45 ideas
| 2666 | Carneades' pinnacles of philosophy are the basis of knowledge (the criterion of truth) and the end of appetite (good) [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Carneades said the two greatest things in philosophy were the criterion of truth and the end of goods, and no man could be a sage who was ignorant of the existence of either a beginning of the process of knowledge or an end of appetition. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.09.29 | |
| A reaction: Nice, but I would want to emphasise the distinction between truth and its criterion. Admittedly we would have no truth without a good criterion, but the truth itself should be held in higher esteem than our miserable human means of grasping it. |
| 14721 | Metaphysical enquiry can survive if its conclusions are tentative [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical enquiry can survive if we are willing to live with highly tentative conclusions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Nothing alienates the rather literal scientific sort of mind quicker that bold, dogmatic and even arrogant assertions about metaphysics. But to entirely close down metaphysical speculation for that reason is absurd. |
| 19463 | Induction assumes some uniformity in nature, or that in some respects the future is like the past [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: In all inductive reasoning we make the assumption that there is a measure of uniformity in nature; or, roughly speaking, that the future will, in the appropriate respects, resemble the past. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii) | |
| A reaction: I would say that nature is 'stable'. Nature changes, so a global assumption of total uniformity is daft. Do we need some global uniformity assumptions, if the induction involved is local? I would say yes. Are all inductions conditional on this? |
| 21390 | Future events are true if one day we will say 'this event is happening now' [Carneades] |
| Full Idea: We call those past events true of which at an earlier time this proposition was true: 'They are present now'; similarly, we shall call those future events true of which at some future time this proposition will be true: 'They are present now'. | |
| From: Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8 | |
| A reaction: This is a very nice way of paraphrasing statements about the necessity of true future contingent events. It still relies, of course, on the veracity of a tensed assertion |
| 21672 | We say future things are true that will possess actuality at some following time [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Just as we speak of past things as true that possessed true actuality at some former time, so we speak of future things as true that will possess true actuality at some following time. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 11.27 | |
| A reaction: This ducks the Aristotle problem of where it is true NOW when you say there will be a sea-fight tomorrow, and it turns out to be true. Carneades seems to be affirming a truth when it does not yet have a truthmaker. |
| 14760 | Four-dimensionalism sees things and processes as belonging in the same category [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalism does not respect a deep difference between thing-talk and process-talk, because it tends to place events and things in the same ontological category. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: He then quotes Broad, Idea 14759. This idea is the best reason yet for being sympathetic to the four-dimensionalist view, because I think processes really must have a central place in any decent ontology. |
| 14194 | Proper ontology should only use categorical (actual) properties, not hypothetical ones [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A proper ontology should invoke only categorical, or occurrent, properties and relations. Categorical properties involve what objects are actually like, whereas hypothetical properties 'point beyond' their instances. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This spectacularly leaves out powers and dispositions, which are actual properties which 'point beyond' their instances! This is the nub of the powers debate, and the most interesting topic in modern metaphysics. |
| 14745 | If sortal terms fix the kind and the persistence conditions, we need to know what kinds there are [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Followers of the view that every entity is associated with some sortal term that answers the question 'what kind of thing is this?', and determines its persistence conditions, must answer the question what kinds of entity there are. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: [He explicitly refers to David Wiggins here] In other words Wiggins has got it the wrong way round, which is my own view of his theory. Sortal terms don't grow on the trees in the Garden of Eden, available for applications. |
| 14740 | If Tib is all of Tibbles bar her tail, when Tibbles loses her tail, two different things become one [Sider] |
| Full Idea: This powerful puzzle (known to the Stoics, introduced by Geach, popularised by Wiggins) has a cat Tibbles and a proper part Tib, which is all of Tibbles except the tail. If Tibbles loses her tail, the two were distinct, but they now coincide. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Compare a few people leave a football ground, and what was a large part of the crowd becomes the whole of the crowd. Which suggests that there is no problem if cats are like crowds. But we don't like that view of cats. |
| 14752 | Artists 'create' statues because they are essentially statues, and so lack identity with the lump of clay [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Presumably it is claimed that the artist 'created' the statue because the object created is essentially a statue, and thus cannot be identified with the unformed lump of clay with which the artist began. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001]) | |
| A reaction: This is based on Burke's views. This is sortal essentialism, rather than my own view of essence as an inner explanatory mechanism or form. If an old abstract sculpture was no longer recognised as a statue, would it necessarily still be a statue? |
| 14743 | The stage view of objects is best for dealing with coincident entities [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There are numerous cases in which there is pressure to admit coincident entities. The best way of coming to grips with this, I think, invokes the stage view. ...In the worm theory, coincident objects are no more mysterious than overlapping roads. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: At this point I get nervous if in order to 'get to grips' with a phenomenon which is hard to articulate but obvious to common sense, we have to invoke a rather startling metaphysics that completely upends the common sense we started with. |
| 14747 | 'Composition as identity' says that an object just is the objects which compose it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Composition as identity' says that when a thing, x, is composed of some other objects, the ys, then this is a kind of identity between the x and the ys. The industrial-strength version says object x just is the ys. Lewis says it is just an analogy. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: I am averse to such a doctrine, as is Leibniz, with his insistence that an aggregate is not a unity. There has to be some sort of principle that bestows oneness on a many. I take this to be structural, and is an elucidation of hylomorphism. |
| 14757 | Mereological essentialism says an object's parts are necessary for its existence [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Mereological essentialism says that an object's parts are necessary for its existence. ....It is literally never correct to say that an thing survives a change in its parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.7) | |
| A reaction: Chisholm is well known for proposing this view. Sider adds a possible toughening clause, that the parts are also sufficient for the object's existence. This is a philosophers' notion of identity, not the normal English language concept. |
| 14727 | Three-dimensionalists assert 'enduring', being wholly present at each moment, and deny 'temporal parts' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Three-dimensionalists say that things have no 'temporal parts', that they 'endure', and that they are wholly present at every moment of their careers. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: An obvious problem case for being wholly present would be the building and fitting of a large ship, where it might seem to be present before it was wholly present. |
| 14738 | Some might say that its inconsistency with time travel is a reason to favour three-dimensionalism [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Some might even regard inconsistency with time travel as an advantage of three-dimensionalism, as a vindication of a prior belief that time travel is impossible! I see no merit in these claims. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: I do! Sider cheerfully says that there are good reasons to believe that time travel is possible, and then use this possibility to support his four-dimensional view, but I personally doubt his assumption. The evidence for time travel is flimsy and obscure. |
| 14726 | Four-dimensionalists assert 'temporal parts', 'perduring', and being spread out over time [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalists say that things have 'temporal parts', that they 'perdure', and that they are spread out over time. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3) |
| 14728 | 4D says intrinsic change is difference between successive parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: For four-dimensionalists intrinsic change is difference between successive temporal parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This attempts a reply to the commonest criticism of four-dimensionalism - that you can't explain change if you don't have one enduring thing which undergoes the change. I get stuck of the question 'how big (temporally) is a part?'. |
| 14729 | 4D says each spatiotemporal object must have a temporal part at every moment at which it exists [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Four-dimensionalism may be formulated as the claim that, necessarily, each spatiotemporal object has a temporal part at every moment at which it exists. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: If there were tiny quantum gaps between temporal parts, that would presumably ruin the story. On this view an object has to be a 'worm', to be the thing which has the parts. |
| 14730 | Temporal parts exist, but are not prior building blocks for objects [Sider] |
| Full Idea: My four-dimensionalism implies the existence of temporal parts, but not that those parts are more fundamental, nor that the object is 'constructed' from its parts, nor that identity over time is reducible to parts. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: That's a rather negative account of temporal parts, which makes you ask what their positive role could be. Do they contribute anything to our understanding of a temporally extended object? |
| 14731 | Temporal parts are instantaneous [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Unless otherwise noted, I will think of temporal parts as being instantaneous. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: This comes up against all the Augustinian worries about the intrinsic nature of time. How many temporal parts does a typical object possess? Is a third temporal part always to be found between any two of them? How do they 'connect'? |
| 14758 | How can an instantaneous stage believe anything, if beliefs take time? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: How can an instantaneous stage believe anything? Beliefs take time. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.8) | |
| A reaction: Sider's four-dimensionalist answer is that the belief is embodied in the earlier counterparts, making belief a 'highly relational property'. I am not impressed by this answer to the very nice problem which he has raised. It's a problem for 3D, too. |
| 14762 | Four-dimensionalism says temporal parts are caused (through laws of motion) by previous temporal parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The sensible four-dimensionalist will claim that current temporal parts are caused to exist by previous temporal parts. The laws that govern this process are none other than the familiar laws of motion. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: I keep struggling with the instantaneous natural of temporal parts, and now I find that they have to do the job of being causal relata. When do they do their job? They've gone home before they've finished clocking in. Continuance requires motion? |
| 14741 | The ship undergoes 'asymmetric' fission, where one candidate is seen as stronger [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Ship of Theseus seems to be a case of 'asymmetric' fission (where one resultant entity has a stronger claim). Many see the continuously rebuilt ship as the stronger candidate, but each candidate, without the other, would be the original ship. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.1) |
| 15825 | Carneades denied the transitivity of identity [Carneades, by Chisholm] |
| Full Idea: Carneades denied the principle of the transitivity of identity. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE], fr 41-42) by Roderick Chisholm - Person and Object 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Chisholm calls this 'extreme', but I assume Carneades wouldn't deny the principle in mathematics. I'm guessing that he just means that nothing ever stays quite the same. |
| 14754 | If you say Leibniz's Law doesn't apply to 'timebound' properties, you are no longer discussing identity [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If someone is in pain at t1 and not at t2, we might restrict Leibniz's Law so as not to apply to 'timebound' properties, ..but this is deeply unsatisfying, ...and forfeits one's claim to be discussing identity. The demands of identity are high. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: [on Myro 1986] Sider's response is unsatisfying. It means a thing loses its identity (with itself?) if it has even a tiny fluctuating in its properties. Quantum changes then destroy all notions of identity. English-speakers don't use 'identity' like that. |
| 21389 | Carneades distinguished logical from causal necessity, when talking of future events [Long on Carneades] |
| Full Idea: From 'E will take place is true' it follows that E must take place. But 'must' here is logical not causal necessity. It is a considerable achievement of Carneades to have distinguished these two senses of necessity. | |
| From: comment on Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 3 | |
| A reaction: Personally I am inclined to think 'necessity' is univocal, and does not have two senses. What Carneades has nicely done is distinguish the two different grounds for the necessities. |
| 14763 | Counterparts rest on similarity, so there are many such relations in different contexts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: A counterpart relation is a similarity relation. Since there are different dimensions of similarity, there are different counterpart relations. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 6.4) |
| 19461 | Knowing I exist reveals nothing at all about my nature [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: To know that one exists is not to know anything about oneself any more than knowing that 'this' exists is knowing anything about 'this'. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii) | |
| A reaction: Descartes proceeds to define himself as a 'thinking thing', inferring that thinking is his essence. Ayer casts nice doubt on that. |
| 19459 | To say 'I am not thinking' must be false, but it might have been true, so it isn't self-contradictory [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: To say 'I am not thinking' is self-stultifying since if it is said intelligently it must be false: but it is not self-contradictory. The proof that it is not self-contradictory is that it might have been false. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii) | |
| A reaction: If it doesn't imply a contradiction, then it is not a necessary truth, which is what it is normally taken to be. Is 'This is a sentence' necessarily true? It might not have been one, if the rules of English syntax changed recently. |
| 19460 | 'I know I exist' has no counterevidence, so it may be meaningless [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: If there is no experience at all of finding out that one is not conscious, or that one does not exist, ..it is tempting to say that sentences like 'I exist', 'I am conscious', 'I know that I exist' do not express genuine propositions. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.iii) | |
| A reaction: This is, of course, an application of the somewhat discredited verification principle, but the fact that strictly speaking the principle has been sort of refuted does not mean that we should not take it seriously, and be influenced by it. |
| 19464 | We only discard a hypothesis after one failure if it appears likely to keep on failing [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Why should a hypothesis which has failed the test be discarded unless this shows it to be unreliable; that is, having failed once it is likely to fail again? There is no contradiction in a hypothesis that was falsified being more likely to pass in future. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii) | |
| A reaction: People may become more likely to pass a test after they have failed at the first attempt. Birds which fail to fly at the first attempt usually achieve total mastery of it. There are different types of hypothesis here. |
| 19462 | Induction passes from particular facts to other particulars, or to general laws, non-deductively [Ayer] |
| Full Idea: Inductive reasoning covers all cases in which we pass from a particular statement of fact, or set of them, to a factual conclusion which they do not formally entail. The inference may be to a general law, or by analogy to another particular instance. | |
| From: A.J. Ayer (The Problem of Knowledge [1956], 2.viii) | |
| A reaction: My preferred definition is 'learning from experience' - which I take to be the most rational behaviour you could possibly imagine. I don't think a definition should be couched in terms of 'objects' or 'particulars'. |
| 21671 | Voluntary motion is intrinsically within our power, and this power is its cause [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Voluntary motion possesses the intrinsic property of being in our power and of obeying us, and its obedience is not uncaused, for its nature is itself the cause of this. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 11.25 | |
| A reaction: To say that actions arise from our 'intrinsic power' is not much of an explanation, but it is still informative - that you should study the intrinsic powers of humans if you want to explain it. |
| 21391 | Some actions are within our power; determinism needs prior causes for everything - so it is false [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Now something is in our power; but if everything happens as a result of destiny all things happen as a result of antecedent causes; therefore what happens does not happen as a result of destiny. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 14.31 | |
| A reaction: This invites the question of whether some things really are 'in our power'. Carneades (as expressed by Cicero) takes that for granted. Our 'power' may be antecedent causes in disguise. |
| 21674 | Even Apollo can only foretell the future when it is naturally necessary [Carneades, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Carneades used to say that not even Apollo could tell any future events except those whose causes were so held together that they must necessarily happen. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 14.32 | |
| A reaction: Carneades is opposing the usual belief in divination, where even priests can foretell contingent future events to some extent. Careneades, of course, was defending free will. |
| 7398 | Carneades said that after a shipwreck a wise man would seize the only plank by force [Carneades, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Carneades argued forcefully that in the event of a shipwreck, the wise man would be prepared to seize the only plank capable of bearing him to shore, even if that meant pushing another person off it. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: [source for this?] This thought seems to have provoked great discussion in the sixteenth century (mostly sympathetic). I can't help thinking the right answer depends on assessing your rival. Die for a hero, drown a nasty fool. |
| 21392 | People change laws for advantage; either there is no justice, or it is a form of self-injury [Carneades, by Lactantius] |
| Full Idea: The same people often changed laws according to circumstances; there is no natural law. There is no such thing as justice or, if there is, it is the height of folly, since a man injures himself in taking thought for the advantage of others. | |
| From: report of Carneades (fragments/reports [c.174 BCE]) by Lactantius - Institutiones Divinae 5.16.4 | |
| A reaction: [An argument used by Carneades on his notorious 156BCE visit to Rome, where he argued both for and against justice] This is probably the right wing view of justice. Why give other people what they want, if it is at our expense? |
| 14725 | Maybe motion is a dynamical quantity intrinsic to a thing at a particular time [Sider] |
| Full Idea: There is an alternative to the Russellian 'at-at' theory of motion, according to which dynamical quantities are intrinsic to times. Whether and how an object is moving at a time is a fact about what that object is like then. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: I think I find this quite appealing, because there is too much of a tendency to think of objects as passive and inert, with laws, forces, motions etc. imposed from the outside. But nature is active and dynamic. However, motion can't be wholly intrinsic. |
| 14735 | Space is 3D and lacks a direction; time seems connected to causation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Unlike time, space has three dimensions and lacks a distinguishing direction; unlike space, time seems to be specially connected with causation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: These strike me as nice reasons to doubt (what I already prima facie doubt) that there is a single manifold that is 'space-time', for all that twentieth century physics tells us it is so. A century is a mere click of a clock where truth is concerned. |
| 14722 | Between presentism and eternalism is the 'growing block' view - the past is real, the future is not [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Intermediate between the polar opposites of presentism and eternalism is the view (defended by Broad 1923 and Tooley 1997) that the past is real but the future is not. Reality consists of a growing four-dimensional manifold, the 'growing block universe'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: The obvious and plausible basis for this is that statements about the past seem to have truthmakers, but statements about the future lack them. Does a truth always require ontological commitment? Death is cessation of existence. |
| 14756 | For Presentists there must always be a temporal vantage point for any description [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The Presentist acknowledges that no atemporal description of the case can be given; a vantage point must be chosen for any description. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: This is because Presentists are committed to tense, which have to be either explicit or implicit in any sentence. But what of famously 'timeless' truths such as '2 and 2 are 4'? |
| 14724 | Presentists must deny truths about multiple times [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The presentist must deny the truth of everyday claims that concern multiple times taken together. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: This rests on the extent to which every truth has an ontological commitment. You can deny the literal existence of multiple times without denying such truths. |
| 14723 | Talk using tenses can be eliminated, by reducing it to indexical connections for an utterance [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The temporal reductionist claims that tensed locutions are indexical - 'present' being the time of utterance etc. This generalises to say that nothing corresponding to tense need be admitted as a fundamental feature of the world. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [He particular cites Mellor for this view] Highly implausible. I very much doubt whether it is possible to explain the indexicality of a word like 'now' without referring to tenses. Does time only exist when sentences and thoughts occur? |
| 14736 | The B-theory is adequate, except that it omits to say which time is present [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The B-theoretic description of the world is completely adequate except that it leaves out information about which time is present. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty basic deficiency. How could there a time which lacked a present moment? The present is when things happen. How would it qualify as time at all if it lacked past, present and future? |
| 14734 | The B-series involves eternalism, and the reduction of tense [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The B-series has two components: eternalism - the thesis that all future entities are real - and the thesis of reducibility of tense. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Four Dimensionalism [2001], 4.2) |