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All the ideas for 'Lectures on the History of Philosophy', 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz' and 'Ordinary Objects'

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34 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
21757 Philosophy is the conceptual essence of the shape of history [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Philosophy is the supreme blossom - the concept - of the entire shape of history, the consciousness and the spiritual essence of the whole situation, the spirit of the age as the spirit present and aware of itself in thought.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Lectures on the History of Philosophy [1830], p.25), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - An Introduction to Hegel 01
     A reaction: This sees philosophy as intrinsically historical, which is a founding idea for 'continental' philosophy. Analysis is tied to science, in which the history of the subject is seen as irrelevant to its truth. Does this mean we can't go back to Aristotle?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 12. Rejecting Truthmakers
14480 Maybe analytic truths do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: It is a venerable view that analytic claims do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world, but this claim has often been challenged.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.4)
     A reaction: She offers two challenges (bottom p.68), but I would have thought that the best response is that the meanings of the words themselves constitute truthmakers - perhaps via the essence of each word, as Fine suggests.
5. Theory of Logic / B. Logical Consequence / 6. Entailment
14471 Analytical entailments arise from combinations of meanings and inference rules [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: 'Analytically entail' means entail in virtue of the meanings of the expressions involved and rules of inference. So 'Jones bought a house' analytically entails 'Jones bought a building'.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 01.2)
     A reaction: Quine wouldn't like this, but it sounds OK to me. Thomasson uses this as a key tool in her claim that common sense objects must exist.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
14493 Existence might require playing a role in explanation, or in a causal story, or being composed in some way [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: A higher standard for saying that entities exist might require that they play an essential role in explanation, or must figure in any complete causal story, or exist according to some uniform and nonarbitrary principle of composition.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 11.2)
     A reaction: I am struck by the first of these three. If I am defending the notion that essence depends on Aristotle's account of explanation, then if we add that existence also depends on explanation, we get a criterion for the existence of essences. Yay.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
14491 Rival ontological claims can both be true, if there are analytic relationships between them [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Where there are analytic interrelations among our claims, distinct ontological claims may be true without rivalry, redundancy, or reduction.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 10)
     A reaction: Thus we might, I suppose, that it is analytically necessary that a lump of clay has a shape, and that a statue be made of something. Interesting.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / d. Commitment of theories
14489 Theories do not avoid commitment to entities by avoiding certain terms or concepts [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: A theory does not avoid commitment to any entities by avoiding use of certain terms or concepts.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4)
     A reaction: This is a salutary warning to those who apply the notion of ontological commitment rather naively.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
13076 Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
     A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
14485 Ordinary objects may be not indispensable, but they are nearly unavoidable [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: I do not argue that ordinary objects are indispensable, but rather that they are (nearly) unavoidable.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09)
     A reaction: Disappointing, given the blurb and title of the book, but put in those terms it will be hard to disagree. Clearly ordinary objects figure in the most useful way for us to talk. I wonder whether we have a clear ontology of 'simples' in which they vanish.
14487 The simple existence conditions for objects are established by our practices, and are met [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The existence conditions for ordinary objects are established by our practices, and they are quite minimal, so it is rather obvious that they are fulfilled, and so there are such things.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3)
     A reaction: This is one of her main arguments. The same argument would have worked for witches or ghosts in certain cultures.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
13102 If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
13103 Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity
13104 Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
     A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
21651 It is analytic that if simples are arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair [Thomasson, by Hofweber]
     Full Idea: Thomasson argues that the existence of ordinary objects follows analytically from the distribution of simples, assuming that there are any simples. It is an analytic truth that if there are simples arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair.
     From: report of Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.3
     A reaction: But how do you distinguish when simples are arranged nearly chair-wise from the point where they click into place as actually chair-wise? What is the criterion?
14486 Eliminativists haven't found existence conditions for chairs, beyond those of the word 'chair' [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The eliminativist cannot claim to have 'discovered' some real existence conditions for chairs beyond those entailed by the semantic rules associated with ordinary use of the word 'chair'.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3)
     A reaction: It is difficult to understand atoms arranged 'chairwise' or 'baseballwise' if you don't already know what a chair or a baseball are.
14467 Ordinary objects are rejected, to avoid contradictions, or for greater economy in thought [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Objections to ordinary objects are the Causal Redundancy claim (objects lack causal powers), the Anti-Colocation view (statues and lumps overlap), Sorites arguments, a more economical ontology, or a more scientific ontology.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro)
     A reaction: [my summary of two paragraphs] The chief exponents of these views are Van Inwagen and Merricks. Before you glibly accept ordinary objects, you must focus on producing a really strict ontology. These arguments all have real force.
14479 To individuate people we need conventions, but conventions are made up by people [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The conventionalist faces paradox if they hold that conventions are logically prior to people (since this plurality requires conventions of individuation), and people are logically prior to conventions (if they make up the conventions).
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.3)
     A reaction: [Sidelle is the spokesman for conventionalism] The best defence would be to deny the second part, and say that conventions emerge from whatever is there, but only conventions can individuate the bits of what is there.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / c. Unity as conceptual
14481 Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: In a 'modally plenitudinous' ontology, wherever there is an object at all, there are objects with intrinsic modal properties instantiating every consistent modal profile.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.5)
     A reaction: [She cites K.Bennett, Hawley, Rea, Sidelle] I love this. At last a label for the view I have been espousing. I am a Modal Plenitudinist. I must get a badge made.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance
13100 Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
     A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
13068 We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
     A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
13069 The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
14482 If the statue and the lump are two objects, they require separate properties, so we could add their masses [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: An objection to the idea that statues are not identical to material lumps of stuff is the proliferation of instances of properties shared by those objects. If the mass of the statue is 500kg, and the mass of the lump is 500kg, do we have 1000kg?
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.3)
     A reaction: [compressed; she cites Rea 1997 and Zimmerman 1995] To wriggle out of this we would have to understand 'object' rather differently, so that an independent mass is not intrinsic to it. I leave this as an exercise for the reader.
14483 Given the similarity of statue and lump, what could possibly ground their modal properties? [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The 'grounding problem' is that given all that the statue and the lump have in common, what could possibly ground their different modal properties?
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.4)
     A reaction: Their modal properties are, of course, different, because only one of them could survive squashing. Thomasson suggests their difference of sort, but I'm not sure what that means, separately from what they actually are.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13072 Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2)
     A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties.
17080 Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2)
     A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential
13101 Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
     A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
14476 Identity claims between objects are only well-formed if the categories are specified [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Identity claims are only well-formed and truth-evaluable if the terms flanking the statement are associated with a certain category of entity each is to refer to, which disambiguates the reference and identity-criteria.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03)
     A reaction: The first of her two criteria for identity. She is buying the full Wiggins package.
14477 Identical entities must be of the same category, and meet the criteria for the category [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Identity claims are only true if the entities referred to are of the same category, and meet the criteria of identity appropriate for things of that category.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03)
     A reaction: This may be a little too optimistic about having a set of clear-cut and reasonably objective categories to work with, but attempts at establishing metaphysical categories have not gone especially well.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention
14478 Modal Conventionalism says modality is analytic, not intrinsic to the world, and linguistic [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Modal Conventionalism has at least three theses: 1) modal truths are either analytic truths, or combine analytic and empirical truths, 2) modal properties are not intrinsic features of the world, 3) modal propositions depend on linguistic conventions.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.2)
     A reaction: [She cites Alan Sidelle 1989 for this view] I disagree mainly with number 2), since I take dispositions to be key intrinsic features of nature, and I interpret dispositions as modal properties.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity
13081 Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46)
     A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is!
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense
14466 A chief task of philosophy is making reflective sense of our common sense worldview [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Showing how, reflectively, we can make sense of our unreflective common sense worldview is arguably one of the chief tasks of philosophy.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro)
     A reaction: Maybe. The obvious problem is that when you look at weird and remote cultures like the Aztecs, what counts as 'common sense' might be a bit different. She is talking of ordinary objects, though, where her point is reasonable.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence
13071 We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
     A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
19. Language / B. Reference / 3. Direct Reference / b. Causal reference
14475 How can causal theories of reference handle nonexistence claims? [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference have problems in handling nonexistence claims
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3)
     A reaction: This is a very sound reason for shifting from a direct causal baptism view to one in which the baptism takes place by a social consensus. So there is a consensus about 'unicorns', but obviously no baptism. See Evans's 'Madagascar' example.
14474 Pure causal theories of reference have the 'qua problem', of what sort of things is being referred to [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference face the 'qua problem' - that it may be radically indeterminate what the term refers to unless there is some very basic concept of what sort of thing is being referred to.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3)
     A reaction: She cites Dummett and Wiggins on this. There is an obvious problem that when I say 'look at that!' there are all sorts of conventions at work if my reference is to succeed.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 1. Analytic Propositions
14488 Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson]
     Full Idea: The analytic interrelations among elements of language become evident through redundancy. It is redundant to utter 'He bought a house and a building', since buying a house analytically entails that he bought a building.
     From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4)
     A reaction: This appears to concern necessary class membership. It is only linguistically redundant if the class membership is obvious. Houses are familiar, uranium samples are not.