14 ideas
15127 | A categorical basis could hardly explain a disposition if it had no powers of its own [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: The categorical basis would be a poor explanans for the disposition as explanandum, if the categorical basis did not drag any causal powers along with it. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 2.4) | |
A reaction: The idea that the world is explained just by some basic stuff having qualities and relations always strikes me as wrong, because the view of nature is too passive. |
15123 | Is the causal profile of a property its essence? [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: We might say that the causal profile of a property is its essence. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: I associate this view with Shoemaker, and find it sympathetic. We always want to know more. What gives rise to these causal powers? Where does explanation end? He notes that you might say some of the powers are non-essential. |
15122 | Could two different properties have the same causal profile? [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: If there is more to the nature of a property than the causal powers that it confers, then two different internal natures of properties might necessitate the same causal profile. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: If the causal profiles were identical, it is hard to see how we could even propose, let alone test, their intrinsic difference. ...Unless, perhaps, we knew that the properties arose from different substrata. |
15124 | If properties are more than their powers, we could have two properties with the same power [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: If a property is something over and above its causal profile, we seem to have conceptual space for an electron to have negative charge 1 and negative charge 2, that have exactly the same causal powers. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 1.3) |
15128 | We can treat the structure/form of the world differently from the nodes/matter of the world [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: It does not seem altogether arbitrary to treat the structure of the world (the 'form' of the world) in a different way to the nodes in the structure (the 'matter' of the world). | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 2.5) | |
A reaction: An interesting contemporary spin put on Aristotle's original view. Hawthorne is presenting the Aristotle account as a sort of 'structuralism' about nature. |
15121 | An individual essence is a necessary and sufficient profile for a thing [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: An individual essence is a profile that is necessary and sufficient for some particular thing. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
A reaction: By 'for' he presumably means for the thing to have an existence and a distinct identity. If it retained its identity, but didn't function any more, would that be loss of essence? |
12899 | The timid student has knowledge without belief, lacking confidence in their correct answer [Lewis] |
Full Idea: I allow knowledge without belief, as in the case of the timid student who knows the answer but has no confidence that he has it right, and so does not believe what he knows. | |
From: David Lewis (Elusive Knowledge [1996], p.429) | |
A reaction: [He cites Woozley 1953 for the timid student] I don't accept this example (since my views on knowledge are rather traditional, I find). Why would the student give that answer if they didn't believe it? Sustained timid correctness never happens. |
12897 | To say S knows P, but cannot eliminate not-P, sounds like a contradiction [Lewis] |
Full Idea: If you claim that S knows that P, and yet grant that S cannot eliminate a certain possibility of not-P, it certainly seems as if you have granted that S does not after all know that P. To speak of fallible knowledge just sounds contradictory. | |
From: David Lewis (Elusive Knowledge [1996], p.419) | |
A reaction: Starting from this point, fallibilism seems to be a rather bold move. The only sensible response seems to be to relax the requirement that not-P must be eliminable. Best: in one epistemic context P, in another not-P. |
12898 | Justification is neither sufficient nor necessary for knowledge [Lewis] |
Full Idea: I don't agree that the mark of knowledge is justification, first because justification isn't sufficient - your true opinion that you will lose the lottery isn't knowledge, whatever the odds; and also not necessary - for what supports perception or memory? | |
From: David Lewis (Elusive Knowledge [1996]) | |
A reaction: I don't think I agree. The point about the lottery is that an overwhelming reason will never get you to knowing that you won't win. But good reasons are coherent, not statistical. If perceptions are dubious, justification must be available. |
12895 | Knowing is context-sensitive because the domain of quantification varies [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: The context-sensitivity of 'knows' is a function of contextual restrictions on the domain of quantification. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Elusive Knowledge [1996]) by Stewart Cohen - Contextualism Defended p.68 | |
A reaction: I think the shifting 'domain of quantification' is one of the most interesting features of ordinary talk. Or, more plainly. 'what are you actually talking about?' is the key question in any fruitful dialogue. Sophisticated speakers tacitly shift domain. |
19562 | We have knowledge if alternatives are eliminated, but appropriate alternatives depend on context [Lewis, by Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: S knows P if S's evidence eliminates every alternative. But the nature of the alternatives depends on context. So for Lewis, the context sensitivity of 'knows' is a function of contextual restrictions ln the domain of quantification. | |
From: report of David Lewis (Elusive Knowledge [1996]) by Stewart Cohen - Contextualism Defended (and reply) 1 | |
A reaction: A typical modern attempt to 'regiment' a loose term like 'context'. That said, I like the idea. I'm struck by how the domain varies during a conversation (as in 'what we are talking about'). Domains standardly contain 'objects', though. |
5845 | Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon] |
Full Idea: Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'. | |
From: Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5) | |
A reaction: This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue |
15126 | Maybe scientific causation is just generalisation about the patterns [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: Perhaps science doesn't need a robust conception of causation, and can get by with thinking of causal laws in a Humean way, as the simplest generalization over the mosaic. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 1.5) | |
A reaction: The Humean view he is referring to is held by David Lewis. That seems a council of defeat. We observe from a distance, but make no attempt to explain. |
15125 | We only know the mathematical laws, but not much else [Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: We know the laws of the physical world, in so far as they are mathematical, pretty well, but we know nothing else about it. | |
From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Ch.25) | |
A reaction: Lovely remark [spotted by Hawthorne]. This sums up exactly what I take to be the most pressing issue in philosophy of science - that we develop a view of science that has space for the next step in explanation. |