11 ideas
| 9123 | Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in. | |
| From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3 | |
| A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'? |
| 17954 | Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Essence is, as it were, necessity rooted in things, ...but how about possibility rooted in things? ...Having the potential to Φ, unlike being essentially Φ, does not entail being actually Φ. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §2) | |
| A reaction: To me this invites the question 'what is it about the entity which endows it with its rooted possibilities?' A thing has possibilities because it has a certain nature (at a given time). |
| 17953 | Real definition fits abstracta, but not individual concrete objects like Socrates [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: I can understand the notion of real definition as applying to (some) abstact entities, but I have no idea how to apply it to a concrete object such as Socrates or myself. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1) | |
| A reaction: She is objecting to Kit Fine's account of essence, which is meant to be clearer than the normal account of essences based on necessities. Aristotle implies that definitions get fuzzy when you reach the level of the individual. |
| 17952 | Modal accounts make essence less mysterious, by basing them on the clearer necessity [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The modal account was meant, I take it, to make the notion of essence less mysterious by basing it on the supposedly better understood notion of necessity. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §1) |
| 17959 | Metaphysical necessity is even more deeply empirical than Kripke has argued [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We support the views of metaphysical modality on which metaphysical necessity is an even more deeply empirical matter than Kripke has argued. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], p.2) | |
| A reaction: [co-author E. Viebahn] This seems to pinpoint the spirit of scientific essentialism. She cites Bird and Shoemaker. If it is empirical, doesn't that make it a matter of epistemology, and hence further from absolute necessity? |
| 17955 | Possible worlds allow us to talk about degrees of possibility [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds affords greater expressive power than mere talk of possibility and necessity. In particular, possible worlds talk allows us to introduce degrees of possibility. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: A nice feature, but I'm not sure that either the proportion of possible worlds or the closeness of possible worlds captures what we actually mean by a certain degree of possibility. There is 'accidental closeness', or absence of contingency. See Vetter. |
| 17957 | Maybe possibility is constituted by potentiality [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We should look at the claim that possibility is constituted by potentiality. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4) | |
| A reaction: A problem that comes to mind is possibilities arising from coincidence. The whole of reality must be described, to capture all the possibilities for a particular thing. So potentialities of what? Nice thought, though. |
| 17958 | The apparently metaphysically possible may only be epistemically possible [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Some of what metaphysicians take to be metaphysically possible turns out to be only epistemically possible. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §4) | |
| A reaction: A nice clear expression of the increasingly common view that conceivability may be a limited way to grasp possibility. |
| 17956 | Closeness of worlds should be determined by the intrinsic nature of relevant objects [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The closeness of possible worlds should be determined by similarity in the intrinsic constitution of whatever object it is whose potentialities are at issue. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: Nice thought. This seems to be the essentialist approach to possible worlds, but it makes the natures of the objects more fundamental than the framework of the worlds. She demurs because there are also extrinsic potentialities. |
| 5987 | Alcmaeon was the first to say the brain is central to thinking [Alcmaeon, by Staden, von] |
| Full Idea: Alcmaeon apparently was the first Greek to assign central cognitive and biological functions to the brain. | |
| From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE]) by Heinrich von Staden - Alcmaeon | |
| A reaction: The name of Alcmaeon should be remembered with honour. This was 200 years before Aristotle, who still hadn't worked it out. I presume Alcmaeon inferred the truth from head injuries, which is overwhelming evidence, if you notice it. |
| 24043 | Soul must be immortal, since it continually moves, like the heavens [Alcmaeon, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Alcmaeon says that the soul is immortal because it resembles immortal things and that this affection belongs to it because it is always in movement, like divine things, such the moon, the sun, the stars and the whole heaven. | |
| From: report of Alcmaeon (fragments/reports [c.490 BCE], DK 24) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a30 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Fish and rivers seem to be continually moving too. Presumably we are like gods, but then Greek gods seem awfully like humans. I don't know the history of belief in immortality; an interesting topic. |