Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On the Necessity of Origin' and 'There Are No Abstract Objects'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

6 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta

14596	Call 'nominalism' the denial of numbers, properties, relations and sets [Dorr]
	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.
	From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 1)
	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.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism

14597	Natural Class Nominalism says there are primitive classes of things resembling in one respect [Dorr]
	Full Idea: Natural Class Nominalists take as primitive the notion of a 'natural' class - a class of things that all resemble one another in some one respect and resemble nothing else in that respect.
	From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 4)
	A reaction: Dorr rejects this view because he doesn't believe in 'classes'. How committed to classes do you have to be before you are permitted to talk about them? All vocabulary (such as 'resemble') seems metaphysically tainted in this area.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 10. Beginning of an Object

18892	Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn]
	Full Idea: It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me?
	From: Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5
	A reaction: [See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what?

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential

12019	McGinn falsely claims necessity of origin is a special case of the necessity of identity [Forbes,G on McGinn]
	Full Idea: McGinn assimilates the origin relation among organisms to the identity relation, so that the necessity of origin becomes a special case of the necessity of identity. We argue that this assimilation is illegitimate.
	From: comment on Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 6.1
	A reaction: Not sure about this. I have long suspected what McGinn suspects. Once you have identified the organism with a particular origin, it hardly seems surprising that this particular origin has become inescapable.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 11. Denial of Necessity

14598	Abstracta imply non-logical brute necessities, so only nominalists can deny such things [Dorr]
	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.
	From: Cian Dorr (There Are No Abstract Objects [2008], 4)
	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).

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

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?