Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'How Things Might Have Been' and 'Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends''

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24 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
11897 A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2)
     A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex.
11898 Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5)
     A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
11883 A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2)
     A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
11889 Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: The argument for unshareable properties (the Reduplication Argument) suggests the danger of reduplication of Berkeley; the argument for incompatible properties (Multiple Occupancy) says Berkeley and Hume could be in the same possible object.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.8)
     A reaction: These are her arguments in favour of essential properties being necessarily incompatible between objects. Whatever the answer, it must allow essences for indistinguishables like electrons. 'Incompatible' points towards a haecceity.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
11877 An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: By essentialism about individuals I simply mean the view that individual things have essential properties, where an essential property of an object is a property that the object could not have existed without.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 1.1)
     A reaction: This presumably means I could exist without a large part of my reason and consciousness, but could not exist without one of my heart valves. This seems to miss the real point of essence. I couldn't exist without oxygen - not one of my properties.
11882 No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Individual essences are essential properties that are unique to them alone. ...If a set of properties is an individual essence of A, then A has the properties essentially, and no other actual or possible object actually or possibly has them.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.1/2)
     A reaction: I'm unconvinced about this. Tigers have an essence, but individual tigers have individual essences over and above their tigerish qualities, yet the perfect identity of two tigers still seems to be possible.
11886 There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: If all objects had individual essences, there would be no numerical difference without an essential difference. But if there aren't individual essences, there could be two things sharing all essential properties, differing only in accidental properties.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.5)
     A reaction: Depends how you define individual essence. Why can't two electrons have the same individual essence. To postulate a 'kind essence' which bestows the properties on each electron is to get things the wrong way round.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
11909 Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: There is a disanalogy between 'necessarily water=H2O' and 'necessarily Hesperus=Phosphorus'. The second just needs the necessity of identity, but the first needs 'x is a water sample' and 'x is an H2O' sample to coincide in all possible worlds.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1.)
     A reaction: This comment is mainly aimed at Kripke, who bases his essentialism on identities, rather than at Putnam.
11899 Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Accounts of sortal essentialism do not give a satisfactory explanation of why any sortals should be essential sortals, or a satisfactory account of why some sortals should be essential while others are not.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.6)
     A reaction: A theory is not wrong, just because it cannot give a 'satisfactory explanation' of every aspect of the subject. We might, though, ask why the theory isn't doing well in this area.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
11906 The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam chose for their typical essence of kinds, sets of properties that could be thought of as explanatorily basic. ..But the modal implications of their views go well beyond this.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1)
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 11905. The modal implications are that the explanatory essence is also necessary to the identity of the thing under discussion, such as H2O. So do basic explanations carry across into all possible worlds?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
11894 Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: I suggest 'tenacity of origin' rather than 'necessity of origin'. ..The most that we need is that Caesar's having something similar to his actual origin in certain respects (e.g. his actual parents) is normally kept fixed in counterfactual speculation.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.9)
     A reaction: I find necessity or essentially of origin very unconvincing, so I rather like this. Origin is just a particularly stable way to establish our reference to something. An elusive spy may have little more than date and place of birth to fix them.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
11887 Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities'.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.7)
     A reaction: [She gives an argument for this, based on Forbes] I certainly favour the notion of individual essences over the notion of bare identities. We must distinguish identity in reality from identity in concept. Identities are points in conceptual space.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / c. Counterparts
11890 De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1)
     A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities.
11892 Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history).
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3)
     A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume.
11893 Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5)
     A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / d. Haecceitism
11884 The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: The theory that things have 'haecceities' must be sharply distinguished from the theory referred to as 'haecceitism', which says there may be differences in transworld identities that do not supervene on qualitative differences.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2 n7)
     A reaction: She says later [p,43 n] that it is possible to be a haecceitist without believing in individual haecceities, if (say) the transworld identities had no basis at all. Note that if 'thisness' is 'haecceity', then 'whatness' is 'quiddity'.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
11905 Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One might speak of 'Lockean real essences' of a natural kind, a set of properties that is basic in the explanation of the other properties of the kind, without commitment to the essence belonging to the kind in all possible worlds.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1)
     A reaction: I think this may be the most promising account. The essence of a tiger explains what tigers are like, but tigers may evolve into domestic pets. Questions of individuation and of explaining seem to be quite separate.
16. Persons / A. Concept of a Person / 4. Persons as Agents
9757 A person viewed as an agent makes no sense without its own future [Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: In forming a particular plan of life, you need to identify with your future in order to be what you are even now. When the person is viewed as an agent, no clear content can be given to the idea of a merely present self.
     From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §2)
     A reaction: I certainly like the notion that we should treat persons primarily as agents, since I take personhood to be more like a process than an existent entity. If a large brick is about to hit you, you actually have no future, though you think you have.
9758 To make sense of personal identity, focus on agency rather than experience [Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: A focus on agency makes more sense of personal identity than a focus on experience.
     From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §2)
     A reaction: This strikes me as eminently sensible advice for the beginning of any discussion of personal identity. Her personal bęte noir is Parfit, who focuses on what we are conscious of.
20. Action / A. Definition of Action / 1. Action Theory
9759 Theory of action focuses on explanation and prediction; practical action on justification and choice [Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: When we look at our actions from the theoretical standpoint our concern is with their explanation and prediction. When we view them from the practical standpoint our concern is with their justification and choice.
     From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §4)
     A reaction: A nice distinction, which invites us to further subdivide action theory into two branches, with entirely different concerns.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death
16764 The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
     Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
     From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
     A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / i. Self-interest
9760 Self-concern may be a source of pain, or a lack of self-respect, or a failure of responsibility [Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: For utilitarians, self-concern causes needless pain; for Kantians, it evinces a lack of respect for one's own humanity; for the religious moralist, it is a failure of responsibility for what has been placed in one's special care.
     From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §5)
     A reaction: Worryingly, given my heathenish views, I find the third one the most congenial. If we don't take responsibility for our own selves (e.g. for having a great talent), then no one (even parents) will take responsibility for anything.
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
9761 Personal concern for one's own self widens out into concern for the impersonal [Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: The personal concern which begins with one's life in a particular body finds its place in ever-widening spheres of agency and enterprise, developing finally into a personal concern for the impersonal.
     From: Christine M. Korsgaard (Intro to 'Creating the Kingdom of Ends' [1996], §5)
     A reaction: I am very struck by this nice thought, which comes from a very committed Kantian. It seems to me to capture the modern orthodoxy in ethical thinking - that concern for one's self, rather than altruism, is central, but altruism should follow from it.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 6. Necessity of Kinds
11907 Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind.
     From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2)
     A reaction: You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional.