36 ideas
| 6961 | An analogy begins to break down as soon as the two cases differ [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But wherever you depart, in the least, from the similarity of the cases, you diminish proportionably the evidence; and may at last bring it to a very weak analogy. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 12223 | It is a fallacy to explain the obscure with the even more obscure [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The fallacy of 'ad obscurum per obscurius' is to explain the obscure by appeal to what is more obscure. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §3) | |
| A reaction: Not strictly a fallacy, so much as an example of inadequate explanation, along with circularity and infinite regresses. |
| 12230 | Singular terms refer if they make certain atomic statements true [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Anyone should agree that a justification for regarding a singular term as having objectual reference is provided just as soon as one has justification for regarding as true certain atomic statements in which it functions as a singular term. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: The meat of this idea is hidden in the word 'certain'. See Idea 10314 for Hale's explanation. Without that, the proposal strikes me as absurd. |
| 12225 | Neo-Fregeanism might be better with truth-makers, rather than quantifier commitment [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: A third way has been offered to 'make sense' of neo-Fregeanism: we should reject Quine's well-known criterion of ontological commitment in favour of one based on 'truth-maker theory'. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4 n19) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Ross Cameron for this] They reject this proposal, on the grounds that truth-maker theory is not sufficient to fix the grounding truth-conditions of statements. |
| 12224 | Are neo-Fregeans 'maximalists' - that everything which can exist does exist? [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It is claimed that neo-Fregeans are committed to 'maximalism' - that whatever can exist does. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §4) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Eklund] They observe that maximalism denies contingent non-existence (of the £20 note I haven't got). There seems to be the related problem of 'hyperinflation', that if abstract objects are generated logically, the process is unstoppable. |
| 12226 | The identity of Pegasus with Pegasus may be true, despite the non-existence [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Identity is sometimes read so that 'Pegasus is Pegasus' expresses a truth, the non-existence of any winged horse notwithstanding. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: This would give you ontological commitment to truth, without commitment to existence. It undercuts the use of identity statements as the basis of existence claims, which was Frege's strategy. |
| 12229 | Maybe we have abundant properties for semantics, and sparse properties for ontology [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: There is a compatibilist view which says that it is for the abundant properties to play the role of 'bedeutungen' in semantic theory, and the sparse ones to address certain metaphysical concerns. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Only a philosopher could live with the word 'property' having utterly different extensions in different areas of discourse. They similarly bifurcate words like 'object' and 'exist'. Call properties 'quasi-properties' and I might join in. |
| 18443 | A successful predicate guarantees the existence of a property - the way of being it expresses [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: The good standing of a predicate is already trivially sufficient to ensure the existence of an associated property, a (perhaps complex) way of being which the predicate serves to express. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: 'Way of being' is interesting. Is 'being near Trafalgar Sq' a way of being? I take properties to be 'features', which seems to give a clearer way of demarcating them. They say they are talking about 'abundant' (rather than 'sparse') properties. |
| 21285 | Events are baffling before experience, and obvious after experience [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Every event, before experience, is equally difficult and incomprehensible; and every event, after experience, is equally easy and intelligible. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: If you don't believe this, spend some time watching documentaries about life in the deep oceans. Things beyond imagination swim around in front of you. But we can extrapolate, once the possibilities are revealed by experience. |
| 12227 | Abstractionism needs existential commitment and uniform truth-conditions [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstractionism needs a face-value, existentially committed reading of the terms occurring on the left-hand sides together with sameness of truth-conditions across the biconditional. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: They employ 'abstractionism' to mean their logical Fregean strategy for defining abstractions, not to mean the older psychological account. Thus the truth-conditions for being 'parallel' and for having the 'same direction' must be consistent. |
| 12228 | Equivalence abstraction refers to objects otherwise beyond our grasp [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: Abstraction principles purport to introduce fundamental means of reference to a range of objects, to which there is accordingly no presumption that we have any prior or independent means of reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §8) | |
| A reaction: There's the rub! They make it sound like a virtue, that we open up yet another heaven of abstract toys to play with. As fictions, they are indeed exciting new fun. As platonic discoveries they strike me as Cloud-Cuckoo Land. |
| 12231 | Reference needs truth as well as sense [Hale/Wright] |
| Full Idea: It takes, over and above the possession of sense, the truth of relevant contexts to ensure reference. | |
| From: B Hale / C Wright (The Metaontology of Abstraction [2009], §9) | |
| A reaction: Reference purely through sense was discredited by Kripke. The present idea challenges Kripke's baptismal realist approach. How do you 'baptise' an abstract object? But isn't reference needed prior to the establishment of truth? |
| 468 | Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.] |
| Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice. | |
| From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 6959 | We can't assume God's perfections are like our ideas or like human attributes [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But let us beware, lest we think, that our ideas anywise correspond to his perfections, or that his attributes have any resemblance to these qualities among men. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6957 | The objects of theological reasoning are too big for our minds [Hume] |
| Full Idea: But in theological reasonings … we are employed upon objects, which, we must be sensible, are too large for our grasp. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 1) |
| 21255 | No being's non-existence can imply a contradiction, so its existence cannot be proved a priori [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Nothing that is distinctly conceivable implies a contradiction. Whatever we conceive of as existent we can also conceive as non-existent. So there is no being whose non-existence implies a contradiction. So no being's existence is demonstrable. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: I totally subscribe to this idea, and take claims that nature actually contains contradictions (based on the inevitable quantum mechanics) to be ridiculous. Nature is the embodiment, chief exemplar and prime test of consistency. |
| 21254 | A chain of events requires a cause for the whole as well as the parts, yet the chain is just a sum of parts [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The whole chain or succession [of causes and effects], taken together, is not caused by anything, and yet it is evident that it requires a cause or reason, as much as any particular object which begins to exist in time. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: This is such a major and significant idea. With blinkers on we think our questions are answered. Then someone (a philosopher, inevitably) makes you pull back and ask a much wider and more difficult question. |
| 1435 | If something must be necessary so that something exists rather than nothing, why can't the universe be necessary? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: What was it that determined something to exist rather than nothing? ...This implies a necessary being… But why may not the material universe be the necessarily existent being? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: There certainly seems no need for whatever the necessary thing is that it qualify as a 'god'. If could be a necessary subatomic particle that suddenly triggers reactions. |
| 6962 | The thing which contains order must be God, so see God where you see order [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By supposing something to contain the principle of its order within itself, we really assert it to be God; and the sooner we arrive at that divine being, so much the better. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 4) |
| 6958 | How can we pronounce on a whole after a brief look at a very small part? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: A very small part of this great system, during a very short time, is very imperfectly discovered to us: and do we thence pronounce decisively concerning the origin of the whole? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6963 | Why would we infer an infinite creator from a finite creation? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By this method of reasoning, you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the deity. For … the cause ought only to be proportioned to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 6960 | Analogy suggests that God has a very great human mind [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Since the effects resemble, we must infer by analogy that the causes also resemble; and that the Author of Nature is somewhat similar to the mind of man, though possessed of much larger faculties, proportioned to the grandeur of his work. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 2) |
| 6965 | The universe may be the result of trial-and-error [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 6967 | Order may come from an irrational source as well as a rational one [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Why an orderly system may not be spun from the belly as well as from the brain, it will be difficult … to give a satisfactory reason. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 7) |
| 21282 | Design cannot prove a unified Deity. Many men make a city, so why not many gods for a world? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: How can you prove the unity of a Deity? A great number of men join in building a house or ship, in rearing a city; why may not several deities combine in contriving and framing a world? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You might look at the Cistine Chapel ceiling and conclude that only a team could have achieve such a thing. Since there is no way to infer how many gods might be involved, then one god is a possible theory. |
| 21280 | From a ship you would judge its creator a genius, not a mere humble workman [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It is uncertain whether all the excellences of the work can justly be ascribed to the workman. If we survey a ship, what an exalted idea must we form of the ingenuity of the carpenter ...and what surprise must we feel when we find him a stupid mechanic. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You can at least infer that the ship was not made entirely by makers who are ignorant of carpentry. Somewhere in the divine team there must exist the skills that produce whatever we observe? |
| 21281 | This excellent world may be the result of a huge sequence of trial-and-error [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Many worlds might have been botched and bungled, throughout an eternity, ere this system was struck out; many fruitless trials made, and a slow but continued improvement carried on during infinite ages in the art of world-making. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: Lee Smolin, a modern cosmographer, suggests that this evolution may have led to the current universe, after a long train of selective creations. The idea of natural selection was waiting to happen in 1760. |
| 21283 | Humans renew their species sexually. If there are many gods, would they not do the same? [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Men are mortal and renew their species by generation. Why must this circumstance, so universal, so essential, be excluded from those numerous and limited deities? | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: Hume observes that this would be like the Greek gods. Hume makes mincemeat of attempts to prove the existence of God merely by analogy with human affairs. |
| 6966 | Creation is more like vegetation than human art, so it won't come from reason [Hume] |
| Full Idea: If the universe is more like animal bodies and vegetables than works of human art, it is more probable that its cause resembles the cause of the former than of the latter, and its cause should be ascribed to generation rather than to reason of design. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 7) |
| 21284 | This Creator god might be an infant or incompetent or senile [Hume] |
| Full Idea: [Maybe] this world ...was only the first essay of some infant deity ...or it is the work only of some dependent, inferior deity, the object of derision to his superiors ...or it is the product of the dotage of some superannuated deity... | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: His opponent in the dialogue rejoices that, in the face of these sacreligious fantasies, Hume still accepts the likelihood of some sort of design. Hume is right that it is not much of a theory if nothing can be said about the Designer. |
| 21286 | Motion often begins in matter, with no sign of a controlling agent [Hume] |
| Full Idea: Motion in many instances begins in matter, without any known voluntary agent; to suppose always, in these cases, an unknown voluntary agent is mere hypothesis, attended with no advantages. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: This is the modern 'powers' view of science, and a direct contradiction of Plato's claims in The Laws. It seems a bit primitive to assume that magnetism must be the work of some god. |
| 21287 | The universe could settle into superficial order, without a designer [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The universe goes on in a succession of chaos and disorder. But is it not possible that it may settle at last, so as not to lose its inherent motion and active force, yet so as to produce a uniformity of appearance, amidst the continual fluctuation. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: From what I know of the constant fluctuation of virtual particles (e.g. inside protons) this is exactly what actually is happening. There is an 'appearance' of order, but at the lowest level this is not the case. |
| 21288 | Ideas arise from objects, not vice versa; ideas only influence matter if they are linked [Hume] |
| Full Idea: In all known instances, ideas are copied from real objects. You reverse this order and give thought the precedence. ...Thought has no influence upon matter except where that matter is so conjoined with it as to have an equal reciprocal influence upon it. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 8) | |
| A reaction: He allows something like mental causation, provided mind and brain are closely linked. Hume brings out the close relationship between divine design theories, and the mind-body problem. |
| 21256 | A surprise feature of all products of 9 looks like design, but is actually a necessity [Hume] |
| Full Idea: The products of 9 always compose either 9 or some lesser product of 9, if you add the characters of the product. To a superficial observer this regularity appears as chance or design, but a skilful algebraist sees it as necessity. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 9) | |
| A reaction: An example of this universal generality is that 369 is a product of 9 (9x41), and if you add 3, 6 and 9 you get 18, which is 2x9. Similar examples occur in nature, such as crystals, which are necessary once the atomic structure is known. |
| 6964 | From our limited view, we cannot tell if the universe is faulty [Hume] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for us to tell, from our limited views, whether this system contains any great faults. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) |
| 21279 | If the divine cause is proportional to its effects, the effects are finite, so the Deity cannot be infinite [Hume] |
| Full Idea: By this method of reasoning you renounce all claim to infinity in any of the attributes of the Deity. The cause ought to be proportional to the effect, and the effect, so far as it falls under our cognizance, is not infinite. | |
| From: David Hume (Dialogues Concerning Natural Religion [1751], Part 5) | |
| A reaction: You cannot deny that the Deity MAY be infinite, be only accept that your evidence is not enough to prove it. But if nothing infinite has been observed, it is a reasonable provisional inference that nothing infinite exists. |