10 ideas
| 21342 | A relation is internal if two things possessing the relation could not fail to be related [Moore,GE, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: Moore characterises internal relations modally, as those essential to their relata. If a and b are related R-wise, and R is an internal relation, a and b could not fail to be so related; otherwise R is external. | |
| From: report of G.E. Moore (External and Internal Relations [1919]) by John Heil - Relations 'Internal' | |
| A reaction: I don't think of Moore as an essentialist, but this fits the essentialist picture nicely, and is probably best paraphrased in terms of powers. Integers are the standard example of internal relations. |
| 11976 | Aristotelian essentialism says essences are not relative to specification [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: So-called 'Aristotelian essentialism' is the doctrine of essences not relative to specifications. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III) | |
| A reaction: In other words, they are so-called 'real essences', understood as de re. Quine says essences are all de dicto, and relative to some specification. I vote for Aristotle. |
| 11978 | Causal necessities hold in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Just as a sentence is necessary if it holds in all worlds, so it is causally necessary if it holds in all worlds compatible with the laws of nature. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], V) | |
| A reaction: I don't believe in the so-called 'laws of nature', so I'm not buying that. Is there no distinction in Lewis's view between those sentences which must hold, and those which happen to hold universally? |
| 11979 | It doesn't take the whole of a possible Humphrey to win the election [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Even if Humphrey is a modal continuant, it doesn't take the whole of him to do such things as winning. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], Post B) | |
| A reaction: This responds to Kripke's famous example, that people only care about what happens to themselves, and not to some 'counterpart' of themselves. |
| 16994 | Counterpart theory is bizarre, as no one cares what happens to a mere counterpart [Kripke on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Probably Humphrey could not care less whether someone else, no matter how much resembling him, would have been victorious in another possible world. Thus Lewis's view seems even more bizarre that the usual transworld identification it replaces. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968]) by Saul A. Kripke - Naming and Necessity notes and addenda note 13 | |
| A reaction: I begin to see this as a devastating reply to a theory I previously found quite congenial. |
| 11974 | Counterparts are not the original thing, but resemble it more than other things do [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Your counterparts resemble you closely in content and context in important respects. They resemble you more closely than do the other things in their worlds. But they are not really you. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I) | |
| A reaction: It is a dilemma. If my counterpart were exactly me, I couldn't contemplate possibly losing a leg, or my sanity. But if my counterpart isn't exactly me, then I don't have much interest in its fate. Only essences can save us here. Cf. me tomorrow. |
| 11975 | If the closest resembler to you is in fact quite unlike you, then you have no counterpart [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: If whatever thing in world w6 it is that resembles you more closely than anything else in w6 is nevertheless quite unlike you; nothing in w6 resembles you at all closely. If so, you have no counterpart in w6. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], I) | |
| A reaction: This is the nub, because the whole theory rests on deciding whether two things resemble sufficiently 'closely'. But then we need a criterion of closeness, so we must start talking about which properties matter. Essences loom. |
| 11977 | Essential attributes are those shared with all the counterparts [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: An essential attribute of something is an attribute it shares with all its counterparts. | |
| From: David Lewis (Counterpart theory and Quant. Modal Logic [1968], III) | |
| A reaction: I don't like this. It ties essence entirely to identity, but I think essence precedes identity. Essence is a nexus of causal and explanatory powers which bestows an identity on each thing. But essence might be unstable, and identity with it. |
| 12890 | That standards vary with context doesn't imply different truth-conditions for judgements [Conee] |
| Full Idea: The fact that different standards are routinely applied in making an evaluative judgement does not imply the correctness of semantic contextualism about the contents of judgements. ..We can't infer different truth conditions from differing standards. | |
| From: Earl Conee (Contextualism Contested [2005], p.51) | |
| A reaction: This is the basic objection to contextualism from the 'invariantist' camp, which says there are facts about good judgement and justification, despite contextual shifts. My sympathies are with the contextualists (on this one). |
| 12892 | Maybe there is only one context (the 'really and truly' one) for serious discussions of knowledge [Conee] |
| Full Idea: Maybe every issue about knowledge (Gettier problem, scientific knowledge, justification, scepticism) has been discussed solely in the single 'really and truly' context. | |
| From: Earl Conee (Contextualism Contested [2005], p.53) | |
| A reaction: This seems not to be true, if we contrast Descartes' desire for total certainty with Peirce's fallibilism. It seems to me that modern philosophy has deliberately relaxed the standard, in order to make some sort of knowledge possible. Cf. Idea 12894. |