6 ideas
| 16886 | The truth of an axiom must be independently recognisable [Frege] |
| Full Idea: It is part of the concept of an axiom that it can be recognised as true independently of other truths. | |
| From: Gottlob Frege (On Euclidean Geometry [1900], 183/168), quoted by Tyler Burge - Frege on Knowing the Foundations 4 | |
| A reaction: Frege thinks the axioms of arithmetic all reside in logic. |
| 8443 | Mereological essentialism says an entity must have exactly those parts [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: Mereological essentialism says that nothing else could have been the unique entity composed of certain parts except the very thing that is composed of those parts. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds initially implausible. It means the ship of Theseus ceases to be that ship if you change a single nail of it. Whether we say that seems optional, but if we do, it leads to the collaps of all our normal understanding of identity. |
| 8442 | What law would explain causation in the case of causing a table to come into existence? [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: If I fasten a board onto a tree stump, causing a table to come into existence, ...what law of nature or, even, what quasi-law or law-like principle could possibly play in such a case of generation the role required by nomological accounts? | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 1) | |
| A reaction: A very nice question. The nomological account is at its strongest when rocks fall off walls or magnets attract, but all sorts of other caused events seem too messy or complex or original to fit the story. |
| 8445 | The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: The necessitated is not always a result or consequence of the necessitator. If p-and-q is a fact, then this necessitates that p, but the fact that p need not be a result or consequence of the fact that p-and-q. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], p.242) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously correct, and needs to be borne in mind when considering necessary causation. It is not enough to produce a piece of logic; something in the link from cause to effect must be demonstrated to be necessary. |
| 8444 | Where is the necessary causation in the three people being tall making everybody tall? [Sosa] |
| Full Idea: It is not clear how to analyse the form of necessary causation found in the only three people in the room being tall causing everybody in the room to be tall. | |
| From: Ernest Sosa (Varieties of Causation [1980], 5) | |
| A reaction: I would want to challenge this as a case of causation. There are no events or processes involved. It seems that a situation described in one way can also be described in another. |
| 4800 | Natural laws result from eliminative induction, where enumerative induction gives generalisations [Cohen,LJ, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Cohen contends that statements that express laws of nature are the products of eliminative induction, where accidentally true generalisations are the products of enumerative induction. | |
| From: report of L. Jonathan Cohen (The Problem of Natural Laws [1980], p.222) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §7.1 | |
| A reaction: The idea is that enumerative induction only offers the support of positive instances, where eliminative induction involves attempts to falsify a range of hypotheses. This still bases laws on observed regularities, rather than essences or mechanisms. |