12 ideas
15118 | A successful Aristotelian 'definition' is what sciences produces after an investigation [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: My current use of the Aristotelian term 'definition' is intended to correspond to what is typically accessible to a scientist only at the end of a successful investigation into the nature of a particular phenomenon. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
A reaction: It is crucial to understand that Aristotle's definitions could be several hundred pages long. It has nothing to do with dictionary definitions. He proposes 'nominal' and 'real' definitions. |
15116 | Essences cause necessary features, and definitions describe those necessary features [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Since essences cause the other necessary features of a thing, so definitions, as the linguistic correlates of essences, explain, together with other axioms, the propositions describing those necessary features. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
A reaction: This is nice and clear. Definitions are NOT essences - they are the linguistic correlates of essences, and mirror those essences. The necessary features are not the only things needing explanation. That picture is too passive. |
13128 | 'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins] |
Full Idea: 'Ultimate sortals' are said to be non-subordinated, disjoint from one another, and uniquely paired with each object. Because of this, the ultimate sortal cannot be a satisfactory explication of the notion of an ontological category. | |
From: comment on David Wiggins (Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity [1971], p.75) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §26 | |
A reaction: My strong intuitions are that Wiggins is plain wrong, and Westerhoff gives the most promising reasons for my intuition. The simplest point is that objects can obviously belong to more than one category. |
15110 | An essence and what merely follow from it are distinct [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: We can distinguish (as Aristotle and Fine do) between what belongs to the essence of an object, and what merely follows from the essence of an object. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1) | |
A reaction: This can help to clarify the confusions that result from treating necessary properties as if they were essential. |
15113 | Individuals are perceived, but demonstration and definition require universals [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Individual instances of a kind of phenomenon, in Aristotle's view, can only be perceived through sense-perception; but they are not the proper subject-matter of scientific demonstration and definition. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
A reaction: A footnote (11) explains that this is because they involve syllogisms, which require universals. I take Aristotle, and anyone sensible, to rest on individual essences, but inevitably turn to generic essences when language becomes involved. |
15112 | If an object exists, then its essential properties are necessary [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: If an object has a certain property essentially, then it follows that the object has the property necessarily (if it exists). | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.2) | |
A reaction: She is citing Fine, who says that the converse (necessity implying essence) is false. I agree with that. I also willing to challenge the first bit. I suspect an object can retain identity and lose essence. Coma patient; broken clock; aged athlete. |
15111 | In demonstration, the explanatory order must mirror the causal order of the phenomena [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Demonstration encompasses more than deductive entailment, in that the explanatory order of priority represented in a successful demonstration must mirror precisely the causal order of priority present in the phenomena in question. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1) | |
A reaction: She is referring to Aristotle's 'Posterior Analytics'. Put so clearly this sounds like an incredibly useful concept in discussing how we present good modern scientific explanations. Reinstating Aristotle is a major priority for philosophy! |
15115 | In a demonstration the middle term explains, by being part of the definition [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: In a proper demonstrative argument, the middle term must be explanatory of the conclusion, in a very specific sense: the middle term must state what properly belongs to the definition of the kind of phenomenon in question. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
A reaction: So 'All men are mortal, S is a man, so S is mortal'. The middle term is 'man', which gives a generic explanation for why S is mortal. Explanation as categorisation? I don't think this is the whole story of Aristotelian explanation. |
15117 | Greek uses the same word for 'cause' and 'explanation' [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The Greek does not disambiguate between 'cause' and 'explanation', since the same terms ('aitia' and 'aition') can be translated in both ways. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n15) | |
A reaction: This is essential information if we are to understand Aristotle's Four Causes, which are quite baffling if we take 'causes' in the modern way. The are the Four Modes of Explanation. |
15114 | Discovering the Aristotelian essence of thunder will tell us why thunder occurs [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Both the question 'what is thunder?', and the question 'why does thunder occur?', for Aristotle, are answered simultaneously, once it has been discovered what the essence of thunder it, i.e. what it is to be thunder. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n10) | |
A reaction: I take this idea to be pretty much the whole story about essences. |
22442 | If lies were ever acceptable, with would undermine all duties based on contract [Kant] |
Full Idea: Truthfulness is a duty that must be regarded as the basis of all duties to be grounded on a contract, the law of which is made uncertain and useless if even the least exception to it is admitted. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.30) | |
A reaction: Should we keep contracts which are made by means of deception and coercion? Where could such absolute authority for contracts come from? Do contracts and treaties tend to lapse after a long period of time? |
22441 | The law will protect you if you tell a truth which results in murder [Kant] |
Full Idea: If you have by a lie prevented someone bent on murder from committing the deed, then you are legally accountable for all the consequences that might arise from it. But if you keep strictly to the truth, then public justice can hold nothing against you. | |
From: Immanuel Kant (On a supposed right to lie [1797], p.29) | |
A reaction: Shocking, from a supposedly great thinker. Cowardly hiding behind a perverse law. What would Kant do if the law were changed, to condemn someone who told a truth which would probably lead to a murder? Would he accept a jail sentence? |