11 ideas
10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated. | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
A reaction: I don't actually buy the idea that an event could just be an 'exemplification'. Change seems to be required, and processes, or something like them, must be mentioned. Degrees of fine-graining sound good, though, for processes too. |
8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: If Kim's events are just the ordered triple of | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You might reply that the object, and maybe the attribute, are concrete, and the time is natural, but the combination really is an abstraction, even though it is located (like the equator). Where is the set of my books located? |
8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events cannot just be the ordered triple of | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: Why should they even be in that particular order? This requirement rather messes up Kim's plan for a very streamlined, Ockhamised ontology. Circles have symmetry at all times. Is 'near Trafalgar Square' a property? |
8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events are exemplifications by an object of an attribute at a time...It does not make events basic entities, as the three constituents are more basic, but it gives identity conditions (two events are the same if object, attribute and time the same). | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: [Aristotle is said to be behind this] I am more sympathetic to this view than the claim that events are primitive. If a pebble is ellipsoid for a million years, is that an event? I think the concept of a 'process' is the most fruitful one to investigate. |
8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: Since some tautologously universal properties such as self-identity or being such that 2+2=4 apply to all things at all times, that is stretching Kim's events too far. Candidate properties need to be realistically restricted, and it is unclear how. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You could deploy Schoemaker's concept of natural properties in terms of the source of causal powers, but the problem would be that you were probably hoping to then use Kim's events to define causation. Answer: treat causation as the primitive. |
8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: The criticism most frequently levelled against Kim's theory is that it results in an unacceptable plurality of finely differentiated events, because of the requirement for identity of the constituent property. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 4.4 | |
A reaction: This may mean that the Battle of Waterloo was several trillion events, which seems daft to the historian, but it doesn't to the physicist. A cannon firing is indeed an accumulation of lots of little events. |
6451 | Visual sense data are an inner picture show which represents the world [Blackburn] |
Full Idea: In the case of vision, sense data are a kind of inner picture show which itself only indirectly represents aspects of the external world. | |
From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.347) | |
A reaction: I'm unsure whether this is correct. Russell says the 'roughness' of the table is the sense datum. If it is even a possibility that there are unsensed sense-data, then they cannot be an aspect of the mind, as Blackburn is suggesting they are. |
2866 | A true belief might be based on a generally reliable process that failed on this occasion [Blackburn] |
Full Idea: Reliabilism is open to the counterexample that a belief may be the result of some generally reliable process (a pressure gauge) which was in fact malfunctioning on this occasion, when we would be reluctant to attribute knowledge to the subject. | |
From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.327) | |
A reaction: Russell's stopped clock that tells the right time twice a day. A good objection. Coming from a reliable source is very good criterion for good justification, but it needs critical assessment. |
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? |
2864 | The main objection to intuitionism in ethics is that intuition is a disguise for prejudice or emotion [Blackburn] |
Full Idea: Critics say that intuitionism in ethics explains nothing, but may merely function as a disguise for prejudice or passion. | |
From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.198) | |
A reaction: If someone claims to have an important moral intuition about something, you should carefully assess the person who has the intuition. I would trust some people a lot. |
2865 | Critics of prescriptivism observe that it is consistent to accept an ethical verdict but refuse to be bound by it [Blackburn] |
Full Idea: Critics of prescriptivism have noted the problem that whilst accepting a command seems tantamount to setting oneself to obey it, accepting an ethical verdict is, unfortunately, consistent with refusing to be bound by it. | |
From: Simon Blackburn (Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy [1994], p.300) | |
A reaction: We nearly all of us accept that our behaviour should be better than it actually is, so we accept the oughts but fail to act. Actually 'refusing', though, sounds a bit contradictory. |