19 ideas
8967 | Not all predicates can be properties - 'is non-self-exemplifying', for example [Lowe] |
Full Idea: We cannot assume that every meaningful predicate necessarily expresses a property that some entity could possess. The predicate 'is non-self-exemplifying' is meaningful, yet it would be contradictory for there to be any such property. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003]) | |
A reaction: This clinches what I would take to be a foregone conclusion - that you can't know what the world contains just by examining the predicates of the English language. However, I suppose predicates are needed to know properties. |
8965 | Neither mere matter nor pure form can individuate a sphere, so it must be a combination [Lowe] |
Full Idea: A sphere's matter could not be what makes it one sphere, since matter lacks intrinsic unity, ..and the form cannot make it that very sphere, since an identical sphere may exemplify that universal. So it is a combination of form and matter. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 5) | |
A reaction: But how do two aspects of the sphere, neither of which has the power to individuate, achieve individuation when they are combined? Like parents, I suppose. Two totally identical spheres can only be individuated by location. |
21515 | Incoherence may be more important for enquiry than coherence [Olsson] |
Full Idea: While coherence may lack the positive role many have assigned to it, ...incoherence plays an important negative role in our enquiries. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 10.1) | |
A reaction: [He cites Peirce as the main source for this idea] We can hardly by deeply impressed by incoherence if we have no sense of coherence. Incoherence is just one of many markers for theory failure. Missing the target, bad concepts... |
21514 | Coherence is the capacity to answer objections [Olsson] |
Full Idea: According to Lehrer, coherence should be understood in terms of the capacity to answer objections. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 9) | |
A reaction: [Keith Lehrer 1990] We can connect this with the Greek requirement of being able to give an account [logos], which is the hallmark of understanding. I take coherence to be the best method of achieving understanding. Any understanding meets Lehrer's test. |
21496 | Mere agreement of testimonies is not enough to make truth very likely [Olsson] |
Full Idea: Far from guaranteeing a high likelihood of truth by itself, testimonial agreement can apparently do so only if the circumstances are favourable as regards independence, prior probability, and individual credibility. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: This is Olson's main thesis. His targets are C.I.Lewis and Bonjour, who hoped that a mere consensus of evidence would increase verisimilitude. I don't see a problem for coherence in general, since his favourable circumstances are part of it. |
21499 | Coherence is only needed if the information sources are not fully reliable [Olsson] |
Full Idea: An enquirer who is fortunate enough to have at his or her disposal fully reliable information sources has no use for coherence, the need for which arises only in the context of less than fully reliable informations sources. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 2.6.2) | |
A reaction: I take this to be entirely false. How do you assess reliability? 'I've seen it with my own eyes'. Why trust your eyes? In what visibility conditions do you begin to doubt your eyes? Why do rational people mistrust their intuitions? |
21502 | A purely coherent theory cannot be true of the world without some contact with the world [Olsson] |
Full Idea: The Input Objection says a pure coherence theory would seem to allow that a system of beliefs be justified in spite of being utterly out of contact with the world it purports to describe, so long as it is, to a sufficient extent, coherent. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 4.1) | |
A reaction: Olson seems impressed by this objection, but I don't see how a system could be coherently about the world if it had no known contact with the world. Olson seems to ignore meta-coherence, which evaluates the status of the system being studied. |
21512 | Extending a system makes it less probable, so extending coherence can't make it more probable [Olsson] |
Full Idea: Any non-trivial extension of a belief system is less probable than the original system, but there are extensions that are more coherent than the original system. Hence more coherence does not imply a higher probability. | |
From: Erik J. Olsson (Against Coherence [2005], 6.4) | |
A reaction: [Olson cites Klein and Warfield 1994; compressed] The example rightly says the extension could have high internal coherence, but not whether the extension is coherent with the system being extended. |
8968 | If the flagpole causally explains the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole [Lowe] |
Full Idea: Two distinct entities cannot explain each other, in the same sense of 'explain'. If the height of the flagpole causally explains the length of the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole, though it may predict the latter. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 12) | |
A reaction: This seems related to the question of the direction of time/causation. Some explanations can be benignly circular, as when a married couple have a passion for chinese food. [S.Bromberger 1966 invented the flagpole case]. |
8966 | Properties are facets of objects, only discussable separately by an act of abstraction [Lowe] |
Full Idea: In no sense is a property a 'constituent' of an object: it is merely a 'facet' or 'aspect' of an object - something which we can talk about or think of separately from that object only by an act of abstraction. | |
From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 8) | |
A reaction: This appears to be in tune with traditional abstractionism, even though Lowe is committed to the reality of universals. To what do I refer when I say 'I like your car, apart from its colour'? |
8388 | Causation is either direct realism, Humean reduction, non-Humean reduction or theoretical realism [Tooley] |
Full Idea: The main approaches to causation I shall refer to as direct realism, Humean reductionism, non-Humean reductionism, and indirect or theoretical realism. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
A reaction: The first simply observes causation (Anscombe), the second reduces it to regularity (Hume), the third reduces it to other natural features (Fair, Salmon, Dowe), the fourth takes an instrumental approach (Armstrong, Tooley). I favour the third approach. |
8389 | Causation distinctions: reductionism/realism; Humean/non-Humean states; observable/non-observable [Tooley] |
Full Idea: The three main distinctions concerning causation are between reductionism and realism; between Humean and non-Humean states of affairs; and between states that are immediately observable and those that are not. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 2) | |
A reaction: I favour reductionism over realism, because I like the question 'If x is real, what is it made of?' I favour non-Humean states of affairs, because I think constant conjunction is very superficial. I presume the existence of non-observable components. |
8393 | We can only reduce the direction of causation to the direction of time if we are realist about the latter [Tooley] |
Full Idea: A reductionist can hold that the direction of causation is to be defined in terms of the direction of time; but this response is only available if one is prepared to adopt a realist view of the direction of time. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.2.1.2) | |
A reaction: A nice illustration of the problems that arise if we try to be reductionist about everything. Personally I prefer my realism to be about time rather than about causation. Time, I would say, makes causation possible, not the other way around. |
8390 | Causation is directly observable in pressure on one's body, and in willed action [Tooley] |
Full Idea: The arguments in favour of causation being observable appeal especially to the impression of pressure upon one's body, and to one's introspective awareness of willing, together with the perception of the event which one willed. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Evan Fagels] Anscombe also cites words which have causality built into their meaning. This would approach would give priority to mental causation, and would need to demonstrate that similar things happen out in the world. |
8392 | Probabilist laws are compatible with effects always or never happening [Tooley] |
Full Idea: If laws of causation are probabilistic then the law does not entail any restrictions upon the proportion of events that follow a cause: ...it can have absolutely any value from zero to one. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.3) | |
A reaction: This objection applies to an account of laws of nature, and also to definitions of causes as events which increase probabilities. One needn't be fully committed to natural necessity, but it must form some part of the account. |
8399 | The actual cause may not be the most efficacious one [Tooley] |
Full Idea: A given type of state may be causally efficacious, but not as efficacious as an alternative states, so it is not true that even a direct cause need raise the probability of its effect. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 6.2.4) | |
A reaction: My intuition is that explaining causation in terms of probabilities entirely misses the point, which mainly concerns explaining the sense of necessitation in a cause. This idea give me a good reason for my intuition. |
8391 | In counterfactual worlds there are laws with no instances, so laws aren't supervenient on actuality [Tooley] |
Full Idea: If a counterfactual holds in a possible world, that is presumably because a law holds in that world, which means there could be basic causal laws that lack all instances. But then causal laws cannot be totally supervenient on the history of the universe. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 4.1.2) | |
A reaction: A nice argument, which sounds like trouble for Lewis. One could deny that the laws have to hold in the counterfactual worlds, but then we wouldn't be able to conceive them. |
8394 | Explaining causation in terms of laws can't explain the direction of causation [Tooley] |
Full Idea: The most serious objection to any account of causation in terms of nomological relations alone is that it can't provide any account of the direction of causation. | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.1) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 8393. I am not convinced that there could be an 'account' of the direction of causation, so I am inclined to take it as given. If we take 'powers' (active properties) as basic, they would have a direction built into them. |
8398 | Causation is a concept of a relation the same in all worlds, so it can't be a physical process [Tooley] |
Full Idea: Against the view that causation is a particular physical process, might it not be argued that the concept of causation is the concept of a relation that possesses a certain intrinsic nature, so that causation must be the same in all possible worlds? | |
From: Michael Tooley (Causation and Supervenience [2003], 5.4) | |
A reaction: This makes the Humean assumption that laws of nature might be wildly different. I think it is perfectly possible that physical processes are the only way that causation could occur. Alternatively, the generic definition of 'cause' is just very vague. |