Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Causes and Counterfactuals', 'The Pragmatist Account of Truth' and 'De Mundo (On the World)'

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9 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction
Man has an intense natural interest in the consistency of his own thinking [James]
     Full Idea: After man's interest in breathing freely, the greatest of all his interests (because it never fluctuates or remits….) is his interest in consistency, in feeling that what he now thinks goes with what he thinks on other occasions.
     From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Seventh')
     A reaction: People notoriously contradict themselves all the time, but I suspect that it is when they get out of their depth in complexities such as politics. They probably achieve great consistency within their own expertise, and in common knowledge.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
Only supernatural means could annihilate anything once it had being [Hobbes]
     Full Idea: A being cannot naturally go out of existence. For even if a ship or a plank ceases to be a ship or a plank, it never naturally ceases to be a being. For a being, unless it is annihilated, does not cease to be a being. To annihilate is a supernatural task.
     From: Thomas Hobbes (De Mundo (On the World) [1642], 12.5)
     A reaction: This idea was becoming an orthodoxy in Hobbes's time, and leads to the various conservation laws in physics.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / c. Facts and truths
Realities just are, and beliefs are true of them [James]
     Full Idea: Realities are not true, they are; and beliefs are true of them.
     From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Fourth')
     A reaction: At last, a remark by James about truth which I really like. For 'realities' I would use the word 'facts'.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 5. Coherentism / b. Pro-coherentism
We find satisfaction in consistency of all of our beliefs, perceptions and mental connections [James]
     Full Idea: We find satisfaction in consistency between the present idea and the entire rest of our mental equipment, including the whole order of our sensations, and that of our intuitions of likeness and difference, and our whole stock previously acquired truths.
     From: William James (The Pragmatist Account of Truth [1908], 'Fourth')
     A reaction: I like this, apart from the idea that the criterion of good coherence seems to be subjective 'satisfaction'. We should ask why some large set of beliefs is coherent. I assume nature is coherent, and truth is the best explanation of our coherence about it.
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.