13 ideas
4483 | If abstract terms are sets of tropes, 'being a unicorn' and 'being a griffin' turn out identical [Loux] |
Full Idea: If trope theorists say abstract singular terms name sets of tropes, what is the referent of 'is a unicorn'? The only candidate is the null set (with no members), but there is just one null set, so 'being a unicorn' and 'being a griffin' will be identical. | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.86) | |
A reaction: Not crucial, I would think, given that a unicorn is just a horse with a horn. Hume explains how we do that, combining ideas which arose from actual tropes. |
4477 | Universals come in hierarchies of generality [Loux] |
Full Idea: Universals come in hierarchies of generality. | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.24) | |
A reaction: If it is possible to state facts about universals, this obviously encourages a rather Platonic approach to them, as existent things with properties. But maybe the hierarchies are conventional, not natural. |
4481 | Austere nominalists insist that the realist's universals lack the requisite independent identifiability [Loux] |
Full Idea: Austere nominalists insist that the realist's universals lack the requisite independent identifiability. | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.60) | |
A reaction: Plato's view seems to be that we don't identify universals independently. We ascend The Line, or think about the shadows in The Cave, and infer the universals from an array of particulars (by dialectic). |
4482 | Austere nominalism has to take a host of things (like being red, or human) as primitive [Loux] |
Full Idea: In return for a one-category ontology (with particulars but no universals), the austere nominalist is forced to take a whole host of things (like being red, or triangular, or human) as unanalysable or primitive. | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.68) | |
A reaction: I see that 'red' might have to be primitive, but being human can just be a collection of particulars. It is no ontologically worse to call them 'primitive' than to say they exist. |
4478 | Nominalism needs to account for abstract singular terms like 'circularity'. [Loux] |
Full Idea: Nominalists have been very concerned to provide an account of the role of abstract singular terms (such as 'circularity'). | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.34) | |
A reaction: Whether this is a big problem depends on our view of abstraction. If it only consists of selecting one property of an object and reifying it, then we can give a nominalist account of properties, and the problem is solved. |
4480 | Times and places are identified by objects, so cannot be used in a theory of object-identity [Loux] |
Full Idea: Any account of the identity of material objects which turns on the identity of places and times must face the objection that the identity of places and times depends, in turn, on the identities of the objects located at them. | |
From: Michael J. Loux (Metaphysics: contemporary introduction [1998], p.56) | |
A reaction: This may be a benign circle, in which we concede that there are two basic interdependent concepts of objects and space-time. If you want to define identity - in terms of what? |
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. |
22395 | Moral judgements are hypothetical, because they depend on interests and desires [Foot] |
Full Idea: Moral judgements are hypothetical imperatives in the sense that they give reasons for acting only in conjunction with interests and desires. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Reply to Professor Frankena [1975], p.177) | |
A reaction: This is a splendid claim, which points to a more sensibly naturalistic ethics. There seem to be occasions for moral behaviour where I have no interests or desires, such as when a stranger asks me for a favour and I'm feeling tired. |