20 ideas
| 17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Essence is, as it were, necessity rooted in things, ...but how about possibility rooted in things? ...Having the potential to Φ, unlike being essentially Φ, does not entail being actually Φ. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §2) | |
| A reaction: To me this invites the question 'what is it about the entity which endows it with its rooted possibilities?' A thing has possibilities because it has a certain nature (at a given time). |
| 17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: I can understand the notion of real definition as applying to (some) abstact entities, but I have no idea how to apply it to a concrete object such as Socrates or myself. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1) | |
| A reaction: She is objecting to Kit Fine's account of essence, which is meant to be clearer than the normal account of essences based on necessities. Aristotle implies that definitions get fuzzy when you reach the level of the individual. |
| 17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The modal account was meant, I take it, to make the notion of essence less mysterious by basing it on the supposedly better understood notion of necessity. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1) |
| 17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We support the views of metaphysical modality on which metaphysical necessity is an even more deeply empirical matter than Kripke has argued. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], p.2) | |
| A reaction: [co-author E. Viebahn] This seems to pinpoint the spirit of scientific essentialism. She cites Bird and Shoemaker. If it is empirical, doesn't that make it a matter of epistemology, and hence further from absolute necessity? |
| 17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds affords greater expressive power than mere talk of possibility and necessity. In particular, possible worlds talk allows us to introduce degrees of possibility. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: A nice feature, but I'm not sure that either the proportion of possible worlds or the closeness of possible worlds captures what we actually mean by a certain degree of possibility. There is 'accidental closeness', or absence of contingency. See Vetter. |
| 17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We should look at the claim that possibility is constituted by potentiality. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4) | |
| A reaction: A problem that comes to mind is possibilities arising from coincidence. The whole of reality must be described, to capture all the possibilities for a particular thing. So potentialities of what? Nice thought, though. |
| 17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Some of what metaphysicians take to be metaphysically possible turns out to be only epistemically possible. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear expression of the increasingly common view that conceivability may be a limited way to grasp possibility. |
| 17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The closeness of possible worlds should be determined by similarity in the intrinsic constitution of whatever object it is whose potentialities are at issue. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: Nice thought. This seems to be the essentialist approach to possible worlds, but it makes the natures of the objects more fundamental than the framework of the worlds. She demurs because there are also extrinsic potentialities. |
| 17472 | Thick mechanisms map whole reactions, and thin mechanism chart the steps [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In chemistry the 'thick' notion of a mechanism traces out positions of electrons and atomic cores, and correlates them with energies, showing the whole reaction. 'Thin' mechanisms focus on a discrete set of intermediate steps. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) |
| 17471 | Using mechanisms as explanatory schemes began in chemistry [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: The production of mechanisms as explanatory schemes finds its original home in chemistry. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to mechanisms in biology or neuroscience, which come later. |
| 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? |
| 17465 | Lavoisier's elements included four types of earth [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Four types of earth found a place on Lavoisier's list of elements. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: A nice intermediate point between the ancient Greek and the modern view of earth. |
| 17468 | Over 100,000,000 compounds have been discovered or synthesised [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are well over 100,000,000 chemical compounds that have been discovered or synthesised, all of which have been formally characterised. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.3) |
| 17470 | Water molecules dissociate, and form large polymers, explaining its properties [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Water's structure cannot simply be described as a collection of individual molecules. There is a continual dissociation of H2O molecules into hydrogen and hydroxide ions; they former larger polymeric species, explaining conductivity, melting and boiling. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] If philosophers try to state the 'essence of water', they had better not be too glib about it. |
| 17473 | It is unlikely that chemistry will ever be reduced to physics [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Most philosophers believe chemistry has not been reduced to physics nor is it likely to be. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6) | |
| A reaction: [Le Poidevin 2007 argues the opposite] That chemical features are actually metaphysically 'emergent' is a rare view, defended by Hendry. The general view is that the concepts are too different, and approximations render it hopeless. |
| 17474 | Quantum theory won't tell us which structure a set of atoms will form [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Quantum mechanics cannot tell us why a given collection of atoms will adopt one molecular structure (and set of chemical properties) or the other. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably it the 'chance' process of how the atoms are thrown together. |
| 17475 | For temperature to be mean kinetic energy, a state of equilibrium is also required [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: Having a particular average kinetic energy is only a necessary condition for having a given temperature, not a sufficient one, because only gases at equilibrium have a well-defined temperature. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: If you try to pin it all down more precisely, the definition turns out to be circular. |
| 17469 | 'H2O' just gives the element proportions, not the microstructure [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: 'H2O' is not a description of any microstructure. It is a compositional formula, describing the combining proportions of hydrogen and oxygen to make water. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 4.5) |
| 17467 | Isotopes (such as those of hydrogen) can vary in their rates of chemical reaction [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: There are chemically salient differences among the isotopes, best illustrated by the three isotopes of hydrogen: protium, deuterium and tritium, which show different rates of reaction, making heavy water poisonous where ordinary water is not. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Paul Needham 2008] The point is that the isotopes are the natural kinds, rather than the traditional elements. The view is unorthodox, but clearly makes a good point. |
| 17466 | Mendeleev systematised the elements, and also gave an account of their nature [Weisberg/Needham/Hendry] |
| Full Idea: In addition to providing the systematization of the elements used in modern chemistry, Mendeleev also gave an account of the nature of the elements which informs contemporary philosophical understanding. | |
| From: Weisberg/Needham/Hendry (Philosophy of Chemistry [2011], 1.3) |