13 ideas
| 13917 | Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The central task of metaphysics is to chart the possibilities of existence by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency in which beings of different categories stand to one another. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I am beginning to think that he is right about the second one, and that dependency and grounding relations are the name of the game. I don't have Lowe's confidence that philosophers can parcel up reality in neat and true ways. |
| 13919 | Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: The central task of philosophy is the cultivation of insights into natures or essences, and not the 'analysis of concepts', with which it is apt to be confused. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a false dichotomy. I like the idea of trying to understand the true natures of things, but how are we going to do it in our armchairs? |
| 13918 | Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Holes are things of such a kind that they can coincide without being identical - as are, for example, shadows and spots of light. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: His point is that they thereby fail one of the standard tests for being an 'object'. |
| 13921 | All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Things must have an essence, in the sense of 'what it is to be the individual of that kind', or it would make no sense to say we can talk or think comprehendingly about things at all. If we don't know what it is, how can we think about it? | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: Lowe presents this as a sort of Master Argument for essences. I think he is working with the wrong notion of essence. All he means is that things must have identities to be objects of thought. Why equate identity with essence, and waste a good concept? |
| 13922 | Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: To know something's essence is not to be acquainted with some further thing of a special kind, but simply to understand what exactly that thing is. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: I think he is wrong about this, or at least is working with an unhelpful notion of essence. Identity is one thing, and essence is another. I take essences to be certain selected features of things, which explain their nature. |
| 13920 | Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Any individual thing must be a thing of some general kind - because, at the very least, it must belong to some ontological category. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2) | |
| A reaction: Where does the law that 'everything must have a category' come from? I'm baffled by remarks of this kind. Where do we get the categories from? From observing the individuals. So which has priority? Not the categories. Is God a kind? |
| 14303 | Truth-functional conditionals have a simple falsification, when A is true and B is false [Peirce] |
| Full Idea: The utility of [truth-functional conditionals] is that it puts us in possession of a rule...[namely] The hypothetical proposition may be ...falsified by a single state of things, but only by one in which A [antecedent] is true and B [consequent] is false. | |
| From: Charles Sanders Peirce (On the Algebra of Logic [1895], p.218), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions | |
| A reaction: Personally I am rather more interested in verifying conditionals than in falsifying them. I certainly don't accept them until they are falsified, unless they have massive support from surrounding facts. |
| 22868 | The value and truth of knowledge are measured by success in activity [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: What measures knowledge's value, its correctness and truth, is the degree of its availability for conducting to a successful issue the activities of living beings. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 4:180), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Critique' | |
| A reaction: Note that this is the measure of truth, not the nature of truth (which James seemed to believe). Dewey gives us a clear and perfect statement of the pragmatic view of knowledge. I don't agree with it. |
| 22865 | Habits constitute the self [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 14:22), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 1 'Acts' | |
| A reaction: Not an idea I have encountered elsewhere. He emphasises that habits are not repeated actions, but are dispositions. I'm not clear whether these habits must be conscious. |
| 22871 | The good people are those who improve; the bad are those who deteriorate [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:181), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 3 'Reconstruct' | |
| A reaction: Although a slightly improving rat doesn't sound as good as a slightly deteriorating saint, I have some sympathy with this thought. The desire to improve seems to be right at the heart of what makes good character. |
| 22876 | Democracy is the development of human nature when it shares in the running of communal activities [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is but a name for the fact that human nature is developed only when its elements take part in directing things which are common, things for the sake of which men and women form groups. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:199), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: It is hard to prove that human nature develops when it particpates in groups. If people are excluded from power, their loyalty tends to switch to sub-groups, such as friends in a pub, or a football team. Powerless nationalists baffle me. |
| 22875 | Democracy is not just a form of government; it is a mode of shared living [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 9:93), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: This precisely pinpoints the heart of the culture wars in 2021. A huge swathe of western populations believe in Dewey's idea, but a core of wealthy right-wingers and their servants only see democracy as the mechanism for obtaining power. |
| 22874 | Individuality is only developed within groups [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Only in social groups does a person have a chance to develop individuality. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 15:176), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Individuals' | |
| A reaction: This is a criticism of both Rawls and Nozick. Rawls's initial choosers don't consult, or have much social background. Nozick's property owners ignore everything except contracts. |