10 ideas
| 15395 | Give up objects necessitating truths, and say their natures cause the truths? [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: We could abandon the view that truthmakers necessitate the truth of that which makes them true, and say that an object makes a truth when its intrinsic nature suffices for that truth. The object would have a different intrinsic nature if the truth failed. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Josh Parsons 1999, 2005 for this] This approach seems closely related to Kit Fine's proposal that necessities arise from the natures of things. It sounds to me as if an object with that intrinsic nature would necessitate that truth. |
| 15394 | Truthmaker requires a commitment to tropes or states of affairs, for contingent truths [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The most popular view is that an object is a truthmaker if the object couldn't exist and the truth be false. But contingent predications are also held to need truthmakers. Socrates is not necessarily snub-nosed, so a trope or state of affairs is needed. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
| A reaction: Cameron calls this 'some heavy ontological commitments'. If snub-nosedness is necessitated by the trope of 'being snub-nosed', what is the truthmaker for Socrates having that trope? |
| 11989 | For Russell, expressions dependent on contingent circumstances must be eliminated [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: It is a tenet of Russell's theory that all expressions, and especially definite descriptions, whose denotation is dependent upon contingent circumstances must be eliminated. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], II) |
| 15401 | Essentialists say intrinsic properties arise from what the thing is, irrespective of surroundings [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The essentialist approach would be to say that an intrinsic property is one such that it is no part of what it is to instantiate that property that the bearer stands in some relation to its surroundings. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Analysis') | |
| A reaction: This is offered as an alternative to the David Lewis account in terms of duplicates across possible worlds. You will have gathered by now, if you have spent days poring over my stuff, that I favour the essentialist approach. |
| 15393 | An object's intrinsic properties are had in virtue of how it is, independently [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Intrinsic properties are those that an object has solely in virtue of how it is, independently of its surroundings. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Better not mention quantum mechanics and fields if you want to talk of objects being independent of their surroundings. Am I 'independent' of gravity, or is gravity 'independent' of me? |
| 15396 | Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Criteria for identity across times have proven hard to give. Whatever criteria we lay down, it seems that there are possible situations in which two later objects bear the relevant relation to one earlier object, though only one of them can be identical. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Personal') | |
| A reaction: We only have to think of twins, amoebae that fission, and the Ship of Theseus. We seem to end up inventing a dubious criterion in order to break the tie. |
| 11990 | 'Haecceitism' says that sameness or difference of individuals is independent of appearances [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine that we can ask whether this is the same individual in another possible world, and that a common 'thisness' may underlie extreme dissimilarity, or distinct thisnesses may underlie great resemblance, I call 'Haecceitism'. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: Penelope Mackie emphasises that this doctrine, that each thing is somehow individuated, is not the same as believing in actual haecceities, specific properties which achieve the individuating. |
| 9668 | 'Haecceitism' is common thisness under dissimilarity, or distinct thisnesses under resemblance [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: That a common 'thisness' may underlie extreme dissimilarity or distinct thisnesses may underlie great resemblance I call 'haecceitism'. (I prefer the pronunciation Hex'-ee-i-tis-m). | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: [odd pronunciation, if 'haec' is pronounced haeek] The view seems to be very unpopular (e.g. with Lewis, Bird and Mumford). But there is an intuitive sense of whether or not two things are identical when they seem dissimilar. |
| 11991 | If quantification into modal contexts is legitimate, that seems to imply some form of haecceitism [Kaplan] |
| Full Idea: If one regards the usual form of quantification into modal and other intensional contexts - modality de re - as legitimate (without special explanations), then one seems committed to some form of haecceitism. | |
| From: David Kaplan (How to Russell a Frege-Church [1975], IV) | |
| A reaction: That is, modal reference requires fixed identities, irrespective of possible changes in properties. Why could one not refer to objects just as bundles of properties, with some sort of rules about when it ceased to be that particular bundle (keep 60%?)? |
| 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? |