Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz', 'Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism' and 'A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature'

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18 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
19395 Philosophy is sanctified, because it flows from God [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is sanctified by having its streams flow from the fountain of God's attributes.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.69)
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
13076 Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
     A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
13102 If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
13103 Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
13104 Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
     A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
13100 Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
     A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
13068 We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
     A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
13069 The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / a. Scattered objects
14590 If we accept scattered objects such as archipelagos, why not think of cars that way? [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In being willing to countenance archipelagos, one embraces scattered objects. Why not then embrace the 'archipelago' of my car and the Eiffel Tower?
     From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 2.1)
     A reaction: This is a beautifully simple and striking point. Language is full of embracing terms like 'the furniture', but that doesn't mean we assume the furniture is unified. The archipelago is less of an 'object' if you live on one of the islands.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties.
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2)
     A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
14591 Four-dimensionalists say instantaneous objects are more fundamental than long-lived ones [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Self-proclaimed four-dimensionalists typically adopt a picture that reckons instantaneous objects (and facts about them) to be more fundamental than long-lived ones.
     From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 2.2)
     A reaction: A nice elucidation. As in Idea 14588, this seems motivated by a desire for some sort of foundationalism or atomism. Why shouldn't a metaphysic treat the middle-sized or temporally extended as foundational, and derive the rest that way?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
13101 Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
19394 Inequality can be brought infinitely close to equality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Equality may be considered as an infinitely small inequality, and we may make inequality approach equality as much as we wish.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (A General Principle to Explain Laws of Nature [1687], p.67)
     A reaction: An interesting response to David Lewis's brusque dismissal of the problem of identity, as all-or-nothing...end of story.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity
14589 A modal can reverse meaning if the context is seen differently, so maybe context is all? [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: One person says 'He can't dig a hole; he hasn't got a spade', and another says 'He can dig a hole; just give him a spade', and both uses of the modal 'can' will be true. So some philosophers say that all modal predications are thus context-dependent.
     From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 1.2)
     A reaction: Quine is the guru for this view of modality. Hawthorne's example seems to me to rely too much on the linguistic feature of contrasting 'can' and 'can't'. The underlying assertion in the propositions says something real about the possibilities.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46)
     A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is!
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
13071 We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 6. Space-Time
14588 Modern metaphysicians tend to think space-time points are more fundamental than space-time regions [Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Nowadays it is common for metaphysicians to hold both that space-time regions are less fundamental than the space-time points that compose them, and that facts about the regions are less fundamental than facts about the points and their arrangements.
     From: John Hawthorne (Three-Dimensionalism v Four-Dimensionalism [2008], 1)
     A reaction: I'm not quite sure what a physicist would make of this. It seems to be motivated by some a priori preference for atomism, and for system-building from minimal foundations.