The economic and political advantages of great size seem to have no upper limit [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Short of the whole planet there is no visible limit to the advantages of size, both in economic and in political organisation. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: Obviously there are also disadvantages, such as the vast distances, and the alienation of people far from the centre. I take economies of scale to be one of the advantages of socialist nationalisations. |
| 23157 | Government has a negative purpose, to prevent trouble, and a positive aim of realising our desires [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Government has a negative function, to prevent private violence, to protect life and property, to enact criminal law and secure its enforcement. It also has a positive purpose, to facilitate the realisation of desires common to most of the citizens. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 2) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Interesting because the second purpose is rarely cited. Governments improve communications, facilitate trade, and encourage health and education services, which we all want. |
| 23151 | A monarch is known to everyone in the group, and can thus unite large groups [Russell] |
| Full Idea: At a very early stage loyalty to a group must have been reinforced by loyalty to a leader. In a large tribe the king or chief may be known the everybody even when individuals are strangers. This makes possible increase in the size of the group. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 1) | |
| A reaction: In this way humanity could move from hunter-gatherer groups to tribes or clans. In the UK even people who couldn't name the current Prime Minister are all fully aware of the monarch. In this way a merely constitutional monarch makes sense, |
| 23167 | Power should be with smaller bodies, as long as it doesn't restrict central powers [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The general principle of delimiting powers should be to leave to smaller bodies all functions which do not prevent larger bodies from fulfilling their purpose. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: In recent years in the UK smaller local bodies have been severely reduced in power by central government. This is nominally in favour of individuals, but in practice seems to have strengthened the centre. Russell was keen on devolving powers. |
| 23163 | In an anarchy universities, research, books, and even seaside holidays, would be impossible [Russell] |
| Full Idea: It is obvious that in a state of anarchy there could not be universities or scientific research or publication of books, or even such simple things as seaside holidays. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: A seaside holiday seems possible, though it obviously needs means of publicity, and of transport. Why is a private university impossible? The general thought seems to be that anything very complex would be impossible. Maybe. |
| 23168 | A state is essential, to control greedy or predatory impulses [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The control of greedy or predatory impulses is imperatively necessary, and therefore States …are needed for survival. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: The anarchist replies that the corruption of this benevolent state is precisely the problem they are trying to avoid. Perhaps the emphasis should be on the rule of law, rather than on people holding centralised power. |
| 23166 | In democracy we are more aware of being governed than of our tiny share in government [Russell] |
| Full Idea: In a democracy you have a 20 millionth share in the government of others, but only a 20 millionth share in the government of yourself. You are therefore much more conscious of being governed than of governing. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Add to that the fact that your share in governing others only occurs at election time. In between we are powerless spectators, but we are still governed. |
| 23162 | Managers are just as remote from workers under nationalisation as under capitalism [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Nationalisation leaves managers and officials almost as remote from the workers as they are under a capitalist regime. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Russell's solution is workplace democracy. Presumably that could be imposed on a nationalised industry much more easily than on a profit-driven private capitalist industry. |
| 23165 | Socialists say economic justice needs some state control of industries, and of foreign trade [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Economic justice is held by Socialists (rightly, in my opinion) to involve state ownership of key industries and considerable regulation of foreign trade. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: This must be to obtain greater control over the profits of industry, and also to prevent trade become too exploitative of weaker foreign nations. Britain had a socialist government when this book was written. |
| 23160 | Being a slave of society is hardly better than being a slave of a despot [Russell] |
| Full Idea: A society in which each is the slave of all is only a little better than one in which each is the slave of a despot. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: This seems to apply quite accurately to the position of those state employees who have the lowest status and wages. Society as a whole exploits them, so it is hard to point the finger at their oppressors. |
| 23158 | Slavery began the divorce between the work and the purposes of the worker [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The introduction of slavery began the divorce between the purpose of the work and the purposes of the worker. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Worth saying, because marxists tend to blame more recent capitalism for creating this problem (of 'alienation'). There are many degrees of slavery. |
| 23161 | Slaves can be just as equal as free people [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is equality where all are slaves, as well as where all are free. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: A nice observation, though a person is only a slave if someone controls them, so it is not strictly true. |
| 23159 | Scarce goods may be denied entirely, to avoid their unequal distribution [Russell] |
| Full Idea: There is a risk that, in the pursuit of equality, good things which there is difficulty in distributing evenly may not be admitted to be good. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 4) | |
| A reaction: Lovely sentence. The clarity and economy with which he expresses an intricate idea. Why can't you philosophers all write like that? This is not just the unequal distribution of scarce goods, but a subtler problem. The finest wines, for example. |
| 23164 | Modern justice is seen as equality, apart from modest extra rewards for exceptional desert [Russell] |
| Full Idea: Justice has come to be interpreted as equality, except where exceptional merit is thought to deserve an exceptional but still moderate reward. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (Authority and the Individual [1949], 5) | |
| A reaction: Kekes rebels against this modern distortion of justice, which traditionally means everyone getting what they deserve - good or bad. The modern egalitarian view seems to be a rebellion against the harsh interpretation of the older view. |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The two-event cause-and-effect view is easily avoided and replaced by the view of mutual manifestations of reciprocal disposition partners, suggesting a natural contemporaneity. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: This view, which I find much more congenial than the traditional one, is explored in the ideas of Mumford and Anjum. |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Disposition and manifestation are the basic categories by means of which cause and effect are to be explained. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 07.8) | |
| A reaction: 'Manifestation' sounds a bit subjective. The manifestation evident to us may not indicate what is really going on below the surface. I like his basic picture. |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: 'Causal' counterfactuals have a place, of course, but only as clumsy and inexact linguistic gestures to dispositions, and they should be kept in that place. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: Counterfactuals only seem to give a regularity account of causation, by correlating an effect with a minimal context which will give rise to it. Surely dispositions run deeper than that? |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Causal laws are summaries of what entities are capable and incapable of. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.8) | |
| A reaction: That's a pretty good formulation. Personally I favour a Humean analysis, perhaps along Lewis's lines, but on a basis of real powers. This remark of Martin's has got me rethinking. |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It makes no sense in ontology or modern physics to think of space-time as empty and propertyless. Space-time nicely fulfils the condition of a substratum. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: At the very least, space-time seems to be 'curved', so it had better be something. Time has properties like being transitive. Space-time (or fields) might be a pure bundle of properties (the only pure bundle?), rather than a substratum. |