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18933
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Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
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Full Idea:
I. Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist as everlasting, as created, as both, as One, or as Many. II. If anything does exist, it is incomprehensible. III. If existence is comprehensible, it is incommunicable.
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From:
report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B03) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09
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A reaction:
[Also Sextus Empiricus, Against Logicians I.65-] For Part I he works through all the possible modes of being he can think of, and explains why none of them are possible. It is worth remembering that Gorgias loved rhetoric, not philosophy!
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14508
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A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1)
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A reaction:
These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'.
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12034
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If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again.
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14510
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Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!).
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16455
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Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3)
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A reaction:
[my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described.
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11901
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Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons.
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From:
report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been
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A reaction:
I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality.
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8329
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Either causal relations are given in experience, or they are unobserved and theoretical [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
There is a fundamental choice between the realist approach to causation which says that the relation is immediately given in experience, and the view that causation is a theoretical relation, and so not directly observable.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
Even if immediate experience is involved, there is a step of abstraction in calling it a cause, and picking out events. A 'theoretical relation' is not of much interest there if no observations are involved. I don't think a choice is required here.
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12032
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Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM]
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Full Idea:
Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions.
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From:
Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2)
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A reaction:
One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't.
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9866
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Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
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Full Idea:
Gorgias insists that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the best of all the arts.
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From:
report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 58a
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A reaction:
A nice point, and it is not unreasonable to rank the arts in order of their power. To enchant, without achieving agreement, and to speak truth without persuading, are both very fine, but there is something about success that cannot be gainsaid.
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8324
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The problem is to explain how causal laws and relations connect, and how they link to the world [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
Causal states of affairs encompass causal laws, and causal relations between events or states of affairs; two key questions concern the relation between causal laws and causal relations, and the relation between these and non-causal affairs.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
This is the agenda for modern analytical philosophy. I'm not quite clear what would count as an answer. When have you 'explained' a relation? Does calling it 'gravity', or finding an equation, explain that relation? Do gravitinos explain it?
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8328
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Causation isn't energy transfer, because an electron is caused by previous temporal parts [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
The temporal parts of an electron (for example) are causally related, but this relation does not involve any transfer of energy or momentum. Causation cannot be identified with physical energy relations, and physicalist reductions look unpromising.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
This idea, plus Idea 8327, are their grounds for rejecting Fair's proposal (Idea 8326). It feels like a different use of 'cause' when we say 'the existence of x was caused by its existence yesterday'. It is more like inertia. Destruction needs energy.
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8325
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The dominant view is that causal laws are prior; a minority say causes can be explained singly [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
The dominant view is that causal laws are more basic than causal relations, with relations being logically supervenient on causal laws, and on properties and event relations; some, though, defend the singularist view, in which events alone can be related.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
I am deeply suspicious about laws (see Idea 5470). I suspect that the laws are merely descriptions of the regularities that arise from the single instances of causation. We won't explain the single instances, but then laws don't 'explain' them either.
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