Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance', 'Essential vs Accidental Properties' and 'Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn)'

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9 ideas

1. Philosophy / C. History of Philosophy / 4. Later European Philosophy / b. Seventeenth century philosophy
Most philosophers start with reality and then examine knowledge; Descartes put the study of knowledge first [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers (e.g Plato) begin with an account of reality, and then appended an account of how we can know it, ..but Descartes turned the tables, insisting that we must first decide what we can know.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.2)
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 4. Conceptual Analysis
You cannot demand an analysis of a concept without knowing the purpose of the analysis [Lehrer]
     Full Idea: An analysis is always relative to some objective. It makes no sense to simply demand an analysis of goodness, knowledge, beauty or truth, without some indication of the purpose of the analysis.
     From: Keith Lehrer (Theory of Knowledge (2nd edn) [2000], I p.7)
     A reaction: Your dismantling of a car will go better if you know what a car is for, but you can still take it apart in ignorance.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones [Rami]
     Full Idea: It would be natural to label one extreme view 'maximal essentialism' - that all of an object's properties are essential - and the other extreme 'minimal' - that only trivial properties such as self-identity of being either F or not-F are essential.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008])
     A reaction: Personally I don't accept the trivial ones as being in any way describable as 'properties'. The maximal view destroys any useful notion of essence. Leibniz is a minority holder of the maximal view. I would defend a middle way.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object [Rami]
     Full Idea: An 'individual essence' is a property that in addition to being essential is also unique to the object, in the sense that it is not possible that something distinct from that object possesses that property.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §5)
     A reaction: She cites a 'haecceity' (or mere bare identity) as a trivial example of an individual essence.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami]
     Full Idea: According to 'sortal essentialism', an object could not have been of a radically different kind than it in fact is.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §4)
     A reaction: This strikes me as thoroughly wrong. Things belong in kinds because of their properties. Could you remove all the contingent features of a tiger, leaving it as merely 'a tiger', despite being totally unrecognisable?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties [Rami]
     Full Idea: It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property that a thing could not lack, with a property it could not lose. My having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee is a non-essential property I could not lose.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: The idea that having spent Christmas in Tennessee is a property I find quite bewildering. Is my not having spent my Christmas in Tennessee one of my properties? I suspect that real unlosable properties are essential ones.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 3. Types of Necessity
Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility [Rami]
     Full Idea: The usual view is that 'physical possibilities' are a natural subset of the 'metaphysical possibilities', which in turn are a subset of the 'logical possibilities'.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: [She cites Fine 2002 for an opposing view] I prefer 'natural' to 'physical', leaving it open where the borders of the natural lie. I take 'metaphysical' possibility to be 'in all naturally possible worlds'. So is a round square a logical possibility?
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 2. Epistemic possibility
If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' [Rami]
     Full Idea: There is 'epistemic possibility' when it is 'for all I know'. That is, P is epistemically possible for agent A just in case P is consistent with what A knows.
     From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1)
     A reaction: Two problems: maybe 'we' know, and A knows we know, but A doesn't know. And maybe someone knows, but we are not sure about that, which seems to introduce a modal element into the knowing. If someone knows it's impossible, it's impossible.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis]
     Full Idea: Later Lewis said we must choose between the intersection of the axioms of the tied best systems. He chose for laws the axioms that are in all the tied systems (but then there may be few or no axioms in the intersection).
     From: comment on David Lewis (Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance [1980], p.124) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature