22 ideas
| 12463 | Unlike correspondence, truthmaking can be one truth to many truthmakers, or vice versa [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: I assume a form of truthmaking theory, ..which is a many-many relation, unlike, say correspondence, so that one entity can make multiple truths true and one truth can have multiple truthmakers. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like common sense, once you think about it. One tree makes many things true, and one statement about trees is made true by many trees. |
| 14375 | If structures result from intrinsic natures of properties, the 'relations' between them can drop out [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: If a relation holds between two properties as a result of their intrinsic natures, then it appears the relation between the properties is not needed to do the structuring of reality; the properties themselves suffice to fix the structure. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.1) | |
| A reaction: [the first bit quotes Jubien 2007] He cites a group of scientific essentialists as spokesmen for this view. Sounds right to me. No on seems able to pin down what a relation is - which may be because there is no such entity. |
| 14378 | Science aims at identifying the structure and nature of the powers that exist [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Scientific practice seems aimed precisely at identifying the structure and nature of the powers that exist. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.3) | |
| A reaction: Good. Friends of powers should look at this nice paper by Jacobs. There is a good degree of support for this view from pronouncements of modern scientists. If scientists don't support it, they should. Otherwise they are trapped in the superficial. |
| 12467 | Powers come from concrete particulars, not from the laws of nature [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: The source of powers is not the laws of nature; it is the powerful nature of the ordinary properties of concrete particulars. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: This pithily summarises my own view. People who think the powers of the world derive from the laws either have an implicit religious framework, or they are giving no thought at all to the ontological status of the laws. |
| 14377 | Possibilities are manifestations of some power, and impossibilies rest on no powers [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: To be possible is just to be one of the many manifestations of some power, and to be impossible is to be a manifestation of no power. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.2.1) | |
| A reaction: [This remark occurs in a discussion of theistic Aristotelianism] I like this. If we say that something is possible, the correct question is to ask what power could bring it about. |
| 14376 | States of affairs are only possible if some substance could initiate a causal chain to get there [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: A non-actual state of affairs in possible if there actually was a substance capable of initiating a causal chain, perhaps non-deterministic, that could lead to the state of affairs that we claim is possible. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.2) | |
| A reaction: [He is quoting A.R. Pruss 2002] That seems exactly right. Of course the initial substance(s) might create a further substance, such as a transuranic element, which then produces the state of affairs. I favour this strongly actualist view. |
| 14379 | Counterfactuals invite us to consider the powers picked out by the antecedent [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: A counterfactual is an invitation to consider what the properties picked out by the antecedent are powers for (where Lewis 1973 took it to be an invitation to consider what goes on in a selected possible world). | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.4.3) | |
| A reaction: A beautifully simple proposal from Jacobs, with which I agree. This seems to be an expansion of the Ramsey test for conditionals, where you consider the antecedent being true, and see what follows. What, we ask Ramsey, would make it follow? |
| 14372 | Possible worlds are just not suitable truthmakers for modality [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds are just not the sorts of things that could ground modality; they are not suitable truthmakers. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: Are possible world theorists actually claiming that the worlds 'ground' modality? Maybe Lewis is, since all those concrete worlds had better do some hard work, but for the ersatzist they just provide a kind of formal semantics, leaving ontology to others. |
| 16422 | The necessity of a proposition concerns reality, not our words or concepts [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The necessity or contingency of a proposition has nothing to do with our concepts or the meanings of our words. The possibilities would have been the same even if we had never conceived of them. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds in need of qualification, since some of the propositions will be explicitly about words and concepts. Still, I like this idea. |
| 16423 | Conceptual possibilities are metaphysical possibilities we can conceive of [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual possibilities are just (metaphysical) possibilities that we can conceive of. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) |
| 12466 | All modality is in the properties and relations of the actual world [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Properties and the relations between them introduce modal connections in the actual world. ..This is a strong form of actualism, since all of modality is part of the fundamental fabric of the actual world. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4) | |
| A reaction: This is the view of modality which I find most congenial, with the notion of 'powers' giving us the conceptual framework on which to build an account. |
| 14371 | We can base counterfactuals on powers, not possible worlds, and hence define necessity [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Together with a definition of possibility and necessity in terms of counterfactuals, the powers semantics of counterfactuals generates a semantics for modality that appeals to causal powers and not possible worlds. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §1) | |
| A reaction: Wonderful. Just what the doctor ordered. The only caveat is that if we say that reality is built up from fundamental powers, then might those powers change their character without losing their identity (e.g. gravity getting weaker)? |
| 16421 | Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Critics say there are no irreducible a posteriori truths. They can be factored into a part that is necessary, but knowable a priori through conceptual analysis, and a part knowable only a posteriori, but contingent. 2-D semantics makes this precise. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: [Critics are Sidelle, Jackson and Chalmers] Interesting. If gold is necessarily atomic number 79, or it wouldn't be gold, that sounds like an analytic truth about gold. Discovering the 79 wasn't a discovery of a necessity. Stalnaker rejects this idea. |
| 16429 | A 'centred' world is an ordered triple of world, individual and time [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A 'centred' possible world is an ordered triple consisting of a possible world, an individual in the domain of that world, and a time. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) |
| 12465 | Concrete worlds, unlike fictions, at least offer evidence of how the actual world could be [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Lewis's concrete worlds give a better account of modality (than fictional worlds). When I learn that a man like me drives a truck, I gain evidence for the fact that I can drive a truck. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: Cf. Idea 12464. Jacobs still rightly rejects this as an account of possibility, since the possibility that I might drive a truck must be rooted in me, not in some other person who drives a truck, even if that person is very like me. |
| 12464 | If some book described a possibe life for you, that isn't what makes such a life possible [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: Suppose somewhere deep in the rain forest is a book that includes a story about you as a truck-driver. I doubt that you would be inclined the think that that story, that book, is the reason you could have been a truck driver. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §3) | |
| A reaction: This begins to look like a totally overwhelming and obvious reason why possible worlds (especially as stories) don't give a good metaphysical account of possibility. They provide a semantic structure for modal reasoning, but that is entirely different. |
| 12469 | Possible worlds semantics gives little insight into modality [Jacobs] |
| Full Idea: If we want our semantics for modality to give us insight into the truthmakers for modality, then possible worlds semantics is inadequate. | |
| From: Jonathan D. Jacobs (A Powers Theory of Modality [2010], §4.4) | |
| A reaction: [See the other ideas of Jacobs (and Jubien) for this] It is an interesting question whether a semantics for a logic is meant to give us insight into how things really are, or whether it just builds nice models. Satisfaction, or truth? |
| 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 |
| 16428 | Meanings aren't in the head, but that is because they are abstract [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Meanings ain't in the head. Putnam's famous slogan actually fits Frege's anti-psychologism better than it fits Purnam's and Burge's anti-individualism. The point is that intensions of any kind are abstract objects. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: If intensions are abstract, that leaves (for me) the question of what they are abstracted from. I take it that there are specific brain events that are being abstractly characterised. What do we call those? |
| 16432 | One view says the causal story is built into the description that is the name's content [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: In 'causal descriptivism' the causal story is built into the description that is the content of the name (and also incorporates a rigidifying operator to ensure that the descriptions that names abbreviate have wide scope). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 5) | |
| A reaction: Not very controversial, I would say, since virtually every fact about the world has a 'causal story' built into it. Must we insist on rigidity in order to have wide scope? |
| 16430 | Two-D says that a posteriori is primary and contingent, and the necessity is the secondary intension [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Two-dimensionalism says the necessity of a statement is constituted by the fact that the secondary intensions is a necessary proposition, and their a posteriori character is constituted by the fact that the associated primary intension is contingent. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: This view is found in Sidelle 1989, and then formalised by Jackson and Chalmers. I like metaphysical necessity, but I have some sympathy with the approach. The question must always be 'where does this necessity derive from'? |
| 16431 | In one view, the secondary intension is metasemantic, about how the thinker relates to the content [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: On the metasemantic interpretation of the two-dimensional framework, the second dimension is used to represent the metasemantic facts about the relation between a thinker or speaker and the contents of her thoughts or utterances. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 4) | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling to think what facts there might be about the relation between myself and the contents of my thoughts. I'm more or less constituted by my thoughts. |