78 ideas
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The new essentialism leads to a turning away from semantic analysis as a fundamental tool for the pursuit of metaphysical aims, ..since there is no reason to think that the language we speak accurately reflects the kind of world we live in. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The last part of that strikes me as false. We have every reason to think that a lot of our language very accurately reflects reality. It had better, because we have no plan B. We should analyse our best concepts, but not outdated, culture-laden ones. |
| 19917 | Without reason and human help, human life is misery [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Without mutual help and the cultivation of reason, human beings necessarily live in great misery. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.05) | |
| A reaction: A clarion call from a great voice of the Enlightenment. I agree, but in 2017 the rest of western civilization seems to have given up on this ideal. I blame Adorno and Horkheimer. |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: 'Dispositional' properties involve behaviour, and 'categorical properties' are structures in two or more dimensions. 'Block' structures (e.g. molecules) depend on other things, and 'instrinsic' structures (e.g. fields) involve no separate parts. | |
| From: report of Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This is an essentialist approach to properties, and sounds correct to me. The crucial preliminary step to understanding properties is to eliminate secondary qualities (e.g. colour), which are not properties at all, and cause confusion. |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: 'Categorical realism' is the most widely accepted theory of dispositional properties, because passivists can accept it, ..that is, that dispositions supervene on categorical properties; ..the opposite would imply nature is active and reactive. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Essentialists believe 'the opposite' - i.e. that dispositions are fundamental, and hence that the essence of nature is active. See 5468 for explanations of the distinctions. I am with the essentialists on this one. |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Redness is not a property, because it has no mind-independent existence. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Well said. Secondary qualities are routinely cited in discussions of properties, and they shouldn't be. Redness causes nothing to happen in the physical world, unless a consciousness experiences it. |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: One cannot think of a property as just a set of objects in a domain (as Fregean logicians do), as though the property has no powers, but is just a way of classifying objects. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I agree. It is sometimes suggested that properties are what 'individuate' objects, but how could they do that if they didn't have some power? If properties are known by their causal role, why do they have that causal role? |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: With few, if any, exceptions, the fundamental properties of physical theory are dispositional properties of the things that have them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: He is denying that they are passive (as Locke saw primary qualities), and says they are actively causal, or else capacities or propensities. Sounds right to me. |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The revival of essentialism owes much to the work of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, who made belief in essences once again respectable, with Harré and Madden arguing that there were real causal powers in nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me important to separate two stages of this: 1) causation results from essences, and 2) essences can never change. The first seems persuasive to me. For the second, see METAPHYSICS/IDENTITY/COUNTERPARTS. |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The new essentialism retains Aristotelian ideas about essential properties, but it distinguishes more clearly between 'individual essences' and 'kind essences'; the former define a particular individual, the latter what kind it belongs to. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This might actually come into conflict with Aristotle, who seems to think that my personal essence is largely a human nature I share with everyone else. The new distinction is trying to keep the Kantian individual on the stage. |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Most of the essential properties of things are quantitatively determinate properties. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This makes the essential nature of the world very much the province of science, which deals in quantities and equations. Essentialists must deal with mental events, as well as basic physics. |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The 'real essence' of a thing is that set of its properties or structures in virtue of which it is a thing of that kind; its 'nominal essence' is the properties or structures in virtue of which it is described as a thing of that kind. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I like this distinction, because it is the kind made by realists like me who are fighting to make philosophers keep their epistemology and their ontology separate. |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: In considering questions of real possibility, it is important to keep the distinction between what a thing is and what it looks like clearly in mind. There is a possible world containing a horse that could then look like a cow, but it wouldn't BE a horse. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting test assertion of the notion that there are essences (although Ellis does not allow that animals actually have essences - how could you, given evolution?). His point is a good one. |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Scientific essentialists hold that one of the primary aims of science is to define the limits of the possible. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure working scientists will go along with that, but I like the claim that philosophy is very much part of the same enterprise as practical science (and NOT subservient to it!). I think of metaphysics as very high level physics. |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists are modal realists; ..what is really possible, they say, is what is compatible with the natures of things in this world (and this does not commit them to the existence of any world other than the actual world). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This introduces something like 'compatibilities' into our ontology. That must rest on some kind of idea of a 'natural contradiction'. We can discuss the possibilities resulting from essences, but what are the possible variations in the essences? |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical necessities are propositions that are true in virtue of the essences of things. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I am cautious about this. It sounds like huge Leibnizian metaphysical claims riding in on the back of a rather sensible new view of the laws of science. How can we justify equating natural necessity with metaphysical necessity? |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists do not accept the standard position, which says necessity is a priori, and contingency is a posteriori. They have a radically new category: the necessary a posteriori. The laws of nature are, for example, both necessary and a posteriori. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Based on Kripke. I'm cautious about this. Presumably God, who would know the essences, could therefore infer the laws a priori. The laws may follow of necessity from the essences, but the essences can't be known a posteriori to be necessary. |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The imaginability test of possibility confuses what is really or metaphysically possible with what is only epistemically possible. ..The latter is just what is possible for all we know. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The main trouble with possible worlds realism is that the only reason anyone has, or ever could have, to believe in other possible worlds (other than this one) is that they are needed, apparently, to provide truth conditions for modals and conditionals. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This attacks Lewis. Ellis makes this sound like a trivial technicality, but if our metaphysics is going to make sense it must cover modals and conditionals. What do they actually mean? Lewis has a theory, at least. |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists mostly accept the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, ..where the primary qualities of things are those that are intrinsic to the objects that have them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: One reason I favour essentialism is because I have always thought that the primary/secondary distinction was a key to understanding the world. 'Primary' gets at the ontology, 'secondary' shows us the epistemology. |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: For Boyle, Locke and Newton, the qualities inherent in bodies were just the primary qualities, namely number, figure, size, texture, motion and configuration of parts, impenetrability and, perhaps, body (or mass). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: It is nice to have a list. Ellis goes on to say these are too passive, and urges dispositions as primary. Even so, the original seventeenth century insight seems to me a brilliant step forward in our understanding of the world. |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Emeralds cannot all turn blue in 2050 (as Nelson Goodman envisaged), because to do so they would have to have an extrinsically variable nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I was never very impressed by the 'grue' problem, probably for this reason, but also because Goodman probably thought predicates and properties are the same thing, which they aren't (Idea 5457). |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: For essentialists the problem of induction reduces to discovering what natural kinds there are, and identifying their essential problems and structures. We then know how they must behave in any world, and there is no inference from some to all. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is how you would determine the essences if you are not allowed to infer 'from some to all'. Personally I don't see induction as a problem, because it is self-evidently rational in a stable world. Hume was right to recommend caution. |
| 19922 | People are only free if they are guided entirely by reason [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The only genuinely free person is one who lives with his entire mind guided solely by reason. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.10) | |
| A reaction: It strikes me as blatantly impossible to be entirely guided by reason. His point is that it is a subservience to reason which is entirely chosen. Why is that different from choosing to be entirely subservient to another person? |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: As well as properties, predicates can assert evaluation, denial, relations, conventions, existence or fabrication. | |
| From: report of Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems important, in order to disentangle our ontological commitments from our language, which was a confusion that ran throughout twentieth-century philosophy. A property is a real thing in the world, not a linguistic convention. |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A Humean theory of causation (as observed regularities) makes it very difficult for anyone even to suggest a plausible theory of human agency. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure what a 'theory' of human agency would look like. Hume himself said we only get to understand our mental powers from repeated experience (Idea 2220). How do we learn about the essence of our own will? |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: It seems that human beings not only have variable dispositional properties, as most complex systems have, but also meta-powers: powers to change their own dispositional properties. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a key to how we act, and also to morality. 'What dispositions do you want to have?' is the central question of virtue theory. Humans are essentially multi-level thinkers. Irony is the window into the soul. |
| 20416 | By 1790 aestheticians were mainly trying to explain individual artistic genius [Kemp] |
| Full Idea: By 1790 the idea that a central task for the aesthetician was to explain or at least adequately to describe the phenomenon of the individual artistic genius had definitely taken hold. | |
| From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Hence when Kant and Hegel write about art, though are only really thinking of the greatest art (which might be in touch with the sublime or Spirit etc.). Nowadays I think we expect accounts of art to cover modest amateur efforts as well. |
| 20417 | Expression can be either necessary for art, or sufficient for art (or even both) [Kemp] |
| Full Idea: Seeing art as expression has two components: 1) if something is a work of art, then it is expressive, 2) if something is expressive, then it is a work of art. So expression can be necessary or sufficient for art. (or both, for Croce and Collingwood). | |
| From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: I take the idea that art 'expresses' the feelings of an artist to be false. Artists are more like actors. Nearly all art has some emotional impact, which is of major importance, but I don't think 'expression' is a very good word for that. |
| 20419 | We don't already know what to express, and then seek means of expressing it [Kemp] |
| Full Idea: One cannot really know, or be conscious of, what it is that one is going to express, and then set about expressing it; indeed if one is genuinely conscious of it then one has already expressed it. | |
| From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: That pretty conclusively demolishes the idea that art is expression. I picture Schubert composing at the piano: he doesn't feel an emotion, and then hunt for its expression on the keyboard; he seeks out expressive phrases by playing. |
| 20418 | The horror expressed in some works of art could equallly be expressed by other means [Kemp] |
| Full Idea: The horror or terror of Edvard Much's 'The Scream' could in principle be expressed by different paintings, or even by works of music. | |
| From: Gary Kemp (Croce and Collingwood [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: A very good simple point against the idea that the point of art is expression. It leaves out the very specific nature of each work of art! |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The extremes of left and right in politics have much more reason than Darwinists to be threatened by the 'new essentialism', because it must reinstate the concept of human nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The point being that political extremes go against the grain of our nature. Personally I am favour of essentialism, and human nature. I notice that Steven Pinker is now defending human nature, from a background of linguistics and psychology. |
| 19935 | Peoples are created by individuals, not by nature, and only distinguished by language and law [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Nature certainly does not create peoples, individuals do, and individuals are only separated into nations by differences of language, law and morality. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.26) | |
| A reaction: Quite wrong, I think. How did languages evolve if there were not already distinct peoples? Do ants and bees only form into colonies by individual choice? All social contract theories seem to make Spinoza's assumption. |
| 19914 | In nature everything has an absolute right to do anything it is capable of doing [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Since the universal power of nature is only the power of all individual things together, it follows that each individual thing has the sovereign right to do everything it can do, or the right of each thing extends as far as its determined power extends. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.01) | |
| A reaction: A typically ruthless Spinoza idea, very different from the rather ill-founded claims of Locke and Rousseau about the state of nature. |
| 19915 | Natural rights are determined by desire and power, not by reason [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Each person's natural right is determined not by sound reason but by desire and power. For it is not the case that all men are naturally determined to behave according to the rules and laws of reason | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.03) | |
| A reaction: Locke would have been horrified by this. It looks like hopeless unfounded optimism to claim a natural right to anything. Doomed prey can struggle all it likes, but its right to do so seems irrelevant. Yet we see self-evident injustice all the time. |
| 7487 | Society exists to extend human awareness [Spinoza, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: For Spinoza the purpose of society was the extension of human awareness. | |
| From: report of Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.24 | |
| A reaction: I like that. Personally I think human understanding is the best aim our lives can have, but I am inclined to see this in rather individualistic terms (despairing of getting others interested in the project!). |
| 19943 | The state aims to allow personal development, so its main purpose is freedom [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is the purpose of the state ...to allow people's minds and bodies to develop in their own way in security and enjoy the free use of reason ...Therefore the true purpose of the state is in fact freedom. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 20.06) | |
| A reaction: The core of Spinoza's political thinking. This strikes me as being as close to communitarianism as to liberalism. |
| 19930 | Sovereignty must include the power to make people submit to it [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Either there is no sovereignty nor any right over subjects, or else sovereignty must necessarily extend to everything that might be effective in inducing men to submit to it. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.02) | |
| A reaction: In the seventeenth century this usually includes the death penalty. Refusal to submit may be fairly passive and harmless, so the issue must concern duties, rather than rights. Taxes, jury duty, calls to arms. |
| 19936 | Kings tend to fight wars for glory, rather than for peace and liberty [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: As soon as the kings took control [of the Hebrews] the reason for going to war was no longer peace and liberty but rather glory, | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.05) | |
| A reaction: As Spinoza was writing, Louis XIV had just invaded Holland, solely in quest of military glory. As soon as a leader like Napoleon discovers they are good at war, I assume that the thrill of glory takes over for them too. |
| 19937 | Monarchs are always proud, and can't back down [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Monarchical minds are always proud, and cannot back down without feelings of humiliation. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.05) | |
| A reaction: This would seem to be a problem in all politicians. As I teacher I found that backing down was sometimes quite a smart move, but you can only do it occasionally. |
| 19940 | Deposing a monarch is dangerous, because the people are used to royal authority [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is dangerous to depose a monarch, even if it is clear by every criterion that he is a tyrant. A people accustomed to royal authority and held in check only by it, will despise any lesser authority and hold it in contempt. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.07) | |
| A reaction: He is obviously thinking of Charles I and Cromwell. I suspect that the respect for Cromwell in the 1650s was only as a great soldier. If the people miss royal authority, the correct response is probably 'get over it!' |
| 19931 | Every state is more frightened of its own citizens than of external enemies [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: People have never succeeded in devising a form of government that was not in greater danger from its own citizens than from foreign foes, and which was not more fearful of the former than of the latter. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.04) | |
| A reaction: The sort of lovely clear-headed and accurate observation for which we love Spinoza. Only very powerful despots can afford to ignore the threat from the people. Stalin was paranoid, but eventually murdered almost everyone who seemed a threat. |
| 19920 | Democracy is a legitimate gathering of people who do whatever they can do [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is properly defined as a united gathering of people which collectively has the sovereign right to do all that it has the power to do. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.08) | |
| A reaction: Representative democracy doesn't fit this definition. What 'unites' the people, and where do they get their sovereign right? If my neighbouring village votes to invade mine, I spurn their pathetic 'sovereign right'. |
| 19933 | If religion is law, then piety is justice, impiety is crime, and non-believers must leave [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: [In the first Hebrew state] religious dogmas were not doctrines but rather laws and decrees, piety being regarded as justice and impiety as crime. Anyone who defected from this religion ceased to be a citizen. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.08) | |
| A reaction: Presumably speeding offences count as impiety, and failing to pray is a crime. A critical question will be how far religious doubts must extend before one actually has to leave. Mere doctrinal differences, or full atheism? |
| 19938 | Allowing religious ministers any control of the state is bad for both parties [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: How pernicious it is both for religion and the state to allow ministers of things sacred to acquire the right to make decrees or handle the business of government. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.06 (1)) | |
| A reaction: Interesting that he holds it to be bad for the religion as well as the state. In Britain we have bishops in the House of Lords. |
| 19923 | Slavery is not just obedience, but acting only in the interests of the master [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: It is not acting on command in itself that makes someone a slave, but rather the reason for so acting. ...A slave is someone obliged to obey commands from a master which look only to the advantage of the master. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.10) | |
| A reaction: So if I forcibly enslaved you, and then only commanded things which were for your own good, that would not be slavery? If the master feeds the slave, is that not part of the slavery? Most jobs might count as slavery by this account? |
| 19939 | Government is oppressive if opinions can be crimes, because people can't give them up [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Government is bound to become extremely oppressive where dissident opinions which are within the domain of each individual, a right which no one can give up, are treated as a crime. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 18.06 (2)) | |
| A reaction: One might compare illicit desires, such as those of a paedophile, where it is a crime to act on them, but presumably they cannot be given up, so there is no point in legislating against the mere desires. |
| 19944 | Without liberty of thought there is no trust in the state, and corruption follows [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If liberty of thought is suppressed ...this would undemine the trust which is the first essential of a state; detestable flattery and deceit would flourish, giving rise to intrigues and every sort of honest behaviour. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 20.11) | |
| A reaction: Spinoza specifically defends philosophy, as the epitome of freedom of thought. |
| 19942 | Treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: We cannot altogether deny that treason may be committed as much by words as by deeds. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 20.05) | |
| A reaction: For example, betraying a major state secret. This is an important idea, for anyone who simplistically demands utter freedom of speech. There is also subversive speech, which is very hard to assess. Incitements can be crimes in Britain. |
| 19924 | The freest state is a rational one, where people can submit themselves to reason [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The freest state is that whose laws are founded on sound reason; for there each man can be free whenever he wishes, that is, he can live under the guidance of reason with his whole mind. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.10) | |
| A reaction: I wonder if is not so much that the state is rational as that it is right. Freedom is submission to the truth. Rationality is only good because it arrives at truth. But is there a 'truth' about how a state should be run? Enlightenment optimism. |
| 7827 | Spinoza wanted democracy based on individual rights, and is thus the first modern political philosopher [Stewart,M on Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Spinoza's advocacy of democracy on the basis of individual rights was extraordinarily bold for its time, and it qualifies him as the first truly modern political philosopher. | |
| From: comment on Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670]) by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch. 6 | |
| A reaction: Sounds right. Hobbes may have been the 'first modern man', but his politics was fairly medieval. John Lilburne and co. may have campaigned for rights and democracy, but they weren't really philosophers. |
| 19926 | The sovereignty has absolute power over citizens [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: No offence can be committed against subjects by sovereigns, since they are of right permitted to do all things., and therefore offences occur only between private persons obliged by law not to harm one another. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.14) | |
| A reaction: This slightly alarming remark is the consequence of Spinoza's denial of natural rights. Nowadays we have international law to appeal to. Locke thinks revolution could be justified, but this implies the Spinoza does not? |
| 19918 | Forming a society meant following reason, and giving up dangerous appetites and mutual harm [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: People had to make a firm decision to decide everything by the sole dictates of reason (which no one dares contradict openly). They had to curb their appetites if it would hurt someone else, and not do to others what they did not want done to themselves. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.05) | |
| A reaction: The last bit invokes the Golden Rule. Being in society does indeed meaning curbing appetites, such as envy and lust. |
| 19919 | People only give up their rights, and keep promises, if they hope for some greater good [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: No one will give up his right to all things, and absolutely no one will keep his promises, except from fear of a greater ill or hope of a greater good. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.06) | |
| A reaction: I think Locke and Rousseau would agree with this. It is hard to imagine doing anything other than in hope of a greater good. But what to do when your hopes are disappointed? |
| 19921 | Once you have given up your rights, there is no going back [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: If people had wanted to keep any right for themselves, they should have made this provision at the same time as they could have safely defended it. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.08) | |
| A reaction: Spinoza is wonderful for grasping nettles. The other fans of social contracts seem blithely cheerful about how it is going to work out. But forming a society is like marriage - a risky commitment which could go horribly wrong. |
| 19925 | In democracy we don't abandon our rights, but transfer them to the majority of us [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: In a democracy no one transfers their natural right to another in such a way that they are not thereafter consulted, but rather to the majority of the whole society of which they are part. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.11) | |
| A reaction: At this time democracy means Athenian direct democracy. In representative democracy you are only consulted once every few years, and in between the government can ignore the people (as Rousseau pointed out). |
| 19928 | No one, in giving up their power and right, ceases to be a human being [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: No one will ever be able to transfer his power and (consequently) his right to another person in such a way that he ceases to be a human being. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.01) | |
| A reaction: Spinoza disdains natural rights, but this is a modest (and pretty uncontroversial) concession. |
| 19929 | Everyone who gives up their rights must fear the recipients of them [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: People have never given up their right and transferred their power to another in such a way that they did not fear the very persons who received their right and power, and put the government at greater risk from its own citizens than from its enemies. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.01) | |
| A reaction: I take this idea to be Rousseau's key motivation for the idea of the general will, because you are there supposed to be alienating your natural rights to yourself (sort of). In a democracy you alienate them partly to yourself. |
| 19932 | The early Hebrews, following Moses, gave up their rights to God alone [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The Hebrews being in this natural state, they resolved, on the advice of Moses in whom they all had the greatest trust, to transfer their right to no mortal man but rather to God alone. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.07) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Exodus 24:7] He calls this the first Hebrew state, which seems to have depended heavily on Moses. Priests and prophets become crucial in this situation, and they may be in conflict about God's commands. |
| 19916 | The order of nature does not prohibit anything, and allows whatever appetite produces [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The order of nature, under which all human beings are born and for the most part live, prohibits nothing but what no one desires or no one can do; it does not prohibit strife or hatred or anger or anything at all that appetite foments. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.04) | |
| A reaction: This is as vigorous a rejection of natural law as I have met with. It is hard to see on what grounds anyone could disagree, other than hopeful sentiment. |
| 19927 | State and religious law can clash, so the state must make decisions about religion [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: No one would be obliged by law if he considered it against his faith, and everyone could claim licence to do anything. Since the law of the state would then be wholly violated, it follows that the right of deciding about religion belongs to the sovereign. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 16.21) | |
| A reaction: This is an era when British puritans emigrate to America, because the state is not sufficiently tolerant. The needs of sovereignty and of religion can be very far apart. You can see those with great religious devotion not liking this idea. |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds appear to be of objects or substances, or of events or processes, or of the intrinsic nature of things; hence there should be laws of nature specific to each of these categories. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: It is nice to see someone actually discussing what sort of natural kinds there are, instead of getting bogged down in how natural kinds terms get their meaning or reference. Ellis recognises that 'intrinsic nature' needs some discussion. |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: According to essentialists, the world is wholly structured at the most fundamental level into natural kinds, and the laws of nature are all determined by those kinds. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I am a fan of this view, despite being cautious about claims that natural kinds have necessary identity. Why are the essences active? That is the old Greek puzzle about the origin of movement. And why are natural kinds stable? |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Modern essentialists would insist that any two members of the same natural kind must be identical in all essential respects. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: For this reason, animals no longer qualify as natural kinds, but electrons, gold atoms, and water molecules do. My sticking point is when anyone asserts that an electron necessarily has (say) its mass. Why no close counterpart of electrons? |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible to suppose that the world is an instance of a natural kind, ..and what is naturally necessary in our world is what must be true in any world of the same natural kind. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This is putting an awful lot of metaphysical weight on the concept of a 'natural kind', so it had better be a secure one. If we accept that natural laws necessarily follow from essences, why shouldn't the whole of our world have an essence, as water does? |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialist suppose that the inanimate objects of nature are genuine causal agents: things capable of acting or interacting. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I have no idea how one might demonstrate such a fact, even though it seems to stare us in the face. This is where science bumps into philosophy. I find myself intuitively taking the essentialist side quite strongly. |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists believe elementary causal relations involve necessary connections between events, namely between the displays of dispositional properties and the circumstances that give rise to them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: I like essentialism, but I feel a Humean caution about talk of 'natural necessity'. Let's just say that causation seems to be entirely the result of the nature of how things are. How things could be is a large topic for little mites like us. |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A general theory of causation in an area is possible only if the kinds of entities under investigation can reasonably be assumed to belong to natural kinds. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Human beings will be a problem, and also different levels of natural kinds (e.g. a chemical and an organism). 'Natural kind' is a very loose concept. He is referring to scientific, rather than philosophical, theories, I presume. |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A 'passivist' believes that the tendencies of things to behave as they do can never be inherent in the things themselves; they must always be imposed on them from the outside. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the medieval view, inherited by Newton and Hume, which makes miracles a possibility, and makes the laws of nature contingent. Essentialism disagree. I think I am with the essentialists. |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: If the natural kinds are divided into hierarchical categories, then essentialists would expect the laws of nature also to divide up into these categories, with the same hierarchy. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a real step forwards in our understanding of nature, and hence a nice example of the contribution which philosophy can make, instead of just physics. |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Most of the propositions we think of as being (or as expressing) genuine laws of nature seem to describe only the behaviour of ideal kinds of things, or of things in ideal circumstances. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Ellis this suggests that this phenomenon is because science aims at broad understanding instead of strict prediction. Do we simplify because we are a bit dim? Or is it because generalisation wouldn't exist without idealisation and abstraction? |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: There are four major problems about the laws of nature: a necessity problem (must they be true?), an idealisation problem (why is this preferable?), an ontological problem (their grounds), and a structural problem (their relationships). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: One might also ask why the laws (or their underlying essences) are the way they are, and not some other way, though the prospects of answering that don't look good. I don't think we should be satisfied with saying all of these questions are hopeless. |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Causal relations cannot be reduced to mere regularities, as Hume supposed, as they could exist as a singular case, even if it never happened on more than one occasions. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key reason for modern views moving away from Hume. The suspicion is that regularity is a test for or symptom of causation, but we are deeply committed to the real nature of causation being whatever creates the regularities. |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists say that dispositional properties may be fundamental, whereas for a passivist such qualities are not primary, but supervene on the primary qualities of matter, and on the laws of nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I am strongly in favour of this view of nature. Without essentialism, we have laws of nature arising out of a total void (or God), and arbitrarily imposing themselves on matter. What are the 'primary qualities of matter', if not dispositions? |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The essential properties of uranium are its atomic number, and the common electron shell structure for all uranium atoms. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: For those who deny essences (e.g. Quineans) this is a nice challenge. You might have to add accounts of the essences of the various particles that make up the atoms. There is nothing arbitrary or conventional about what makes something uranium. |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialist believe the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, because anything that belongs to a natural kind is logically required (or is necessarily disposed) to behave as its essential properties dictate. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: What a thrillingly large claim. Best approached with caution.. If we say 'essences make laws, and essences are necessary', we might wonder whether a natural kind essence could be SLIGHTLY different (a counterpart) in another world. |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Scientific essentialism requires that philosophers distinguish clearly between semantic issues, epistemological issues, and ontological issues. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears - but then I think everyone should require that of philosophers, because it where they get themselves most confused. The trouble is that ontology is only obtainable epistemologically, and only expressible semantically. |
| 19934 | Hebrews were very hostile to other states, who had not given up their rights to God [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: Having transferred their right to God, the Hebrews believed their kingdom was the kingdom of God, that they alone were the children of God, and that other nations were enemies of God, whom for that reason they regarded with extreme hostility. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670], 17.23) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Psalm 139:21-2] So, according to Spinoza, they did not become the chosen people because they thought God had chosen then, but because they were the only state trying to align itself with God. |
| 4300 | The Bible has nothing in common with reasoning and philosophy [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: The Bible leaves reason absolutely free and has nothing in common with philosophy. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus [1670]) | |
| A reaction: Hm. The Bible may not contain reasoning, but it contains the fruits of reasoning, and it is obviously possible for reasoning to contradict its message. |