Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Explaining the A Priori', 'Letter to Bramhall' and 'Concepts of supervenience'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / a. Nature of supervenience

3536	Supervenient properties must have matching base properties [Kim]
	Full Idea: Each supervenient property necessarily has a coextensive property in the base family.
	From: Jaegwon Kim (Concepts of supervenience [1984], §5)
	A reaction: This is presumably the minimum requirement for a situation of supervenience. How do you decide which property is the 'base' property? Do we just mean that the base causes the other, but not vice versa?

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism

16620	A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
	From: Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
	A reaction: Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

16622	Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
	Full Idea: Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
	From: Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
	A reaction: I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / a. Origin of concepts

17722	The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke]
	Full Idea: The possession conditions for the concept 'red' of the colour red are tied to those very conditions which individuate the colour red.
	From: Christopher Peacocke (Explaining the A Priori [2000], p.267), quoted by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.5
	A reaction: Jenkins reports that he therefore argues that we can learn something about the word 'red' from thinking about the concept 'red', which is his new theory of the a priori. I find 'possession conditions' and 'individuation' to be very woolly concepts.