5 ideas
| 15789 | Lewis's distinction of 'existing' from 'being actual' is Meinong's between 'existing' and 'subsisting' [Lycan on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that Lewis's view in fact is just Meinong's view. ...Meinong distinguishes between 'existing' and merely 'subsisting', Lewis between 'being actual' and merely 'existing'. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 06 | |
| A reaction: Lewis attempts to make actuality purely 'indexical' in character, like distinguishing the world 'here' from the world 'elsewhere', but Lycan seems right that he is committed to more than that. |
| 11946 | Propensities are part of a situation, not part of the objects [Popper] |
| Full Idea: Propensities should not be regarded as inherent in an object, such as a die or a penny, but should be regarded as inherent in a situation (of which, of course, the object was part). | |
| From: Karl Popper (A World of Propensities [1993], p.14), quoted by George Molnar - Powers 6.2 | |
| A reaction: Molnar argues against this claim, and I agree with him. We can see why Popper might prefer this relational view, given that powers often only become apparent in unusual relational situations. |
| 15790 | Lewis can't know possible worlds without first knowing what is possible or impossible [Lycan on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's knowledge of what possible worlds there are and of other general truths about worlds is posterior, not prior, to his knowledge of what things are possible and what things are impossible. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 07 | |
| A reaction: This elementary objection seems to me to destroy any attempt to explain modality in terms of possible worlds. It is a semantics for modal statements, but that doesn't make it an ontology. To assess possibilities, study actuality. |
| 15791 | What are the ontological grounds for grouping possibilia into worlds? [Lycan on Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Lewis must seek some ontological ground for the grouping of possibilia into disjoint worlds. | |
| From: comment on David Lewis (Possible Worlds [1973]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 07 | |
| A reaction: I do love people like Lycan who ask the simple commonsense questions about these highly sophisticated systems that students of philosophy are required to study. If a proposition is a 'set of worlds', understanding a proposition is beyond me. |
| 17009 | I won't object if someone shows that gravity consistently arises from the action of matter [Newton] |
| Full Idea: If someone explains gravity along with all its laws by the action of some subtle matter, and shows that the motion of the planets and comets will not be disturbed by this matter, I shall be far from objecting. | |
| From: Isaac Newton (Letters to Leibniz 1 [1693], 1693.10.16) | |
| A reaction: Important if you think that Newton is the hero of the descriptive regularity theory of laws. Newton probably thought laws came from God, but he wouldn't object to Leibniz's view, that God planted the laws within the matter. |