17 ideas
| 14092 | Philosophers are often too fussy about words, dismissing perfectly useful ordinary terms [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers can sometimes be too fussy about the words they use, dismissing as 'unintelligible' or 'obscure' certain forms of language that are perfectly meaningful by ordinary standards, and which may be of some real use. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 01) | |
| A reaction: Analytic philosophers are inclined to drop terms they can't formalise, but there is more to every concept than its formalisation (Frege's 'direction' for example). I want to rescue 'abstraction' and 'essence'. Rosen says distinguish, don't formalise. |
| 23277 | Modern pragmatism sees objectivity as possible, despite its gradual evolution [Misak] |
| Full Idea: One of the pillars of the new pragmatism is the thought that the standards of objectivity come into being and evolve over time, but that being historically situated in this way does not detract from their objectivity. | |
| From: Cheryl Misak (Introduction to 'New Pragmatists' [2007], p.2) | |
| A reaction: This looks to me like pragmatism finally coming to its senses. I would say that being any sort of 'social construct' (beloved of cultural relativists) in no way detracts from its capacity for objectivity and truth. |
| 14100 | Figuring in the definition of a thing doesn't make it a part of that thing [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: From the simple fact that '1' figures in the definition of '2', it does not follow that 1 is part of 2. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 10) | |
| A reaction: He observes that quite independent things can be mentioned on the two sides of a definition, with no parthood relation. You begin to wonder what a definition really is. A causal chain? |
| 14096 | Explanations fail to be monotonic [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: The failure of monotonicity is a general feature of explanatory relations. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 05) | |
| A reaction: In other words, explanations can always shift in the light of new evidence. In principle this is right, but some explanations just seem permanent, like plate-tectonics as explanation for earthquakes. |
| 14097 | Things could be true 'in virtue of' others as relations between truths, or between truths and items [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Our relation of 'in virtue of' is among facts or truths, whereas Fine's relation (if it is a relation at all) is a relation between a given truth and items whose natures ground that truth. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 07 n10) | |
| A reaction: This disagreement between two key players in the current debate on grounding looks rather significant. I think I favour Fine's view, as it seems more naturalistic, and less likely to succumb to conventionalism. |
| 14095 | Facts are structures of worldly items, rather like sentences, individuated by their ingredients [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Facts are structured entities built up from worldly items rather as sentences are built up from words. They might be identified with Russellian propositions. They are individuated by their constituents and composition, and are fine-grained. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 04) | |
| A reaction: I'm a little cautious about the emphasis on being sentence-like. We have Russell's continual warnings against imposing subject-predicate structure on things. I think we should happily talk about 'facts' in metaphysics. |
| 14093 | An 'intrinsic' property is one that depends on a thing and its parts, and not on its relations [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: One intuitive gloss on 'intrinsic' property is that a property is intrinsic iff whether or not a thing has it depends entirely on how things stand with it and its parts, and not on its relation to some distinct thing. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 02) | |
| A reaction: He offers this as a useful reward for reviving 'depends on' in metaphysical talk. The problem here would be to explain the 'thing' and its 'parts' without mentioning the target property. The thing certainly can't be a bundle of tropes. |
| 14094 | The excellent notion of metaphysical 'necessity' cannot be defined [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Many of our best words in philosophy do not admit of definition, the notion of metaphysical 'necessity' being one pertinent example. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 03) | |
| A reaction: Rosen is busy defending words in metaphysics which cannot be pinned down with logical rigour. We are allowed to write □ for 'necessary', and it is accepted by logicians as being stable in a language. |
| 14101 | Are necessary truths rooted in essences, or also in basic grounding laws? [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Fine says a truth is necessary when it is a logical consequence of the essential truths, but maybe it is a consequence of the essential truths together with the basic grounding laws (the 'Moorean connections'). | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 13) | |
| A reaction: I'm with Fine all the way here, as we really don't need to clog nature up with things called 'grounding laws', which are both obscure and inexplicable. Fine's story is the one for naturalistically inclined philosophers. |
| 22868 | The value and truth of knowledge are measured by success in activity [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: What measures knowledge's value, its correctness and truth, is the degree of its availability for conducting to a successful issue the activities of living beings. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 4:180), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 2 'Critique' | |
| A reaction: Note that this is the measure of truth, not the nature of truth (which James seemed to believe). Dewey gives us a clear and perfect statement of the pragmatic view of knowledge. I don't agree with it. |
| 22865 | Habits constitute the self [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: All habits are demands for certain kinds of activity; and they constitute the self. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 14:22), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 1 'Acts' | |
| A reaction: Not an idea I have encountered elsewhere. He emphasises that habits are not repeated actions, but are dispositions. I'm not clear whether these habits must be conscious. |
| 14099 | 'Bachelor' consists in or reduces to 'unmarried' male, but not the other way around [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: It sounds right to say that Fred's being a bachelor consists in (reduces to) being an unmarried male, but slightly off to say that Fred's being an unmarried male consists in (or reduces to) being a bachelor. There is a corresponding explanatory asymmetry. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 10) | |
| A reaction: This emerging understanding of the asymmetry of the idea shows that we are not just dealing with a simple semantic identity. Our concepts are richer than our language. He adds that a ball could be blue in virtue of being cerulean. |
| 22871 | The good people are those who improve; the bad are those who deteriorate [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: The bad man is the man who no matter how good he has been is beginning to deteriorate, to grow less good. The good man is the man who no matter how morally unworthy he has been is moving to become better. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:181), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 3 'Reconstruct' | |
| A reaction: Although a slightly improving rat doesn't sound as good as a slightly deteriorating saint, I have some sympathy with this thought. The desire to improve seems to be right at the heart of what makes good character. |
| 22876 | Democracy is the development of human nature when it shares in the running of communal activities [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is but a name for the fact that human nature is developed only when its elements take part in directing things which are common, things for the sake of which men and women form groups. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 12:199), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: It is hard to prove that human nature develops when it particpates in groups. If people are excluded from power, their loyalty tends to switch to sub-groups, such as friends in a pub, or a football team. Powerless nationalists baffle me. |
| 22875 | Democracy is not just a form of government; it is a mode of shared living [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: A democracy is more than a form of government; it is primarily a mode of associated living, of conjoint communicated experience | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 9:93), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Democracy' | |
| A reaction: This precisely pinpoints the heart of the culture wars in 2021. A huge swathe of western populations believe in Dewey's idea, but a core of wealthy right-wingers and their servants only see democracy as the mechanism for obtaining power. |
| 22874 | Individuality is only developed within groups [Dewey] |
| Full Idea: Only in social groups does a person have a chance to develop individuality. | |
| From: John Dewey (The Middle Works (15 vols, ed Boydston) [1910], 15:176), quoted by David Hildebrand - Dewey 4 'Individuals' | |
| A reaction: This is a criticism of both Rawls and Nozick. Rawls's initial choosers don't consult, or have much social background. Nozick's property owners ignore everything except contracts. |
| 14098 | An acid is just a proton donor [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: To be an acid just is to be a proton donor. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (Metaphysical Dependence [2010], 10) | |
| A reaction: My interest here is in whether we can say that we have found the 'essence' of an acid - so we want to know whether something 'deeper' explains the proton-donation. I suspect not. Being a proton donor happens to have a group of related consequences. |