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All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Katzav on limitations of dispositions' and 'works'

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8 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

23367	Even pointing a finger should only be done for a reason [Epictetus]
	Full Idea: Philosophy says it is not right even to stretch out a finger without some reason.
	From: Epictetus (fragments/reports [c.57], 15)
	A reaction: The key point here is that philosophy concerns action, an idea on which Epictetus is very keen. He rather despise theory. This idea perfectly sums up the concept of the wholly rational life (which no rational person would actually want to live!).

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 1. Mathematics

12427	All of mathematics is properties of the whole numbers [Kronecker]
	Full Idea: All the results of significant mathematical research must ultimately be expressible in the simple forms of properties of whole numbers.
	From: Leopold Kronecker (works [1885], Vol 3/274), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 09.5
	A reaction: I've always liked Kronecker's line, but I'm beginning to realise that his use of the word 'number' is simply out-of-date. Natural numbers have a special status, but not sufficient to support this claim.

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 3. Nature of Numbers / c. Priority of numbers

10091	God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man [Kronecker]
	Full Idea: God made the integers, all the rest is the work of man.
	From: Leopold Kronecker (works [1885]), quoted by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Intro
	A reaction: This famous remark was first quoted in Kronecker's obituary. A response to Dedekind, it seems. See Idea 10090. Did he really mean that negative numbers were the work of God? We took a long time to spot them.

26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds

6613	The natural kinds are objects, processes and properties/relations [Ellis]
	Full Idea: There are three hierarchies of natural kinds: objects or substances (substantive universals), events or processes (dynamic universals), and properties or relations (tropic universals).
	From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91)
	A reaction: Most interesting here is the identifying of natural kinds with universals, making universals into the families of nature. Universals are high-level sets of natural kinds. To grasp universals you must see patterns, and infer the underlying order.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 2. Types of Laws

6616	Least action is not a causal law, but a 'global law', describing a global essence [Ellis]
	Full Idea: The principle of least action is not a causal law, but is what I call a 'global law', which describes the essence of the global kind, which every object in the universe necessarily instantiates.
	From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005])
	A reaction: As a fan of essentialism I find this persuasive. If I inherit part of my essence from being a mammal, I inherit other parts of my essence from being an object, and all objects would share that essence, so it would look like a 'law' for all objects.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / a. Scientific essentialism

6615	A species requires a genus, and its essence includes the essence of the genus [Ellis]
	Full Idea: A specific universal can exist only if the generic universal of which it is a species exists, but generic universals don't depend on species; …the essence of any genus is included in its species, but not conversely.
	From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91)
	A reaction: Thus the species 'electron' would be part of the genus 'lepton', or 'human' part of 'mammal'. The point of all this is to show how individual items connect up with the rest of the universe, giving rise to universal laws, such as Least Action.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws

6614	A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws [Ellis]
	Full Idea: The hierarchy of natural kinds proposed by essentialism may be more elaborate than is strictly required for purposes of ontology, but it is necessary to explain the necessity of the laws of nature, and the universal applicability of global principles.
	From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 91)
	A reaction: I am all in favour of elaborating ontology in the name of best explanation. There seem, though, to be some remaining ontological questions at the point where the explanations of essentialism run out.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / d. Knowing essences

6612	Without general principles, we couldn't predict the behaviour of dispositional properties [Ellis]
	Full Idea: It is objected to dispositionalism that without the principle of least action, or some general principle of equal power, the specific dispositional properties of things could tell us very little about how these things would be disposed to behave.
	From: Brian Ellis (Katzav on limitations of dispositions [2005], 90)
	A reaction: Ellis attempts to meet this criticism, by placing dispositional properties within a hierarchy of broader properties. There remains a nagging doubt about how essentialism can account for space, time, order, and the existence of essences.