20 ideas
| 15545 | Armstrong's analysis seeks truthmakers rather than definitions [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that Armstrong has an unfamiliar notion of analysis, as not primarily a quest for definitions, but as a quest for truth-makers. | |
| From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'The demand') | |
| A reaction: This is not a dichotomy, I think, but a shift of emphasis. A definition will probably refer to truthmakers; a decent account of truthmakers would approximate a definition. |
| 12585 | Most people can't even define a chair [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Ordinary speakers are notoriously unsuccessful if asked to offer an explicit definition of the concept 'chair'. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.1) |
| 15546 | Predications aren't true because of what exists, but of how it exists [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Predications seem, for the most part, to be true not because of whether things are, but because of how things are. | |
| From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'The demand') | |
| A reaction: This simple point shows that you get into a tangle if you insist that truthmakers just consist of what exists. Lewis says Armstrong offers states of affairs as truthmakers for predications. |
| 15548 | Say 'truth is supervenient on being', but construe 'being' broadly [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I want to say that 'truth is supervenient on being', but as an Ostrich about universals I want to construe 'being' broadly. | |
| From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'Truth') | |
| A reaction: [His slogan is borrowed from Bigelow 1988:132-,158-9] This seems much more promising that the more precise and restricted notion of truthmakers, as resting on the existence of particular things. Presentism is the big test case. |
| 14399 | Presentism says only the present exists, so there is nothing for tensed truths to supervene on [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Presentism says that although there is nothing outside the present, yet there are past-tensed and future-tensed truths that do not supervene on the present, and hence do not supervene on being. | |
| From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], p.207) | |
| A reaction: Since I rather like both presentism and truth supervening on being, this observation comes as rather a devastating blow. I thought philosophy would be quite easy, but it's turning out to be rather tricky. Could tensed truths supervene on the present? |
| 15543 | How do things combine to make states of affairs? Constituents can repeat, and fail to combine [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: To me it is mysterious how a state of affairs is made out of its particular and universal constituents. Different states of affairs may have the very same constituents, and the existence of constituents by no means entails the existence of the states. | |
| From: David Lewis (Armstrong on combinatorial possibility [1992], 'What is there') | |
| A reaction: He is rejecting the structure of states of affairs as wholes made of parts. But then mereology was never going to explain the structure of the world. |
| 12581 | Perceptual concepts causally influence the content of our experiences [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Once a thinker has acquired a perceptually individuated concept, his possession of that concept can causally influence what contents his experiences possess. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Like having 35 different words for 'snow', I suppose. I'm never convinced by such claims. Having the concepts may well influence what you look at or listen to, but I don't see the deliverances of the senses being changed by the concepts. |
| 12579 | Perception has proto-propositions, between immediate experience and concepts [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Perceptual experience has a second layer of nonconceptual representational content, distinct from immediate 'scenarios' and from conceptual contents. These additional contents I call 'protopropositions', containing an individual and a property/relation. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: When philosophers start writing this sort of thing, I want to turn to neuroscience and psychology. I suppose the philosopher's justification for this sort of speculation is epistemological, but I see no good coming of it. |
| 12586 | Consciousness of a belief isn't a belief that one has it [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: I dispute the view that consciousness of a belief consists in some kind of belief that one has the belief. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Thus if one is trying to grasp the notion of higher-order thought, it doesn't have to be just more of same but one level up. Any sensible view of the brain would suggest that one sort of activity would lead into an entirely different sort. |
| 18568 | Philosophy should merely give necessary and sufficient conditions for concept possession [Peacocke, by Machery] |
| Full Idea: Peacocke's 'Simple Account' says philosophers should determine the necessary and sufficient conditions for possessing a concept, and psychologists should explain how the human mind meets these conditions. | |
| From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2 | |
| A reaction: One can't restrict philosophy so easily. Psychologists could do that job themselves, and dump philosophy. Philosophy is interested in the role of concepts in meaning, experience and judgement. If psychologists can contribute to philosophy, fine. |
| 18571 | Peacocke's account of possession of a concept depends on one view of counterfactuals [Peacocke, by Machery] |
| Full Idea: Peacocke's method for discovering the possession conditions of concepts is committed to a specific account of counterfactual judgements - the Simulation Model (judgements we'd make if the antecedent were actual). | |
| From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.4 | |
| A reaction: Machery concludes that the Simulation Model is incorrect. This appears to be Edgington's theory of conditionals, though Machery doesn't mention her. |
| 18572 | Peacocke's account separates psychology from philosophy, and is very sketchy [Machery on Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Peacocke's Simple Account fails to connect the psychology and philosophy of concepts, it subordinates psychology to specific field of philosophy, it is committed to analytic/synthetic, and (most important) its method is very sketchy. | |
| From: comment on Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Edouard Machery - Doing Without Concepts 2.3.5 | |
| A reaction: Machery says Peacocke proposes a research programme, and he is not surprised that no one has every followed. Machery is a well-known champion of 'experimental philosophy', makes philosophy respond to the psychology. |
| 12577 | Possessing a concept is being able to make judgements which use it [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: Possession of any concept requires the capacity to make judgements whose content contain it. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Idea 12575 suggested that concept possession was an ability just to think about the concept. Why add that one must actually be able to make a judgement? Presumably to get truth in there somewhere. I may only speculate and fantasise, rather than judge. |
| 12578 | A concept is just what it is to possess that concept [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: There can be no more to a concept than is determined by a correct account of what it is to possess that concept. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: He calls this the Principle of Dependence. An odd idea, if you compare 'there is no more to a book than its possession conditions'. If the principle is right, I struggle with the proposal that a philosopher might demonstrate such a principle. |
| 12587 | Employing a concept isn't decided by introspection, but by making judgements using it [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: On the account I have been developing, what makes it the case that someone is employing one concept rather than another is not constituted by his impression of whether he is, but by complex facts about explanations of his judgements. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 7.2) | |
| A reaction: I presume this brings truth into the picture, and hence establishes a link between the concept and the external world, rather than merely with other concepts. There seems to be a shadowy behaviourism lurking in the background. |
| 12584 | An analysis of concepts must link them to something unconceptualized [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: At some point a good account of conceptual mastery must tie the mastery to abilities and relations that do not require conceptualization by the thinker. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This obviously implies a physicalist commitment. Peacocke seeks, as so many do these days in philosophy of maths, to combine this commitment with some sort of Fregean "platonism without tears" (p.101). I don't buy it. |
| 9335 | Concepts are constituted by their role in a group of propositions to which we are committed [Peacocke, by Greco] |
| Full Idea: Peacocke argues that it may be a condition of possessing a certain concept that one be fundamentally committed to certain propositions which contain it. A concept is constituted by playing a specific role in the cognitive economy of its possessor. | |
| From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by John Greco - Justification is not Internal §9 | |
| A reaction: Peacocke is talking about thought and propositions rather than language. Good for him. I always have problems with this sort of view: how can something play a role if it doesn't already have intrinsic properties to make the role possible? |
| 9336 | A concept's reference is what makes true the beliefs of its possession conditions [Peacocke, by Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Peacocke has a distinctive view of reference: The reference of a concept is that which will make true the primitively compelling beliefs that provide its possession conditions. | |
| From: report of Christopher Peacocke (A Study of Concepts [1992]) by Paul Horwich - Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority §9 | |
| A reaction: The first thought is that there might occasionally be more than one referent which would do the job. It seems to be a very internal view of reference, where I take reference to be much more contextual and social. |
| 541 | Virtue comes more from habit than character [Critias] |
| Full Idea: More men are good through habit than through character. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B09), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 3.29.41 |
| 542 | Fear of the gods was invented to discourage secret sin [Critias] |
| Full Idea: When the laws forbade men to commit open crimes of violence, and they began to do them in secret, a wise and clever man invented fear of the gods for mortals, to frighten the wicked, even if they sin in secret. | |
| From: Critias (fragments/reports [c.440 BCE], B25), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Professors (six books) 9.54 |