10 ideas
| 18261 | A simplification which is complete constitutes a definition [Kant] |
| Full Idea: By dissection I can make the concept distinct only by making the marks it contains clear. That is what analysis does. If this analysis is complete ...and in addition there are not so many marks, then it is precise and so constitutes a definition. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.455), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: I think Aristotle would approve of this. We need to grasp that a philosophical definition is quite different from a lexicographical definition. 'Completeness' may involve quite a lot. |
| 22275 | Logic gives us the necessary rules which show us how we ought to think [Kant] |
| Full Idea: In logic the question is not one of contingent but of necessary rules, not how to think, but how we ought to think. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.16), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 02 'Trans' | |
| A reaction: Presumably it aspires to the objectivity of a single correct account of how we all ought to think. I'm sympathetic to that, rather than modern cultural relativism about reason. Logic is rooted in nature, not in arbitrary convention. |
| 10938 | The extremes of essentialism are that all properties are essential, or only very trivial ones [Rami] |
| Full Idea: It would be natural to label one extreme view 'maximal essentialism' - that all of an object's properties are essential - and the other extreme 'minimal' - that only trivial properties such as self-identity of being either F or not-F are essential. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008]) | |
| A reaction: Personally I don't accept the trivial ones as being in any way describable as 'properties'. The maximal view destroys any useful notion of essence. Leibniz is a minority holder of the maximal view. I would defend a middle way. |
| 10940 | An 'individual essence' is possessed uniquely by a particular object [Rami] |
| Full Idea: An 'individual essence' is a property that in addition to being essential is also unique to the object, in the sense that it is not possible that something distinct from that object possesses that property. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §5) | |
| A reaction: She cites a 'haecceity' (or mere bare identity) as a trivial example of an individual essence. |
| 10939 | 'Sortal essentialism' says being a particular kind is what is essential [Rami] |
| Full Idea: According to 'sortal essentialism', an object could not have been of a radically different kind than it in fact is. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §4) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as thoroughly wrong. Things belong in kinds because of their properties. Could you remove all the contingent features of a tiger, leaving it as merely 'a tiger', despite being totally unrecognisable? |
| 10934 | Unlosable properties are not the same as essential properties [Rami] |
| Full Idea: It is easy to confuse the notion of an essential property that a thing could not lack, with a property it could not lose. My having spent Christmas 2007 in Tennessee is a non-essential property I could not lose. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
| A reaction: The idea that having spent Christmas in Tennessee is a property I find quite bewildering. Is my not having spent my Christmas in Tennessee one of my properties? I suspect that real unlosable properties are essential ones. |
| 10933 | Physical possibility is part of metaphysical possibility which is part of logical possibility [Rami] |
| Full Idea: The usual view is that 'physical possibilities' are a natural subset of the 'metaphysical possibilities', which in turn are a subset of the 'logical possibilities'. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
| A reaction: [She cites Fine 2002 for an opposing view] I prefer 'natural' to 'physical', leaving it open where the borders of the natural lie. I take 'metaphysical' possibility to be 'in all naturally possible worlds'. So is a round square a logical possibility? |
| 490 | Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus] |
| Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity. | |
| From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 10932 | If it is possible 'for all I know' then it is 'epistemically possible' [Rami] |
| Full Idea: There is 'epistemic possibility' when it is 'for all I know'. That is, P is epistemically possible for agent A just in case P is consistent with what A knows. | |
| From: Adolph Rami (Essential vs Accidental Properties [2008], §1) | |
| A reaction: Two problems: maybe 'we' know, and A knows we know, but A doesn't know. And maybe someone knows, but we are not sure about that, which seems to introduce a modal element into the knowing. If someone knows it's impossible, it's impossible. |
| 18260 | If we knew what we know, we would be astonished [Kant] |
| Full Idea: If we only know what we know ...we would be astonished by the treasures contained in our knowledge. | |
| From: Immanuel Kant (Wiener Logik [1795], p.843), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' | |
| A reaction: Nice remark. He doesn't require immediat recall of knowledge. You can't be required to know that you know something. That doesn't imply externalism, though. I believe in securely founded internal knowledge which is hard to recall. |