13 ideas
| 18091 | Infinitesimals are ghosts of departed quantities [Berkeley] |
| Full Idea: The infinitesimals are the ghosts of departed quantities. | |
| From: George Berkeley (The Analyst [1734]), quoted by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.3 | |
| A reaction: [A famous phrase, but as yet no context for it] |
| 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. |
| 22392 | Morality is inescapable, in descriptive words such as 'dishonest', 'unjust' and 'uncharitable' [Foot] |
| Full Idea: There is a sense in which morality is inescapable - in moral epithets such as 'dishonest', 'unjust', 'uncharitable'; these do not cease to apply to a man because he is indifferent to the ends of morality: they may indeed apply because of his indifference. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.172 n15) | |
| A reaction: Odysseus was admired for lying, and charity wasn't a virtue in the ancient world. They won't go away as factual descriptions, but the values attached to them vary quite a lot. |
| 23685 | Reason is not a motivator of morality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
| Full Idea: In her middle period she changed her mind, and attacks moral rationalism. | |
| From: report of Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
| A reaction: That is, she doubted whether moral reasons are sufficient to motivate moral actions, which presumably therefore need desires, as the Humeans claimed. Reasons rely on merely hypothetical rules. |
| 23691 | Rejecting moral rules may be villainous, but it isn't inconsistent [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The man who rejects morality because he sees no reason to obey its rules can be convicted of villainy but not of inconsistency. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.161) | |
| A reaction: This is 'middle period' Foot, when she decided that Hume was right about the need for a desire as moral motivator. Before and after this time, she thought there were reasons to be moral, as well as desires. |
| 22391 | Saying we 'ought to be moral' makes no sense, unless it relates to some other system [Foot] |
| Full Idea: 'One ought to be moral' makes no sense at all unless the 'ought' has the moral subscript, giving a tautology, or else relates morality to some other system such as prudence or etiquette. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.169 n18) | |
| A reaction: This aims to undercut the Kantian view that morality is an absolute call to duty (filling us with wonder, like the starry heavens). Foot aims to root morality in the real world. |
| 22389 | Morality no more consists of categorical imperatives than etiquette does [Foot] |
| Full Idea: Moral judgements have no better claim to be categorical imperatives than do statements about matters of etiquette. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Morality as system of hypothetical imperatives [1972], p.164) | |
| A reaction: Her claim is that all moral judgements are responses to situations, and so are hypothetical. This judgement of hers is the culmination of a careful discussion. |