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11993
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Jones may cease to exist without some simple property, but that doesn't make it essential [Kung]
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Full Idea:
If Jones ceases to be a father, or ceases to be over eight years old, he will cease to exist, yet these properties surely do not belong essentially to him.
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From:
Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], II)
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A reaction:
This seems to correct, though I would doubt whether either of these count as true properties, in the causal sense I prefer. If being 'over 8' is a property, how many 'over n' or 'under m' properties does he have? One for each quantum moment?
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11992
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Aristotelian essences underlie a thing's existence, explain it, and must belong to it [Kung]
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Full Idea:
Three essentialist claims are labelled 'Aristotelian': the thing would cease to exist without the property; an essential property is explanatory; and it is such that it must belong to everything to which it belongs.
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From:
Joan Kung (Aristotle on Essence and Explanation [1977], Intro)
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A reaction:
She says the second one is indispensable, and that it rules out the third one. My working assumption, like hers, is that the second one is the key part of the game, because Aristotle wanted to explain things.
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16736
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Explanation is generally to deduce it from something better known, which comes in degrees [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
Generally speaking, to render a reason of an effect or phenomenon is to deduce it from something else in nature more known than itself, and consequently there may be diverse kinds of degrees of explication of the same thing.
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From:
Robert Boyle (Certain Physical Essays [1672], II:21), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.4
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A reaction:
There is a picture of a real explanatory structure to nature, from which we pick bits that interest us for entirely pragmatic reasons. Boyle and I are as one on this matter.
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16737
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The best explanations get down to primary basics, but others go less deep [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
Explications be most satisfactory that show how the effect is produced by the more primitive affects of matter (bulk, shape and motion) but are not to be despised that deduce them from more familiar qualities such as heat, weight, fluidity, fermentation.
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From:
Robert Boyle (Certain Physical Essays [1672], II:22), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.4
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A reaction:
[Compressed, and continued from Idea 16736] So there is a causal structure, and the best explanations go to the bottom of it, but lesser explanations only go half way down. So a very skimpy explanation ('dormative power') is still an explanation.
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