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All the ideas for 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz', 'Mechanisms' and 'Review of Frege's 'Grundlagen''

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20 ideas

6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 5. Definitions of Number / c. Fregean numbers
9992 The 'extension of a concept' in general may be quantitatively completely indeterminate [Cantor]
     Full Idea: The author entirely overlooks the fact that the 'extension of a concept' in general may be quantitatively completely indeterminate. Only in certain cases is the 'extension of a concept' quantitatively determinate.
     From: George Cantor (Review of Frege's 'Grundlagen' [1885], 1932:440), quoted by William W. Tait - Frege versus Cantor and Dedekind
     A reaction: Cantor presumably has in mind various infinite sets. Tait is drawing our attention to the fact that this objection long precedes Russell's paradox, which made the objection more formal (a language Frege could understand!).
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 / 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 / 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).
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 / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
17488 Empiricist theories are sets of laws, which give explanations and reductions [Glennan]
     Full Idea: In the empiricist tradition theories were understood to be deductive closures of sets of laws, explanations were understood as arguments from covering laws, and reduction was understood as a deductive relationship between laws of different theories.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro')
     A reaction: A lovely crisp summary of the whole tradition of philosophy of science from Comte through to Hempel. Mechanism and essentialism are the new players in the game.
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.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism
17493 Modern mechanism need parts with spatial, temporal and function facts, and diagrams [Glennan]
     Full Idea: Modern champions of mechanisms say models should identify both the parts and their spatial, temporal and functional organisation, ...and the practical importance of diagrams in addition to or in place of linguistic representations of mechanisms.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Discover')
     A reaction: Apparently chemists obtain much more refined models by using mathematics than they did by diagrams or 3D models (let alone verbal descriptions). For that reason, I'm thinking that 'model' might be a better term than 'mechanism'.
17487 Mechanistic philosophy of science is an alternative to the empiricist law-based tradition [Glennan]
     Full Idea: To a significant degree, a mechanistic philosophy of science can be seen as an alternative to an earlier logical empiricist tradition in philosophy of science that gave pride of place to laws of nature.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro')
     A reaction: Lovely! Someone who actually spells out what's going on here. Most philosophers are far too coy about explaining what their real game is. Mechanism is fine in chemistry and biology. How about in 'mathematical' physics, or sociology?
17489 Mechanisms are either systems of parts or sequences of activities [Glennan]
     Full Idea: There are two sorts of mechanisms: systems consist of collections of parts that interact to produce some behaviour, and processes are sequences of activities which produce some outcome.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro')
     A reaction: [compressed] The second one is important because it is more generic, and under that account all kinds the features of the world that need to be explained can be subsumed. E.g. hyperinflation in an economy is a 'mechanism'.
17490 17th century mechanists explained everything by the kinetic physical fundamentals [Glennan]
     Full Idea: 17th century mechanists said that interactions governed by chemical, electrical or gravitational forces would have to be explicable in terms of the operation of some atomistic (or corpuscular) kinetic mechanism.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'Intro')
     A reaction: Glennan says science has rejected this, so modern mechanists do not reduce mechanisms to anything in particular.
17491 Unlike the lawlike approach, mechanistic explanation can allow for exceptions [Glennan]
     Full Idea: One of the advantages of the move from nomological to mechanistic modes of explanation is that the latter allows for explanations involving exception-ridden generalizations.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'regular')
     A reaction: The lawlike approach has endless problems with 'ceteris paribus' ('all things being equal') laws, where specifying all the other 'things' seems a bit tricky.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
17494 Since causal events are related by mechanisms, causation can be analysed in that way [Glennan]
     Full Idea: Causation can be analyzed in terms of mechanisms because (except for fundamental causal interactions) causally related events will be connected by intervening mechanisms.
     From: Stuart Glennan (Mechanisms [2008], 'causation')
     A reaction: This won't give us the metaphysics of causation (which concerns the fundamentals), but this strikes me as a very coherent and interesting proposal. He mentions electron interaction as non-mechanistic causation.