10 ideas
| 16676 | Why use more things when fewer will do? [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: It is pointless to do through more things something that can be done through fewer. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Tractatus de corpore Christi [1323], Ch. 29), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.3 | |
| A reaction: The more famous formulation isn't found in his works, so I'm delighted to find an authentic quotation from the man. |
| 15787 | Maybe Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: It might be said that Ockham's Razor is a purely aesthetic principle. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: I don't buy this, if it meant to be dismissive of the relevance of the principle to truth. A deep question might be, what is so aesthetically attractive about simplicity? I'm inclined to think that application of the Razor has delivered terrific results. |
| 15784 | The Razor seems irrelevant for Meinongians, who allow absolutely everything to exist [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A Meinongian has already posited everything that could, or even could not, be; how, then, can any subsequent brandishing of Ockham's Razor be to the point? | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: See the ideas of Alexius Meinong. Presumably these crazy Meinongians must make some distinction between what actually exists in front of your nose, and the rest. So the Razor can use that distinction too. |
| 15792 | Maybe non-existent objects are sets of properties [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Meinong's Objects have sometimes been construed as sets of properties. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: [Lycan cites Castaņeda and T.Parsons] You still seem to have the problem with any 'bundle' theory of anything. A non-existent object is as much intended to be an object as anything on my desk right now. It just fails to be. |
| 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. |
| 15795 | Treating possible worlds as mental needs more actual mental events [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: A mentalistic approach to possible worlds is daunted by the paucity of actual mental events. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Why do they have to be actual, any more than memories have to be conscious? The mental events just need to be available when you need them. They are never all required simultaneously. This isn't mathematical logic! |
| 15796 | Possible worlds must be made of intensional objects like propositions or properties [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: I believe the only promising choice of actual entities to serve as 'worlds' is that of sets of intensional objects, such as propositions or properties with stipulated interrelations. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 12) | |
| A reaction: This is mainly in response to Lewis's construction of them out of actual concrete objects. It strikes me as a bogus problem. It is just a convenient way to think precisely about possibilities, and occasionally outruns our mental capacity. |
| 15794 | If 'worlds' are sentences, and possibility their consistency, consistency may rely on possibility [Lycan] |
| Full Idea: If a 'world' is understood as a set of sentences, then possibility may be understood as consistency, ...but this seems circular, in that 'consistency' of sentences cannot adequately be defined save in terms of possibility. | |
| From: William Lycan (The Trouble with Possible Worlds [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: [Carnap and Hintikka propose the view, Lewis 'Counterfactuals' p.85 objects] Worlds as sentences is not, of course, the same as worlds as propositions. There is a lot of circularity around in 'possible' worlds. |
| 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. |
| 16675 | Every extended material substance is composed of parts distant from one another [William of Ockham] |
| Full Idea: Every extended material substance is composed of substantial parts distant from one another in place or location. | |
| From: William of Ockham (Tractatus de corpore Christi [1323], Ch. 12) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau glosses this as that 'bodies have corpuscular structure', meaning that they are made up of parts of matter (rather than just enformed matter, I think). |