Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Causes and Counterfactuals', 'Sophistical Refutations' and 'Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence'

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18 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems
Metaphysics aims to identify categories of being, and show their interdependency [Lowe]
     Full Idea: The central task of metaphysics is to chart the possibilities of existence by identifying the categories of being and the relations of ontological dependency in which beings of different categories stand to one another.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], Intro)
     A reaction: I am beginning to think that he is right about the second one, and that dependency and grounding relations are the name of the game. I don't have Lowe's confidence that philosophers can parcel up reality in neat and true ways.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 6. Metaphysics as Conceptual
Philosophy aims not at the 'analysis of concepts', but at understanding the essences of things [Lowe]
     Full Idea: The central task of philosophy is the cultivation of insights into natures or essences, and not the 'analysis of concepts', with which it is apt to be confused.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1)
     A reaction: This immediately strikes me as a false dichotomy. I like the idea of trying to understand the true natures of things, but how are we going to do it in our armchairs?
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
Didactic argument starts from the principles of the subject, not from the opinions of the learner [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Didactic arguments are those which reason from the principles appropriate to each branch of learning and not from the opinions of the answerer (for he who is learning must take things on trust).
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b01)
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Reasoning is a way of making statements which makes them lead on to other statements [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Reasoning is based on certain statements made in such a way as necessarily to cause the assertion of things other than those statements and as a result of those statements.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165a01)
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Dialectic aims to start from generally accepted opinions, and lead to a contradiction [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Dialectical arguments are those which, starting from generally accepted opinions, reason to establish a contradiction.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b03)
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 3. Eristic
Competitive argument aims at refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism or repetition [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Those who compete and contend in argument aim at five objects: refutation, fallacy, paradox, solecism, and the reduction of one's opponent to a state of babbling, that is, making him say the same thing over and over again.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 165b15)
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / d. and
'Are Coriscus and Callias at home?' sounds like a single question, but it isn't [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If you ask 'Are Coriscus and Callias at home or not at home?', whether they are both at home or not there, the number of propositions is more than one. For if the answer is true, it does not follow that the question is a single one.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 176a08)
     A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle is saying that some questions should not receive a 'yes' or 'no' answer, because they are equivocal. Arthur Prior cites this passage, on 'and'. Ordinary use of 'and' need not be the logical use of 'and'.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects
Holes, shadows and spots of light can coincide without being identical [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Holes are things of such a kind that they can coincide without being identical - as are, for example, shadows and spots of light.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 1)
     A reaction: His point is that they thereby fail one of the standard tests for being an 'object'.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
All things must have an essence (a 'what it is'), or we would be unable to think about them [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Things must have an essence, in the sense of 'what it is to be the individual of that kind', or it would make no sense to say we can talk or think comprehendingly about things at all. If we don't know what it is, how can we think about it?
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2)
     A reaction: Lowe presents this as a sort of Master Argument for essences. I think he is working with the wrong notion of essence. All he means is that things must have identities to be objects of thought. Why equate identity with essence, and waste a good concept?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
Generic terms like 'man' are not substances, but qualities, relations, modes or some such thing [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: 'Man', and every generic term, denotes not an individual substance but a quality or relation or mode or something of the kind.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a01)
     A reaction: This is Aristotle's denial that species constitutes the essence of anything. I take 'man' to be a categorisation of individuals, and is ontologically nothing at all in its own right.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
Knowing an essence is just knowing what the thing is, not knowing some further thing [Lowe]
     Full Idea: To know something's essence is not to be acquainted with some further thing of a special kind, but simply to understand what exactly that thing is.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2)
     A reaction: I think he is wrong about this, or at least is working with an unhelpful notion of essence. Identity is one thing, and essence is another. I take essences to be certain selected features of things, which explain their nature.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 4. Type Identity
Each thing has to be of a general kind, because it belongs to some category [Lowe]
     Full Idea: Any individual thing must be a thing of some general kind - because, at the very least, it must belong to some ontological category.
     From: E.J. Lowe (Two Notions of Being: Entity and Essence [2008], 2)
     A reaction: Where does the law that 'everything must have a category' come from? I'm baffled by remarks of this kind. Where do we get the categories from? From observing the individuals. So which has priority? Not the categories. Is God a kind?
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law
Only if two things are identical do they have the same attributes [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is only to things which are indistinguishable and one in essence [ousia] that all the same attributes are generally held to belong.
     From: Aristotle (Sophistical Refutations [c.331 BCE], 179a37)
     A reaction: This simply IS Leibniz's Law (to which I shall from now on quietly refer to as 'Aristotle's Law'). It seems that it just as plausible to translate 'ousia' as 'being' rather than 'essence'. 'Indistinguishable' and 'one in ousia' are not the same.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Causal statements are used to explain, to predict, to control, to attribute responsibility, and in theories [Kim]
     Full Idea: The function of causal statements is 1) to explain events, 2) for predictive usefulness, 3) to help control events, 4) with agents, to attribute moral responsibility, 5) in physical theory. We should judge causal theories by how they account for these.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.207)
     A reaction: He suggests that Lewis's counterfactual theory won't do well on this test. I think the first one is what matters. Philosophy aims to understand, and that is achieved through explanation. Regularity and counterfactual theories explain very little.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / c. Counterfactual causation
Many counterfactuals have nothing to do with causation [Kim, by Tooley]
     Full Idea: Kim has pointed out that there are a number of counterfactuals that have nothing to do with causation. If John marries Mary, then if John had not existed he would not have married Mary, but that is not the cause of their union.
     From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], 5.2) by Michael Tooley - Causation and Supervenience
     A reaction: One might not think that this mattered, but it leaves the problem of distinguishing between the causal counterfactuals and the rest (and you mustn't mention causation when you are doing it!).
Counterfactuals can express four other relations between events, apart from causation [Kim]
     Full Idea: Counterfactuals can express 'analytical' dependency, or the fact that one event is part of another, or an action done by doing another, or (most interestingly) an event can determine another without causally determining it.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.205)
     A reaction: [Kim gives example of each case] Counterfactuals can even express a relation that involves no dependency. Or they might just involve redescription, as in 'If Scott were still alive, then the author of "Waverley" would be too'.
Causation is not the only dependency relation expressed by counterfactuals [Kim]
     Full Idea: The sort of dependency expressed by counterfactual relations is considerably broader than strictly causal dependency, and causal dependency is only one among the heterogeneous group of dependency relationships counterfactuals can express.
     From: Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973], p.205)
     A reaction: In 'If pigs could fly, one and one still wouldn't make three' there isn't even a dependency. Kim has opened up lines of criticism which make the counterfactual analysis of causation look very implausible to me.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 9. Counterfactual Claims
Many counterfactual truths do not imply causation ('if yesterday wasn't Monday, it isn't Tuesday') [Kim, by Psillos]
     Full Idea: Kim gives a range of examples of counterfactual dependence without causation, as: 'if yesterday wasn't Monday, today wouldn't be Tuesday', and 'if my sister had not given birth, I would not be an uncle'.
     From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Counterfactuals [1973]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §3.3
     A reaction: This is aimed at David Lewis. The objection seems like commonsense. "If you blink, the cat gets it". Causal claims involve counterfactuals, but they are not definitive of what causation is.