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12154
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Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry]
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Full Idea:
If we list the words 'bull', 'bull' and 'cow', it is often said that there are three 'word tokens' but only two 'word types', but Geach says there are not two kinds of object to be counted, but two different ways of counting the same object.
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From:
report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Perry - The Same F II
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A reaction:
Insofar as the notion that a 'word type' is an 'object', my sympathies are entirely with Geach, to my surprise. Geach's point is that 'bull' and 'bull' are the same meaning, but different actual words. Identity is relative to a concept.
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12152
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Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach]
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Full Idea:
Identity is relative. When one says 'x is identical with y' this is an incomplete expression. It is short for 'x is the same A as y', where 'A' represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance.
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From:
Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980], p.39), quoted by John Perry - The Same F I
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A reaction:
Perry notes that Geach's view is in conscious opposition to Frege, who had a pure notion of identity. We say 'they are the same insofar as they are animals', but not 'they are the same animal'. Perfect identity involves all possible A's.
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8326
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Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
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From:
report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
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A reaction:
Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.
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10379
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Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
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From:
report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
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A reaction:
David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.
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15877
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The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
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Full Idea:
In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
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From:
report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
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A reaction:
I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.
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