8 ideas
21355 | The Pre-Socratics are not simple naturalists, because they do not always 'leave the gods out' [Leroi] |
Full Idea: The problem with making naturalism the hallmark of Pre-Socratic thought ...is that they do not always 'leave the gods out'; the Divine can usually be found lurking somewhere is their cosmologies. | |
From: Armand Marie LeRoi (The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science [2014], 007) | |
A reaction: An important observation. I've been guilty of this simplistic view. We tend to ignore the religious fragments, or we possess so little that we have no idea where religion figured in their accounts. |
10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated. | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
A reaction: I don't actually buy the idea that an event could just be an 'exemplification'. Change seems to be required, and processes, or something like them, must be mentioned. Degrees of fine-graining sound good, though, for processes too. |
8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events are exemplifications by an object of an attribute at a time...It does not make events basic entities, as the three constituents are more basic, but it gives identity conditions (two events are the same if object, attribute and time the same). | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: [Aristotle is said to be behind this] I am more sympathetic to this view than the claim that events are primitive. If a pebble is ellipsoid for a million years, is that an event? I think the concept of a 'process' is the most fruitful one to investigate. |
8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events cannot just be the ordered triple of | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: Why should they even be in that particular order? This requirement rather messes up Kim's plan for a very streamlined, Ockhamised ontology. Circles have symmetry at all times. Is 'near Trafalgar Square' a property? |
8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: If Kim's events are just the ordered triple of | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You might reply that the object, and maybe the attribute, are concrete, and the time is natural, but the combination really is an abstraction, even though it is located (like the equator). Where is the set of my books located? |
8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: Since some tautologously universal properties such as self-identity or being such that 2+2=4 apply to all things at all times, that is stretching Kim's events too far. Candidate properties need to be realistically restricted, and it is unclear how. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You could deploy Schoemaker's concept of natural properties in terms of the source of causal powers, but the problem would be that you were probably hoping to then use Kim's events to define causation. Answer: treat causation as the primitive. |
8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: The criticism most frequently levelled against Kim's theory is that it results in an unacceptable plurality of finely differentiated events, because of the requirement for identity of the constituent property. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 4.4 | |
A reaction: This may mean that the Battle of Waterloo was several trillion events, which seems daft to the historian, but it doesn't to the physicist. A cannon firing is indeed an accumulation of lots of little events. |
1556 | By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias] |
Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature. | |
From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8 |