13804
|
A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
A property P is an essential property of an object x iff x could not exist and lack P, that is, as they say, iff x has P at every world at which x exists.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
This immediately places the existence of x outside the normal range of its properties, so presumably 'existence is not a predicate', but that dictum may be doubted. As it stands this definition will include trivial and vacuous properties.
|
13806
|
Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
The main groups of trivially essential properties are (a) existence, self-identity, or their consequences in S5; and (b) properties possessed in virtue of some de dicto necessary truth.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
|
|
A reaction:
He adds 'extraneously essential' properties, which also strike me as being trivial, involving relations. 'Is such that 2+2=4' or 'is such that something exists' might be necessary, but they don't, I would say, have anything to do with essence.
|
13809
|
One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made [Forbes,G]
|
|
Full Idea:
In the case of artefacts, there is an essentialism about original matter; for instance, it would be said of any particular bronze statue that it could not have been cast from a totally different quantity of bronze.
|
|
From:
Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3)
|
|
A reaction:
Forbes isn't endorsing this, and it doesn't sound convincing. He quotes the thought 'I wish I had made this pot from a different piece of clay'. We might corrupt a statue by switching bronze, but I don't think the sculptor could do so.
|
23221
|
The brain, and all the mental events within it, consists entirely of sensitive and rational matter [Cavendish]
|
|
Full Idea:
Sensitive and rational matter …makes not only the Brain, but all Thoughts, Conceptions, Imaginations, Fancy, Understanding, Memory, Remembrance, and whatsoever motions are in the Head or Brain.
|
|
From:
Margaret Cavendish (Philosophical Letters [1664], p.185), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
|
|
A reaction:
Judging by the date of this, and that she is a Cavendish, the influence of Hobbes must be strong, which was brave in 1664. A very strong statement of reductive physicalism, making sure that nothing is left out.
|
5655
|
Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton]
|
|
Full Idea:
For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self.
|
|
From:
report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16
|
|
A reaction:
Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452).
|