7 ideas
| 11993 | Jones may cease to exist without some simple property, but that doesn't make it essential [Kung] |
| Full Idea: If Jones ceases to be a father, or ceases to be over eight years old, he will cease to exist, yet these properties surely do not belong essentially to him. | |
| From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
| A reaction: This seems to correct, though I would doubt whether either of these count as true properties, in the causal sense I prefer. If being 'over 8' is a property, how many 'over n' or 'under m' properties does he have? One for each quantum moment? |
| 11997 | A property may belong essentially to one thing and contingently to another [Kung] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that a property may belong essentially to one thing and contingently to another. | |
| From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], III) | |
| A reaction: Thus a love of blues music may be part of your essence, but only a minor part of me. Sounds right. Spin or charge are part of the essence of an electron, but only contingently part of a child's top. |
| 11992 | Aristotelian essences underlie a thing's existence, explain it, and must belong to it [Kung] |
| Full Idea: Three essentialist claims are labelled 'Aristotelian': the thing would cease to exist without the property; an essential property is explanatory; and it is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs. | |
| From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], Intro) | |
| A reaction: She says the second one is indispensable, and that it rules out the third one. My working assumption, like hers, is that the second one is the key part of the game, because Aristotle wanted to explain things. |
| 12191 | Counterfactuals are true if logical or natural laws imply the consequence [Goodman, by McFetridge] |
| Full Idea: Goodman's central idea was: 'If that match had been scratched, it would have lighted' is true if there are suitable truths from which, with the antecedent, the consequent can be inferred by means of a logical, or more typically natural, law. | |
| From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Problem of Counterfactual Conditionals [1947]) by Ian McFetridge - Logical Necessity: Some Issues §4 | |
| A reaction: Goodman then discusses the problem of identifying the natural laws, and identifying the suitable truths. I'm inclined to think counterfactuals are vaguer than that; they are plausible if coherent reasons can be offered for the inference. |
| 7628 | Broad rejects the inferential component of the representative theory [Broad, by Maund] |
| Full Idea: Broad, one of the most important modern defenders of the representative theory of perception, explicitly rejects the inferential component of the theory. | |
| From: report of C.D. Broad (Mind and Its Place in Nature [1925]) by Barry Maund - Perception Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: Since the supposed inferences happen much too quickly to be conscious, it is hard to see how we could distinguish an inference from an interpretation mechanism. Personally I interpret things long before the question of truth arises. |
| 11995 | Some peripheral properties are explained by essential ones, but don't themselves explain properties [Kung] |
| Full Idea: There will be demonstrated properties at the edge of the system, so to speak. They will be explained in terms of the essential properties of the basic entities and principles of the science, but will themselves not be explanatory of further properties. | |
| From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
| A reaction: This is an important line of thought which needs clarification. We can't glibly say that essences are what explain the other properties. Some properties do more than others to explain subsequent dependent properties. |
| 11996 | Some non-essential properties may explain more than essential-but-peripheral ones do [Kung] |
| Full Idea: It seems highly likely that some non-essential properties may explain more about the individual or about things of his kind than the peripheral properties. | |
| From: Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II) | |
| A reaction: Another important issue, if one is defending the explanatory role of essences. It is not only essences which explain. A key question is whether we endorse individual essences as well as generic ones. I think we should. They explain the details. |