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15094
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I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
I now reject the formulation of the causal theory which says that a property is a cluster of conditional powers. That has a reductionist flavour, which is a cheat. We need properties to explain conditional powers, so properties won't reduce.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], III)
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A reaction:
[compressed wording] I agree with Mumford and Anjum in preferring his earlier formulation. I think properties are broad messy things, whereas powers can be defined more precisely, and seem to have more stability in nature.
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14596
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Call 'nominalism' the denial of numbers, properties, relations and sets [Dorr]
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Full Idea:
Just as there are no numbers or properties, there are no relations (like 'being heavier than' or 'betweenness'), or sets. I will provisionally use 'nominalism' for the conjunction of these four claims.
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From:
Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 1)
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A reaction:
If you are going to be a nominalist, do it properly! My starting point in metaphysics is strong sympathy with this view. Right now [Tues 22nd Nov 2011, 10:57 am GMT] I think it is correct.
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15099
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If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
If it is possible that there could be possible states of affairs that are not nomologically possible, don't we therefore need a notion of metaphysical possibility that outruns nomological possibility?
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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A reaction:
Shoemaker rejects this possibility (p.425). I sympathise. So there is 'natural' possibility (my preferred term), which is anything which stuff, if it exists, could do, and 'logical' possibility, which is anything that doesn't lead to contradiction.
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14598
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Abstracta imply non-logical brute necessities, so only nominalists can deny such things [Dorr]
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Full Idea:
If there are abstract objects, there are necessary truths about these things that cannot be reduced to truths of logic. So only the nominalist, who denies that there are any such things, can adequately respect the idea that there are no brute necessities.
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From:
Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 4)
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A reaction:
This is where two plates of my personal philosophy grind horribly against one another. I love nominalism, and I love natural necessities. They meet like a ring-species in evolution. I'll just call it a 'paradox', and move on (swiftly).
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15101
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Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Once the obstacle of the deeply rooted conviction that necessary truths should be knowable a priori is removed, ...causal necessity is (pretheoretically) the very paradigm of necessity, in ordinary usage and in dictionaries.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VII)
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A reaction:
The a priori route seems to lead to logical necessity, just by doing a priori logic, and also to metaphysical necessity, by some sort of intuitive vision. This is a powerful idea of Shoemaker's (implied, of course, in Kripke).
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15100
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Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Imaginability can give us access to conceptual possibility, when we come to believe situations to be conceptually possible by reflecting on their descriptions and seeing no contradiction or incoherence.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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A reaction:
If take the absence of contradiction to indicate 'logical' possibility, but the absence of incoherence is more interesting, even if it is a bit vague. He is talking of 'situations', which I take to be features of reality. A priori synthetic?
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15093
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We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
One way to get the conclusion that laws are necessary is to combine my view of properties with the view of Armstrong, Dretske and Tooley, that laws are, or assert, relations between properties.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], I)
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A reaction:
This is interesting, because Armstrong in particular wants the necessity to arise from relations between properties as universals, but if we define properties causally, and make them necessary, we might get the same result without universals.
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20713
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God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
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From:
report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
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A reaction:
Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?
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