15 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. |
| 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. |
| 15990 | Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke] |
| Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species. |
| 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?). |
| 15994 | If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke] |
| Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge. | |
| From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism | |
| A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it. |
| 7270 | Historical interpretation aims to recapture the author's view of the work [Croce] |
| Full Idea: Historical interpretation enables us to see a work of art as its author saw it in the moment of production. | |
| From: Benedetto Croce (Aesthetic as Science of Expression [1902], §II), quoted by W Wimsatt/W Beardsley - The Intentional Fallacy §II | |
| A reaction: Wimsatt and Beardsley quote this as the romantic antithesis of their own view, but there is a blurring between understanding a work and judging. Personally I consider intentions essential for understanding, and valuable for judgement. |