17 ideas
| 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. |
| 21227 | The Cogito demands a bridge to the world, and ends in isolating the ego [Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: All philosophies inspired in the Cogito have the problem of building a bridge from the starting point of consciousness to the external world. The result of this is the isolation and solitude of the very ego. | |
| From: Victor Velarde-Mayol (On Husserl [2000], 4.7.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a pretty good reason not to develop a philosophy which is inspired by the Cogito. |
| 21215 | The representation may not be a likeness [Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: Representationalism is the doctrine that maintains that the object is represented in consciousness by means of an image. ...One should not confuse an image with a likeness. | |
| From: Victor Velarde-Mayol (On Husserl [2000], 2.4.3) | |
| A reaction: Helpful reminder that sense-data or whatever may not be a likeness. But then how do they represent? Symbolic representation needs massive interpretation. |
| 3654 | The pineal gland links soul to body, and unites the two symmetrical sides of the body [Descartes, by PG] |
| Full Idea: The soul is united with the body in just one place, a gland (the pineal) in the centre of the brain. It is placed so that its slightest movement will affect the passions, and it plays the essential role of uniting the two symmetrical sides of the body. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], §31) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 4862 for Spinoza's nice response to Descartes' proposal. If Descartes had followed brain research for the last four hundred years, at what point would he have wavered? If every single part of the brain seems to 'interact', dualism looks unlikely. |
| 4015 | For Descartes passions are God-given preservers of the mind-body union [Descartes, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Descartes sees passions not as opinions, but as functional devices that the Creator has designed for us to help preserve the body-soul substantial union. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §8 | |
| A reaction: I wonder what Descartes would have made of the theory of evolution? |
| 4313 | Are there a few primary passions (say, joy, sadness and desire)? [Descartes, by Cottingham] |
| Full Idea: Descartes says there are six primary passions (wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness); Spinoza says there are just three (joy, sadness and desire). | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by John Cottingham - The Rationalists p.172 | |
| A reaction: A dubious project. However, it is now agreed that there are a few (six?) basic universal facial expressions, to which these passions may correspond. |
| 23989 | There are six primitive passions: wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness [Descartes, by Goldie] |
| Full Idea: Descartes said there are six primitive passions, namely wonder, love, hatred, desire, joy and sadness. The others are either species of these, or composed of them. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], 353) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Evidence' | |
| A reaction: [not sure about ref] It's a nice touch to add 'wonder', which doesn't make it onto anyone else's list. |
| 20037 | Merely willing to walk leads to our walking [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Our merely willing to walk has the consequence that our legs move and we walk. | |
| From: René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], 18), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 1 'Volitionism' | |
| A reaction: Stout attributes this to Descartes' dualism, as if legs are separate from persons. Stout says the idea of a prior mental act is not usually now considered as part of an action, or even to exist at all. If the volition is intentional, there is a regress. |
| 16763 | We don't die because the soul departs; the soul departs because the organs cease functioning [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We ought to hold, on the contrary, that the soul takes its leave when we die only because this heat ceases and the organs that bring about bodily movement decay. | |
| From: René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649], I.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5 | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a pretty major change in our concept of death, given that we all now agree with Descartes. |
| 4016 | Descartes makes strength of will the central virtue [Descartes, by Taylor,C] |
| Full Idea: Descartes makes strength of will the central virtue. | |
| From: report of René Descartes (The Passions of the Soul [1649]) by Charles Taylor - Sources of the Self §8 | |
| A reaction: Presumably strength of will can serve evil ends, so this is a bit confusing. |
| 21219 | Find the essence by varying an object, to see what remains invariable [Velarde-Mayol] |
| Full Idea: Eidetic Reduction consists of producing variations in the individual object until we see what is invariable in it. What is invariable is its essence or Eidos. | |
| From: Victor Velarde-Mayol (On Husserl [2000], 3.2.2) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as an excellent idea. It more or less describes the method of science. Chemical atoms were thought to be unsplittable, until someone tried a new variation for dealing with them. |