77 ideas
7001 | If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil] |
Full Idea: If you start with language and try to work your way outwards, you will never get outside language. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Pref) | |
A reaction: This voices my pessimism about the linguistic approach to philosophy (and I don't just mean analysis of ordinary language), though I wonder if the career of (say) John Searle is a counterexample. |
7038 | A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil] |
Full Idea: It could well turn out that a simpler theory - a theory with fewer fundamental principles - posits more entities than a more complex competitor. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.6) | |
A reaction: See also Idea 4036. The point here is that you can't simply translate Ockham as 'keep it simple', as there are different types of simplicity. The best theory will negotiate a balance between entities and principles. |
7037 | Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil] |
Full Idea: A commitment to parsimony is not a commitment to a conception of the world as simple. The idea, rather, is that we should not complicate our theories about the world unnecessarily. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.6) | |
A reaction: In other words, Ockham's Razor is about us, not about the world. It would be absurd to make the a priori assumption that the world has to be simple. Are we, though, creating bad theories by insisting that they should be simple? |
18004 | We can't do philosophy without knowledge of types and categories [Ryle] |
Full Idea: We are in the dark about the nature of philosophical problems and methods if we are in the dark about types and categories. | |
From: Gilbert Ryle (Categories [1938], p.189), quoted by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.2 | |
A reaction: Magidor and others take this to be an assertion about language and logic, but I take it to be an assertion about reality. It is an early assertion of Schaffer's claim that ontology concerns the structure of existence, and not just what exists. |
7004 | The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil] |
Full Idea: I argue that the widely held view that truth making is to be understood as entailment is misguided in principle and potentially misleading. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: If reality was just one particle, what would entail the truths about it? Suppose something appears to be self-evident true about reality, but no one can think of any entailments to derive it? Do we assume a priori that they are possible? |
7035 | God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil] |
Full Idea: It is hard to see classes as an 'addition of being'; God does not create the world, and then add the classes. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4 n6) | |
A reaction: This seems right. We may be tempted into believing in the reality of classes when considering maths, but it seems utterly implausible when considering trees or cows. |
7017 | The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil] |
Full Idea: The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.3) | |
A reaction: Fodor, for example, claims that certain causal laws only operate at high levels of reality. I agree with Heil's idea - the notion that there are different realities around here that don't connect properly to one another is philosopher's madness. |
7003 | There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil] |
Full Idea: We should accept levels of organisation, levels of complexity, levels of description, and levels of explanation, but not the levels of reality favoured by many anti-reductionists. The world is then ontologically, but not analytically, reductive. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: This sounds right to me. The crunch questions seem to be whether the boundaries at higher levels of organisation exist lower down, and whether the causal laws of the higher levels can be translated without remainder into lower level laws. |
7045 | Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil] |
Full Idea: Realism is sometimes said to involve a commitment to the idea that certain of our concepts, those with respect to which we are realists, 'carve reality at the joints'. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.11) | |
A reaction: Clearly not all concepts cut nature at the joints (e.g. we have concepts of things we know to be imaginary). Personally I am committed to this view of realism. I try very hard to use concepts that cut accurately; why shouldn't I sometimes succeed? |
7065 | Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil] |
Full Idea: Anti-realist philosophers, and those who hope to reduce metaphysics to (or replace it with) the philosophy of language, owe the rest of us an account of the ontology of language. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.6) | |
A reaction: A nice turning-the-tables question. In all accounts of relativism, x is usually said to be relative to y. You haven't got proper relativism if you haven't relativised both x and y. But relativised them to what? Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' (Idea 4420)? |
7020 | Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil] |
Full Idea: Concepts do not 'carve up' the world; the world already contains endless divisions, most of which we remain oblivious to or ignore. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 05.3) | |
A reaction: Concepts could still carve up the world, without ever aspiring to do a complete job. We carve up the aspects that interest us, but the majority of the carving is in response to natural divisions, not whimsical conventions. |
7007 | I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers who accept that properties are intrinsic features of objects regard them as pure powers, pure dispositionalities; I prefer to think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: I am uneasy about 'qualitative' as a category, and am inclined to reduce it to being a dispositional power to cause primary and secondary qualities in observers. Roughness is only a power, not a quality, if there are no observers. |
7015 | A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil] |
Full Idea: When a predicate applies truly to an object, it does so in virtue of designating a property possessed by that object and by every object to which the predicate truly applies (or would apply). | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.3) | |
A reaction: I am sympathetic to Heil's aim of shifting our attention from arbitrary predicates to natural properties, but it won't avoid Fodor's problem (Idea 7014) that all kinds of whimsical predicates will apply 'truly', but fail to pick out anything significant. |
7042 | A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil] |
Full Idea: The friend of universals has an account of similarity relations as relations of identity and partial identity; the friend of modes must regard similarity relations as primitive and irreducible. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.5) | |
A reaction: We always seem to be able to ask 'in what respect' a similarity occurs. If similarity is 'primitive and irreducible', we should not be able to analyse and explain a similarity, yet we seem able to. I conclude that Heil is wrong. |
7023 | Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil] |
Full Idea: The modern default position on dispositionality is that powers or dispositions are higher-level properties objects possess by virtue of those objects' possession of lower-level qualitative (categorical) properties. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 09.2) | |
A reaction: The new idea which is being floated by Heil, and which I prefer, is that dispositions or powers are basic. A 'quality' is a much more dubious entity than a power. |
7025 | Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil] |
Full Idea: There is a dispute over whether a property's dispositionality is built into the property or whether it is a contingent add-on. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 09.4) | |
A reaction: Put that way, the idea that it is built in seems much more plausible. If it is an add-on, an explanation of why that disposition is added to that particular property seems required. If it is built in, it seems legitimate to accept it as a brute fact. |
7034 | Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil] |
Full Idea: Universals can explain the one-over-many problem, and easily explain similarity relations between objects, and explain the similar behaviour of similar objects. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.1) | |
A reaction: A useful summary. If you accept it, you seem to be faced with a choice between Plato (who has universals existing independently of particulars) and Armstrong (who makes them real, but existing only in particulars). |
7039 | How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil] |
Full Idea: Imagine a pair of worlds, one in which there are the universals and their instances and one in which there are just the instances (a world of modes). How would the absence of universals make itself felt? | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.7) | |
A reaction: A nice question for Plato, very much in the spirit of Aristotle's string of questions. Compare 'suppose the physics remained, but someone removed the laws'. Either chaos ensues, or you realise they were redundant. Same with Forms. |
7009 | Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil] |
Full Idea: My contention is that similarity among modes can do the job universals are conventionally postulated to do. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: See Idea 4441 for Russell's nice objection to this view. The very process by which we observes similarities (as assess their degrees) needs to be explained by any adequate theory of properties or universals. |
7041 | Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil] |
Full Idea: Objects are similar by virtue of possessing similar properties; properties, in contrast, are not similar in virtue of anything. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.2) | |
A reaction: I am not sure if I can understand the concept of similarity if there is no answer to the question 'In what respect?' I suppose David Hume is happy to take resemblance as given and basic, but it could be defined as 'sharing identical properties'. |
7032 | Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil] |
Full Idea: The set of red objects is the set of objects possessing a property: being red. Objects are members of the set in virtue of possessing this property; they do not possess the property in virtue of belonging to the set. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 12.2) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a very effective denial of the claim that universals are sets. However, if 'being a Londoner' counts as a property, you can only have it by joining the London set. Being tall is more fundamental than being a Londoner. |
7008 | Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil] |
Full Idea: Philosophers identifying themselves as trope theorists have, by and large, accepted some form of the 'bundle theory' of objects: an object is a bundle of compresent tropes. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: This view eliminates anything called 'matter' or 'substance' or a 'bare particular'. I think I agree with Heil that this doesn't give a coherent picture, as properties seem to be 'of' something, and bundles always raise the question of what unites them. |
7018 | Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil] |
Full Idea: I think of objects as substances, and a substance is an object considered as a bearer of properties. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.2) | |
A reaction: This is an area of philosophy I always find disconcerting, where an account of how we should see objects seems to have no connection at all to what physicists report about objects. 'Considered as' seems to make substances entirely conventional. |
7019 | Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil] |
Full Idea: It would seem distinctly possible that there is but a single substance: space-time or some all-encompassing quantum field. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 05.2) | |
A reaction: This would at least meet my concern that philosophers' 'substances' don't seem to connect to what physicists talk about. I wonder if anyone knows what a 'quantum field' is? The clash between relativity and quantum theory is being alluded to. |
7046 | Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil] |
Full Idea: I prefer the more colloquial 'object' to the traditional term 'substance'. An object can be regarded as a possessor of properties: as something that is red, spherical and pungent, for instance. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 15.3) | |
A reaction: A nice move, but it seems to beg the question of 'what is it that has the properties?' Objects and substances do two different jobs in our ontology. Heil is just refusing to discuss what it is that has properties. |
7047 | Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil] |
Full Idea: Applications of the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals apparently obliges us to distinguish the statue and the lump of bronze making it up. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 16.3) | |
A reaction: In other words, statues and lumps of bronze have different properties. It is a moot point, though, whether there are any discernible differences between that statue at time t and its constituting lump of bronze at time t. |
7048 | Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil] |
Full Idea: Must we choose between reductionism (the statue is the lump of bronze), eliminativism (there are no statues, only statue-shaped lumps of bronze), and a commitment to coincident objects? | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 16.5) | |
A reaction: (Heil goes on to offer his own view). Coincident objects sounds the least plausible view. Modern statues are only statues if we see them that way, but a tree is definitely a tree. Trenton Merricks is good on eliminativism. |
7028 | If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil] |
Full Idea: A pure quality, a property altogether lacking in dispositionality, would be undetectable and would, in one obvious sense, make no difference to its possessor. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.4) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a very forceful and simple reason why we cannot view properties simply as qualities of things. Heil wants properties to be dispositions and qualities; personally I would vote for them just being dispositions or powers. |
7029 | Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil] |
Full Idea: It is not clear to me that we easily distinguish ways a property is from the property itself. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.6) | |
A reaction: To defend properties as qualities, he is confusing ontology and epistemology. Presumably he means by 'ways a property is' what I would prefer to call 'ways a property seems to be'. I don't believe a smell is simply what it seems to be. |
7030 | Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil] |
Full Idea: Objects possess properties, but I am sceptical of the idea that properties possess properties; just as a property is a way some object is, a property of a property would be a way a property is, but that is just the property itself. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 12.1) | |
A reaction: This is quite a good defence of the idea that properties are qualities as well as dispositions. However, if we make the qualities of properties into secondary qualities, and the dispositions into primary qualities, the absurdity melts away. |
7051 | Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil] |
Full Idea: Secondary qualities are not distinct from primary qualities: an object's possession of a given secondary quality is a matter of its possession of certain complex primary qualities. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.3) | |
A reaction: The bottom line here is that, if essentialism is right, colours are not properties at all (see Idea 5456). Heil wants to subsume secondary properties within primary properties. I think we should sharply distinguish them. |
7044 | Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil] |
Full Idea: Secondary qualities are just ordinary properties - roughly, Locke's primary qualities - considered in the light of their effects on us. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.10) | |
A reaction: Unconvincing. If they only acquire their ontological status as primary qualities if they have to be considered in relation to something (us), then that is not a primary quality. |
7052 | Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil] |
Full Idea: Theories that take colours to be properties of the surfaces of objects have difficulty accounting for a host of phenomena including coloured light emitted by radiant sources and so-called film colours (the colour of the sky, for instance). | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.4) | |
A reaction: Personally I never thought that colours might be actual properties of surfaces, but it is nice to have spelled out a couple of instances that make it very implausible. Neon and sodium lights I take to be examples of the first case. |
7053 | Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil] |
Full Idea: Theories that tie colours to features of light radiation deal with radiant and diffused colours, but yield implausible results for objects; tomatoes are not red, on such a view, but merely reflect red light. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.4) | |
A reaction: I see absolutely no problem with the philosophical denial that tomatoes are actually red, while continuing to use 'red' of tomatoes in the normal way. When we analyse our processes of knowledge acquisition, we must give up 'common sense'. |
7066 | If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil] |
Full Idea: For those who regard the world as text or a social construct, are texts and social constructs real entities? If they are, what are they? | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.6) | |
A reaction: A nice turn-the-tables question. The oldest attacks of all on scepticism and relativism consist of showing that the positions themselves rest on knowledge or truth. Nietzsche may be the best model for relativists. E.g. Idea 4420. |
7021 | If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil] |
Full Idea: If the world is somehow theory-dependent, this implies, on pain of a regress, that theories are not theory-dependent. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 06.4) | |
A reaction: I am not sure where this puts the ontology of theories, but this is a nice question, of a type which never seems to occur to your more simple-minded relativist. |
7026 | Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil] |
Full Idea: The sciences are sometimes said to be in the business of identifying and classifying powers; the mass of an electron, its spin and charge, could be regarded as powers possessed by the electron; science is silent on an electron's qualities. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.2) | |
A reaction: Heil raises the possibility that qualities are real, despite the silence of science; he wants colour to be a real quality. I like the simpler version of science. Qualities are the mental effects of powers; there exist substances, powers and effects. |
7060 | One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil] |
Full Idea: One form of explanation is by decomposition. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 19.8) | |
A reaction: This is a fancy word for taking it apart, presumably to see how it works, which implies a functional explanation, rather than to see what it is made of, which seeks an ontological explanation. Simply 'decomposing' something wouldn't in itself explain. |
7010 | Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil] |
Full Idea: Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: This is a view with which I am sympathetic, though I am not sure if it explains anything. It would be necessary to identify a disposition of basic matter that could be built up into the disposition of a brain to think about things. |
7054 | Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil] |
Full Idea: Nowadays philosophers concerned with intentionality divide into two camps. Internalists epitomise a traditional approach to thought, as intrinsic features of thinkers; externalists say it depends on contextual factors (environment or community). | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.2) | |
A reaction: This is basic to understanding modern debates (those that grow out of Putnam's Twin Earth). Externalism is fashionable, but I am reluctant to shake off my quaint internalism. Start by separating strict and literal meaning from speaker's meaning. |
7011 | Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil] |
Full Idea: Properties of conscious experience, the so-called qualia, are not dangling appendages to material states and processes but intrinsic ingredients of those states and processes. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: Personally I am inclined to the view that qualia are intrinsic to the processes and NOT to the 'states'. Heil must be right, though. I am sure qualia are not just epiphenomena - they are too useful. |
7061 | Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil] |
Full Idea: Philosophers' zombies (invented by Robert Kirk) differ from the zombies of folklore; they are intended to make clear the idea that consciousness is an addition of being, something 'over and above' the physical world. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.1 n1) | |
A reaction: The famous defender of zombies is David Chalmers. You can't believe in zombies if you believe (as I do) that 'the physical entails the mental'. Could there be redness without something that is red? If consciousness is extra, what is conscious? |
7063 | Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil] |
Full Idea: The possibility of zombies is founded on the idea that consciousness is related contingently to physical states and processes. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.3) | |
A reaction: The question is, how do you decide whether the relationship is contingent or necessary? Hence the interest in whether conceivability entails possibility. Kripke attacks the idea of contingent identity, pointing towards necessity, and away from zombies. |
7064 | Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil] |
Full Idea: Functionalists deny that zombies are possible since states of mind (including conscious states) are purely functional states. If two agents are in the same functional state, regardless of qualitative difference, they are in the same mental state. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.5) | |
A reaction: In its 'brief' form this idea begins to smell of tautology. Only the right sort of functional state would entail a mental state, and how else can that functional state be defined, apart from its leading to a mental state? |
7027 | Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil] |
Full Idea: A central tenet of functionalism is that objects can be dispositionally indiscernible but differ qualitatively as much as you please. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.3) | |
A reaction: This refers to the multiple realisability of functions. Presumably we reconcile essentialism with the functionalist view by saying that dispositions result from combinations of qualities. A unique combination of qualities will necessitate a disposition. |
7062 | Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil] |
Full Idea: Functionalism has been widely criticized on the grounds that it is implausible to think that functional organization alone could suffice for conscious experience. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.2) | |
A reaction: He cites Block's 'Chinese Mind' as an example. The obvious reply is that you can't explain consciousness with a lump of meat, or with behaviour, or with an anomalous property, or even with a non-physical substance. |
7059 | The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil] |
Full Idea: The expression 'explanatory gap' was coined by Joseph Levine in 1983. McGinn and Chalmers have invoked it in defence of the view that consciousness is physically inexplicable, and Nagel that it is inexplicable given existing conceptual resources. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 19.8 n14) | |
A reaction: Coining a few concepts isn't going to help, but discovering more about the brain might. With computer simulations we will 'see' more of the physical end of thought. Psychologists may break thought down into physically more manageable components. |
7012 | If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil] |
Full Idea: If we regard a Volvo car as a higher-level entity with its own independent reality, something distinct from its constituents (arranged in particular ways and variously connected to other things), we render mysterious how Volvos could do anything at all. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 02.3) | |
A reaction: This seems to me perhaps the key reason why we have to be reductionists. The so-called 'bridge laws' from mind to brain are not just needed to explain the mind, they are also essential to show how a mind would cause behaviour. |
7043 | Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil] |
Full Idea: Cases of multiple realisability are typically cases in which some predicate ('is red', 'is in pain') applies to an object in virtue of that object's possession of any of a diverse range of properties. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.8) | |
A reaction: If the properties are diverse, why does one predicate apply to them? I take it that in the case of the pain, the predicate is ambiguous in applying to the behaviour or the phenomenal property. Same behaviour is possible with many qualia. |
7058 | Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil] |
Full Idea: Some externalists focus on causal-historical connections, others emphasise social matters (especially thinkers' linguistic communities), still others focus on biological function. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.5 n6) | |
A reaction: Helpful. The social view strikes me as the one to take most seriously (allowing for contextual views of justification, and for the social role of experts). The problem is to combine the social view with realism and a robust view of truth. |
7057 | Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil] |
Full Idea: I suggest that intentionality is grounded in the dispositionalities of agents. Dispositions are intrinsic to agents, so this places me on the side of the internalists and against the externalists. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.4) | |
A reaction: I think this is a key idea, and the right view. The key question is whether we see intentionality as active or passive. The externalist view seems to see the brain as a passive organ which the world manipulates. If the brain is active, what is it doing? |
7013 | The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil] |
Full Idea: The theory of language which I designate the 'Picture Theory' says that language pictures reality in roughly the sense that we can 'read off' features of reality from our ways of speaking about it. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.2) | |
A reaction: Heil, quite rightly, attacks this view very strongly. I think of it as the great twentieth century philosophical heresy, that leads to shocking views like relativism and anti-realism. |
7002 | If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil] |
Full Idea: When pressed, philosophers will describe propositions as states of affairs or sets of possible worlds. But wait! Neither sets of possible worlds nor states of affairs - electrons being negatively charged, for instance - have truth values. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure that I see a problem. A pure proposition, expressed as, say "there is a giraffe on the roof" only acquires a truth value at the point where you assert it or believe it. There IS a possible world where there is a giraffe on the roof. |
23369 | Some liberals thinks checks and balances are enough, without virtuous citizens [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Many classical liberals believed that a liberal democracy could function effectively even in the absence of an especially virtuous citizenry, by creating checks and balances. …One set of private interests would check another set of private interests. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the view of those who think a completely free market will evolve into a flourishing and just society. There is a basic debate about the importance of the character of the citizens in any polity. Marxists say they are entangled. |
23370 | Good citizens need civic virtues of loyalty, independence, diligence, respect, etc. [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Galston says responsible citizenship requires four types of civic virtue: general (law-abiding, loyal), social (independent, open-minded), economic (diligent, restrained, adaptable), and political (respect, sensible, judgement, engagement). | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: [Galston's 'Liberal Purposes' 1991] (compressed) This immediately seems to be asking too much, especially for those who know little, or are short of money. |
23373 | Liberals accept that people need society, but Aristotelians must show that they need political activity [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: To defend Aristotelian republicanism it is not enough to show that individual require society - liberals do not deny this. They must also show that individuals need to be politically active. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: Interesting. People are not just inactive because they have been rendered powerless. In any group of people there are some who are keen to have a voice, or lead, and others who are largely happy to follow. |
23375 | Minimal liberal citizenship needs common civility, as well as mere non-interference [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Minimal citizenship is often seen as simply requiring non-interference with others, but that ignores a basic requirement of liberal citizenship, which is the social virtue of 'civility' or 'decency'. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: He makes the point that the minimal requirement has to be given up when there is a crisis, which needs much more involvement. This largely describes modern Britain, prior to the Brexit rift. |
23376 | Modern non-discrimination obliges modern citizens to treat each other as equals [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The extension of non-discrimination from government to civil society …involves a radical extension of the obligations of liberal citizenship. The obligation to treat people as equal citizens now applies to everyday decisions. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: This is very difficult for an older generation who felt their 'entitlement' as leading citizens, or who routinely favoured their local traditional community. But they just have to 'get over it'! |
23377 | The right wing sees citizenship in terms of responsibility to earn a living, rather than rights [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: According to the New Right, to promote active citizenship-for-all or entitlements, we must focus instead on people's responsibility to earn a living. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: Every creature has to earn a living, but one method is to successfully sponge off others. A cushy job is a sort of sponging. An excessively well paid job is a sort of sponging. Citizenship must involve responsibilities of some sort. |
23371 | Modern democratic theory focuses on talk, not votes, because we need consensus or compromise [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Modern discussion has shifted from 'vote-centric' (or 'aggregative') to 'talk-centric' democracy. The vote-centric model has no mechanism for developing a consensus, or shaping public opinion, or even formulating an honourable compromise. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: I'm struck by the fact that a person's preferences betweent these two is a reflection of character, or basic attitudes to morality. Some people think democratically about their relationships, and others very obviously don't. |
23390 | In a liberal democracy all subjects of authority have a right to determine the authority [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: A liberal-democratic system is one in which those people who are subject to political authority have a right to participate in determining that authority. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.4) | |
A reaction: This applies to immigrants. The most anti-democratic move in recent democracies is the strategy of trying to make it more difficult to vote, perhaps by demanding identification documents, or creating huge queues. |
23374 | We have become attached to private life because that has become greatly enriched [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Our attachment to private life, I believe, is the result not (or not only) of the impoverishment of public life, but the enrichment of private life. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 7) | |
A reaction: Interesting. Perhaps a sentiment expected more from a university lecturer than from a poorly-paid labourer. Does he mean watching innumerable TV shows instead of having sing-songs in the local pub? Increased leisure is indisputable. |
23387 | Liberals must avoid an official culture, as well as an official religion [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Just as liberalism precludes the establishment of an official religion, so too there cannot be official cultures that have preferred status. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.3) | |
A reaction: This becomes tricky in schools, where the old way of teaching national literature and particular types of music has been eroded in modern times. But once wide diversity is allowed there is no single story which can be taught. |
23388 | Liberals need more than freedom; they must build a nation, through a language and institutions [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Liberals need to replace the idea of 'benign neglect', and recognise the central role of nation-building in a democracy. …This means promoting a common language, and equal access to institutions operating in that language. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.3) | |
A reaction: 'Benign neglect' is non-interference with citizens' lives. Obviously the institutions include education, but is a state health service implied? Can equal access by guaranteed to private institutions? |
23380 | Some individuals can gain citizenship as part of a group, rather than as mere individuals [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: On the view of 'differentiated citizenship', members of certain groups would be incorporated into the community, not only as individuals, but also through the group, and their rights would depend in part on their group membership. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: This is obviously a strategy to enable marginalised individuals to be fully included in society. The downside is that individuals gain their social identity through a label, rather than through themselves, which pure liberals dislike. 'Identity politics'. |
23381 | The status hierarchy is independent of the economic hierarchy [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The evidence suggests that (contrary to the Marxist view) the status hierarchy is not reducible to the economic hierarchy. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: Kymlicka is particularly thinking of racism, which lowers the status of certain groups, even if they are economically successful. I console myself for my modest economic status by getting lots of education. |
23383 | Some multiculturalists defended the rights of cohesive minorities against liberal individualism [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Defending multiculturalism initially involved endorsing the communitarian critique of liberalism, and viewed minority rights as defending cohesive minority groups against the encroachment of liberal individualism. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.1) | |
A reaction: Liberal individualists have to accept these criticisms from Marxists, communitarians and multiculturalists. The lone individual has no group that guarantees support, and individuals (especially the young) can easily sink. |
23384 | 'Culturalist' liberals say that even liberal individuals may need minority rights [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The 'liberal culturalist' position is that minorities which share basic liberal principles nonetheless need minority rights. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.2) | |
A reaction: Disabled liberals are an obvious example. This strikes me as a promising version of liberalism, which accepts the criticisms of extreme individualism. |
23385 | Multiculturalism may entail men dominating women in minority groups [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Many feminists express concern that multiculturalism in practice typically means giving male members of the group the power to control the women in the group. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.2) | |
A reaction: The way the young are treated might also be a problem. The underlying question is whether the minority group is more or less civilised than the central state. Liberalism always fights for the rights of the least powerful. |
23386 | Liberals must prefer minority right which are freedoms, not restrictions [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Liberal defenders of multiculturalism must distinguish 'bad' minority rights which are restrictions from 'good' minority rights which supplement individual rights. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.2) | |
A reaction: Presumably no sensible liberal wants to remove all restrictions, so deeper values must be invoked to justify the mode of approved minority rights. A list of human goods seems needed. |
23389 | Why shouldn't national minorities have their own right to nation-build? [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Why should national minorities not have the same powers of nation-building as the majority? | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.4) | |
A reaction: A 'national minority' is marked by a different language, or a different religion, or both. No one doubts the majority's right to nation-build. Some further principle would be needed to deny that right to a minority. Maybe the minority was there first? |
23391 | Multiculturalism is liberal if it challenges inequality, conservative if it emphasises common good [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Liberal multiculturalism challenges status inequalities while preserving individual freedom. …Conservative multiculturalism replaces liberal principles with a communitarian politics of the common good, at least at the local or group level. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8.6) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This sounds a bit simplistic. Recent emphasis on 'the common good', in the face of white supremacists etc., seems admirable, but surely challenging inequalities promotes the common good? Minority cultures are often conservative. |
23379 | Rights are a part of nation-building, to build a common national identity and culture [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: Extending citizenship to include common social rights was a tool of nation-building, intended in part to construct and consolidate a sense of common national identity and culture. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: Kymlicka explains a lot of politics and society in terms of the desire of governments to 'build' their nation. You have to make people who are essentially powerless feel that they are at least in some way involved, and benefiting. |
23382 | Rights derived from group membership are opposed to the idea of state citizenship [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The organisation of society on the basis of rights or claims that derive from group membership is sharply opposed to the concept of society based on citizenship. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: [from John Porter 1987] Does this imply that you might have rights as part of a group which you don't have as a state citizen? Positive discrimination, for example. Differential rights sounds like potential trouble. |
23378 | The welfare state helps to integrate the working classes into a national culture [Kymlicka] |
Full Idea: The development of the welfare state has been quite successful in integrating the working classes into national cultures throughout the Western democracies. | |
From: Will Kymlicka (Contemporary Political Philosophy (2nd edn) [2002], 8) | |
A reaction: Hard-line capitalists tend to hate the welfare state, as unfair to high earners, but it not only makes workers feel involved, but also provides a healthier, happier, more knowledgeable work force for employers. |
7016 | The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil] |
Full Idea: The notion that every causal sequence if backed by a law, like the idea that causation is a relation among particular events, forms a part of philosophy's Humean heritage. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.3) | |
A reaction: This nicely pinpoints a view that needs to come under attack. I take the view that there are no 'laws' - other than the regularities in behaviour that result from the interaction of essential dispositional properties. Essences don't need laws. |
7036 | The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil] |
Full Idea: I am sympathetic to the idea that the real properties are 'sparse'; ...but if, in counting kinds of property, we include complex properties as well as simple properties, the image of sparseness evaporates. | |
From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4) | |
A reaction: This seems right to me, and invites the obvious question of which are the sparse real properties. Presumably we let the physicists tell us that, though Heil wants to include qualities like phenomenal colour, which physicists ignore. |