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15094
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I now deny that properties are cluster of powers, and take causal properties as basic [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
I now reject the formulation of the causal theory which says that a property is a cluster of conditional powers. That has a reductionist flavour, which is a cheat. We need properties to explain conditional powers, so properties won't reduce.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], III)
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A reaction:
[compressed wording] I agree with Mumford and Anjum in preferring his earlier formulation. I think properties are broad messy things, whereas powers can be defined more precisely, and seem to have more stability in nature.
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15990
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Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
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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.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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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.
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15099
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If something is possible, but not nomologically possible, we need metaphysical possibility [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
If it is possible that there could be possible states of affairs that are not nomologically possible, don't we therefore need a notion of metaphysical possibility that outruns nomological possibility?
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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A reaction:
Shoemaker rejects this possibility (p.425). I sympathise. So there is 'natural' possibility (my preferred term), which is anything which stuff, if it exists, could do, and 'logical' possibility, which is anything that doesn't lead to contradiction.
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15101
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Once you give up necessity as a priori, causal necessity becomes the main type of necessity [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Once the obstacle of the deeply rooted conviction that necessary truths should be knowable a priori is removed, ...causal necessity is (pretheoretically) the very paradigm of necessity, in ordinary usage and in dictionaries.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VII)
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A reaction:
The a priori route seems to lead to logical necessity, just by doing a priori logic, and also to metaphysical necessity, by some sort of intuitive vision. This is a powerful idea of Shoemaker's (implied, of course, in Kripke).
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15100
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Imagination reveals conceptual possibility, where descriptions avoid contradiction or incoherence [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Imaginability can give us access to conceptual possibility, when we come to believe situations to be conceptually possible by reflecting on their descriptions and seeing no contradiction or incoherence.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], VI)
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A reaction:
If take the absence of contradiction to indicate 'logical' possibility, but the absence of incoherence is more interesting, even if it is a bit vague. He is talking of 'situations', which I take to be features of reality. A priori synthetic?
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15994
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If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
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Full Idea:
What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
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From:
John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
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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.
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15093
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We might say laws are necessary by combining causal properties with Armstrong-Dretske-Tooley laws [Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
One way to get the conclusion that laws are necessary is to combine my view of properties with the view of Armstrong, Dretske and Tooley, that laws are, or assert, relations between properties.
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From:
Sydney Shoemaker (Causal and Metaphysical Necessity [1998], I)
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A reaction:
This is interesting, because Armstrong in particular wants the necessity to arise from relations between properties as universals, but if we define properties causally, and make them necessary, we might get the same result without universals.
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