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14193
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'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
Some deep essentialists resist the need to explain the structure under de re modal properties, taking them as primitive. One version (which we can call 'substance theory') takes them to fall under a sortal concept, with no further explanation.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
A very helpful identification of what Wiggins stands for, and why I disagree with him. The whole point of essences is to provide a notion that fits in with sciences, which means they must have an explanatory role, which needs structures.
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14195
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If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
If the substance essentialist holds that the sort an object belongs to determines its de re modal properties (rather than the other way round), then he needs to give an (ontological, not conceptual) explanation of what determines an object's sort.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
See Idea 14193 for 'substance essentialism'. I find it quite incredible that anyone could think that a thing's sort could determine its properties, rather than the other way round. Even if sortals are conventional, they are not arbitrary.
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14196
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Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
The explanation of material constitution given by substance essentialism is that there are multiple objects. A person is essentially human-shaped (falling under the human sort), while their hunk of tissue is accidentally human-shaped (as tissue).
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
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A reaction:
At this point sortal essentialism begins to look crazy. Persons are dubious examples (with sneaky dualism involved). A bronze statue is essentially harder to dent than a clay one, because of its bronze. If you remake it of clay, it isn't the same statue.
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14190
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Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
Essentialism says that objects have their properties essentially. 'Deep' essentialists take the (nontrivial) essential properties of an object to determine its nature. 'Shallow' essentialists substitute context-dependent truths for the independent ones.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
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A reaction:
If the deep essence determines a things nature, we should not need to say 'nontrivial'. This is my bete noire, the confusion of essential properties with necessary ones, where necessary properties (or predicates, at least) can indeed be trivial.
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14189
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'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA]
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Full Idea:
A 'modal realist' believes that there are many concrete worlds, while the 'actualist' believes in only one concrete world, the actual world. The 'ersatzist' is an actualist who takes nonactual possible worlds and their contents to be abstracta.
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From:
L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
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A reaction:
My view is something like that modal realism is wrong, and actualism is right, and possible worlds (if they really are that useful) are convenient abstract fictions, constructed (if we have any sense) out of the real possibilities in the actual world.
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5845
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Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
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Full Idea:
Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
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From:
Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
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A reaction:
This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue
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16589
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Prime matter lacks essence, but is only potentially and indeterminately a physical thing [Auriol]
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Full Idea:
Prime matter has no essence, nor a nature that is determinate, distinct, and actual. Instead, it is pure potential, and determinable, so that it is indeterminately and indistinctly a material thing.
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From:
Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], II.12.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1
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A reaction:
Pasnau thinks Auriol has the best shot at explaining the vague idea of 'prime matter', with the thought that it exists, but indeterminateness is what gives it a lesser mode of existence. It strikes me as best to treat 'exist' as univocal.
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16651
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God can do anything non-contradictory, as making straightness with no line, or lightness with no parts [Auriol]
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Full Idea:
If someone says 'God could make straightness without a line, and roughness and lightness in weight without parts', …then show me the reason why God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction, yet cannot do these things.
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From:
Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], IV.12.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 11.4
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A reaction:
How engagingly bonkers. The key idea preceding this is that God can do all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding. He is then obliged to offer some examples.
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