16 ideas
| 15557 | Verisimilitude has proved hard to analyse, and seems to have several components [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The analysis of verisimilitude has been much debated. Some plausible analyses have failed disastrously, others conflict with one another. One conclusion is that verisimilitude seems to consist of several distinguishable virtues. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], V n7) | |
| A reaction: Presumably if it is complex, you can approach truth in one respect while receding from it in another. It seems clear enough if you are calculating pi by some iterative process. |
| 8978 | Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett] |
| Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept. | |
| From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1 | |
| A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right. |
| 15554 | A disposition needs a causal basis, a property in a certain causal role. Could the disposition be the property? [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I take for granted that a disposition requires a causal basis: one has the disposition iff one has a property that occupies a certain causal role. Shall we then identify the disposition with its basis? That makes the disposition cause its manifestations. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], III) | |
| A reaction: Introduce the concept of a 'power' and I see no problem with his proposal. Fundamental dispositions are powerful, and provide the causal basis for complex dispositions. Something had better be powerful. |
| 18892 | Suppose a world where I'm from different gametes; add my gametes; which one is more me? [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: It seems essential that you come from your gametes. Suppose (for reductio) that I come from Nixon's actual gametes. Now add my actual gametes to that possible world, and suppose they become an adult. Which has the stronger title to be me? | |
| From: Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976], p.132), quoted by Nathan Salmon - Reference and Essence (1st edn) 7.25.5 | |
| A reaction: [See Nathan Salmon 1981:209] Feels like the Ship of Theseus. You say 'that's Theseus Ship', until the rival ship appears around the headland. Confusion. If Nixon's gametes can produce McGinn, the second gametes could produce a Nixon! Then what? |
| 12019 | McGinn falsely claims necessity of origin is a special case of the necessity of identity [Forbes,G on McGinn] |
| Full Idea: McGinn assimilates the origin relation among organisms to the identity relation, so that the necessity of origin becomes a special case of the necessity of identity. We argue that this assimilation is illegitimate. | |
| From: comment on Colin McGinn (On the Necessity of Origin [1976]) by Graeme Forbes - The Metaphysics of Modality 6.1 | |
| A reaction: Not sure about this. I have long suspected what McGinn suspects. Once you have identified the organism with a particular origin, it hardly seems surprising that this particular origin has become inescapable. |
| 15560 | We can explain a chance event, but can never show why some other outcome did not occur [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I think we are right to explain chance events, yet we are right also to deny that we can ever explain why a chance process yields one outcome rather than another. We cannot explain why one event happened rather than the other. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], VI) | |
| A reaction: This misses out an investigation which slowly reveals that a 'chance' event wasn't so chancey after all. Failure to explain confirms chance, so the judgement of chance shouldn't block attempts to explain. |
| 15559 | Does a good explanation produce understanding? That claim is just empty [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: It is said that a good explanation ought to produce understanding, ...but this just says that a good explanation produces possession of that which it provide, so this desideratum is empty. It adds nothing to our understanding of explanation. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], V) | |
| A reaction: I am not convinced by this dismissal. If you are looking for a test of whether an explanation is good, the announcement that the participants feel they have achieved a good understanding sounds like success. |
| 15556 | Science may well pursue generalised explanation, rather than laws [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The pursuit of general explanations may be very much more widespread in science than the pursuit of general laws. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], IV) | |
| A reaction: Nice. I increasingly think that the main target of all enquiry is ever-widening generality, with no need to aspire to universality. |
| 15558 | A good explanation is supposed to show that the event had to happen [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: It is said that a good explanation ought to show that the explanandum event had to happen, given the laws and circumstances. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], V) | |
| A reaction: I cautiously go along with this view. Given that there are necessities in nature (a long story), we should aim to reveal them. There is no higher aspiration open to us than successful explanation. Lewis says good explanations can reveal falsehoods. |
| 4809 | Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation [Lewis, by Psillos] |
| Full Idea: Lewis endorses the thesis that all explanation of singular events is causal explanation. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation p.237 | |
| A reaction: It is hard to challenge this. The assumption is that only nomological and causal explanations are possible, and the former are unobtainable for singular events. |
| 14321 | To explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Here is my main thesis: to explain an event is to provide some information about its causal history. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], II) | |
| A reaction: The obvious thought is that you might provide some tiny and barely relevant part of that causal history, such as a bird perched on the Titanic's iceberg. So how do we distinguish the 'important' causal information? |
| 15555 | Explaining match lighting in general is like explaining one lighting of a match [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Explaining why struck matches light in general is not so very different from explaining why some particular struck match lit. ...We may generalize modestly, without laying claim to universality. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], IV) | |
| A reaction: A suggestive remark, since particular causation and general causation seem far apart, but Lewis suggests that the needs of explanation bring them together. Lawlike and unlawlike explanations? |
| 10364 | Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett] |
| Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world. | |
| From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1 | |
| A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out). |
| 15551 | Ways of carving causes may be natural, but never 'right' [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: There is no one right way - though there may be more or less natural ways - of carving up a causal history. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], I) | |
| A reaction: This invites a distinction between the 'natural' causes and the 'real' causes. Presumably if any causes were 'real', they would have a better claim to be 'right'. Is an earthquake the 'real' (correct?) cause of a tsunami? |
| 15552 | We only pick 'the' cause for the purposes of some particular enquiry. [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Disagreement about 'the' cause is only disagreement about which part of the causal history is most salient for the purposes of some particular inquiry. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], I) | |
| A reaction: I don't believe this. In the majority of cases I see the cause of an event, without having any interest in any particular enquiry. It is just so obvious that there isn't even a disagreement. Maybe there is only one sensible enquiry. |
| 15553 | Causal dependence is counterfactual dependence between events [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: I take causal dependence to be counterfactual dependence, of a suitably back-tracking sort, between distinct events. | |
| From: David Lewis (Causal Explanation [1986], I) | |
| A reaction: He quotes Hume in support. 'Counterfactual dependence' strikes me as too vague, or merely descriptive, for the job of explanation. 'If...then' is a logical relationship; what is it in nature that justifies the dependency? |