18 ideas
14255 | We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We understand a defined object (what it is) through the objects on which it depends. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: This places dependency relations right at the heart of our understanding of the world, and hence shifts traditional metaphysics away from existence and identity. The notion of explanation is missing from Fine's account. |
14250 | Metaphysics deals with the existence of things and with the nature of things [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Metaphysics has two main areas of concern: one is with the nature of things, with what they are; and the other is with the existence of things, with whether they are. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: This paper is part of a movement which has shifted metaphysics to a third target - how things relate to one another. The possibility that this third aim should be the main one seems quite plausible to me. |
14259 | Maybe two objects might require simultaneous real definitions, as with two simultaneous terms [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: In Wooster as the witless bachelor and Jeeves as the crafty manservant, and one valet to the other, we will have the counterpart, within the framework of real definition, to the simultaneous definition of two terms. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
A reaction: This is wonderful grist to the mill of scientific essentialism, which endeavours to produce an understanding through explanation of the complex interactions of nature. |
13412 | Obtaining numbers by abstraction is impossible - there are too many; only a rule could give them, in order [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: Not all numbers could possibly have been learned à la Frege-Russell, because we could not have performed that many distinct acts of abstraction. Somewhere along the line a rule had to come in to enable us to obtain more numbers, in the natural order. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.165) | |
A reaction: Follows on from Idea 13411. I'm not sure how Russell would deal with this, though I am sure his account cannot be swept aside this easily. Nevertheless this seems powerful and convincing, approaching the problem through the epistemology. |
13413 | We must explain how we know so many numbers, and recognise ones we haven't met before [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: Both ordinalists and cardinalists, to account for our number words, have to account for the fact that we know so many of them, and that we can 'recognize' numbers which we've neither seen nor heard. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.166) | |
A reaction: This seems an important contraint on any attempt to explain numbers. Benacerraf is an incipient structuralist, and here presses the importance of rules in our grasp of number. Faced with 42,578,645, we perform an act of deconstruction to grasp it. |
13411 | If numbers are basically the cardinals (Frege-Russell view) you could know some numbers in isolation [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: If we accept the Frege-Russell analysis of number (the natural numbers are the cardinals) as basic and correct, one thing which seems to follow is that one could know, say, three, seventeen, and eight, but no other numbers. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.164) | |
A reaction: It seems possible that someone might only know those numbers, as the patterns of members of three neighbouring families (the only place where they apply number). That said, this is good support for the priority of ordinals. See Idea 13412. |
13415 | An adequate account of a number must relate it to its series [Benacerraf] |
Full Idea: No account of an individual number is adequate unless it relates that number to the series of which it is a member. | |
From: Paul Benacerraf (Logicism, Some Considerations (PhD) [1960], p.169) | |
A reaction: Thus it is not totally implausible to say that 2 is several different numbers or concepts, depending on whether you see it as a natural number, an integer, a rational, or a real. This idea is the beginning of modern structuralism. |
14253 | An object's 'being' isn't existence; there's more to an object than existence, and its nature doesn't include existence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: It seems wrong to identify the 'being' of an object, its being what it is, with its existence. In one respect existence is too weak; for there is more to an object than mere existence; also too strong, for an object's nature need not include existence. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: The word 'being' has been shockingly woolly, from Parmenides to Heidegger, but if you identify it with a thing's 'nature' that strikes me as much clearer (even if a little misty). |
14261 | There is 'weak' dependence in one definition, and 'strong' dependence in all the definitions [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: An object 'weakly' depends upon another if it is ineliminably involved in one of its definitions; and it 'strongly' depends upon the other if it is ineliminably involved in all of its definitions. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
A reaction: It is important to remember that a definition can be very long, and not just what might go into a dictionary. |
14251 | A natural modal account of dependence says x depends on y if y must exist when x does [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: A natural account of dependence in terms of modality and existence is that one thing x will depend on another thing y just in case it is necessary that y exists if x exists (or in the symbolism of modal logic, □(Ex→Ey). | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: He is going to criticise this view (which he traces back to Aristotle and Husserl). It immediately seems possible that there might be counterexamples. x might depend on y, but not necessarily depend on y. Necessities may not produce dependence. |
14257 | An object depends on another if the second cannot be eliminated from the first's definition [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The objects upon which a given object depends, according to the present account, are those which must figure in any of the logically equivalent definitions of the object. They will, in a sense, be ineliminable. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: This is Fine's main proposal for the dependency relationship, with a context of Aristotelian essences understood as definitions. Sounds pretty good to me. |
14254 | Dependency is the real counterpart of one term defining another [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The notion of one object depending upon another is the real counterpart to the nominal notion of one term being definable in terms of another. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: This begins to fill out the Aristotelian picture very nicely, since definitions are right at the centre of the nature of things (though a much more transitional part of the story than Fine seems to think). |
14252 | We should understand identity in terms of the propositions it renders true [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We should understand the identity or being of an object in terms of the propositions rendered true by its identity rather than the other way round. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
A reaction: Behind this is an essentialist view of identity, rather than one connected with necessary properties. |
14256 | How do we distinguish basic from derived esssences? [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: How and where are we to draw the line between what is basic to the essence and what is derived? | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
A reaction: He calls the basic essence 'constitutive' and the rest the 'consequential' essence. This question is obviously very challenging for the essentialist. See Idea 22. |
14258 | Maybe some things have essential relationships as well as essential properties [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: It is natural to suppose, in the case of such objects as Wooster and Jeeves, that in addition to possessing constitutive essential properties they will also enter into constitutive essential relationships. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
A reaction: I like this. If we are going to have scientific essences as structures of intrinsic powers, then the relationships between the parts of the essence must also be essential. That is the whole point - that the powers dictate the relationships. |
14260 | An object only essentially has a property if that property follows from every definition of the object [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We can say that an object essentially has a certain property if its having that property follows from every definition of the object, while an object will definitively have a given property if its having that property follows from some definition of it. | |
From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
A reaction: Presumably that will be every accurate definition. This nicely allows for the fact that at least nominal definitions may not be unique, and there is even room for real definitions not to be fully determinate (thus, how far should they extend?). |
8840 | There are five possible responses to the problem of infinite regress in justification [Cleve] |
Full Idea: Sceptics respond to the regress problem by denying knowledge; Foundationalists accept justifications without reasons; Positists say reasons terminate is mere posits; Coherentists say mutual support is justification; Infinitists accept the regress. | |
From: James Van Cleve (Why coherence is not enough [2005], I) | |
A reaction: A nice map of the territory. The doubts of Scepticism are not strong enough for anyone to embrace the view; Foundationalist destroy knowledge (?), as do Positists; Infinitism is a version of Coherentism - which is the winner. |
8841 | Modern foundationalists say basic beliefs are fallible, and coherence is relevant [Cleve] |
Full Idea: Contemporary foundationalists are seldom of the strong Cartesian variety: they do not insist that basic beliefs be absolutely certain. They also tend to allow that coherence can enhance justification. | |
From: James Van Cleve (Why coherence is not enough [2005], III) | |
A reaction: It strikes me that they have got onto a slippery slope. How certain are the basic beliefs? How do you evaluate their certainty? Could incoherence in their implications undermine them? Skyscrapers need perfect foundations. |