52 ideas
21360 | Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Those whom devotion to abstract discussions has rendered unobservant of the facts are too ready to dogmatise on the basis of a few observations. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 316a09) | |
A reaction: I totally approve of the idea that a good philosopher should be 'observant'. Prestige in modern analytic philosophy comes from logical ability. There should be some rival criterion for attentiveness to facts, with equal prestige. |
14415 | A ground must be about its truth, and not just necessitate it [Merricks] |
Full Idea: A ground does not merely necessitate its truth. A ground is also what its truth is appropriately about. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.II) |
14408 | Truthmaker needs truths to be 'about' something, and that is often unclear [Merricks] |
Full Idea: It is not always obvious what (if anything) a truth is about, in the sense of 'about' relevant to Truthmaker and truth-supervenient-on-being. Prior says 'Queen Anne is dead' is not about Queen Anne, and may be about the Earth. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.III) | |
A reaction: A very nice and rather subtle objection to the Truthmaker thesis. Specifying the truthmaker for a given truth looks like a doddle in simple cases, but clearly it can become extremely elusive in other cases. |
14395 | If a ball changes from red to white, Truthmaker says some thing must make the change true [Merricks] |
Full Idea: If a single ball goes from being red to being white, Truthmaker implies that something exists which makes it true that the second thing follows the first. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
14398 | Truthmaker says if an entity is removed, some nonexistence truthmaker must replace it [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Truthmaker makes it impossible simply to remove an entity. One must always replace it with something else; namely, a truthmaker for the claim that that entity does not exist. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I-3) | |
A reaction: This is a particularly strong and persuasive argument from Merricks against the truthmaker view. Clearly the truthmaker for non-existence can't be there when it exists, and the destruction bringing the negative truthmaker into existence sounds odd. |
14403 | If Truthmaker says each truth is made by the existence of something, the theory had de re modality at is core [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Truthmaker says that, for each truth, there is something that, by its mere existence, makes that truth true, …so Truthmaker has de re modality at its core. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.III) | |
A reaction: I have no problem with de re modality, so this doesn't bother me. Merricks brings out nicely the baggage which you must carry if you are a Truthmaker. |
14397 | Truthmaker demands not just a predication, but an existing state of affairs with essential ingredients [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The claim 'that Fido is brown' seems to demand only a brown Fido, but Truthmaker demands more. It demands both that a state of affairs along the lines of 'Fido's being brown' exists, and also that this state has its constituents essentially. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.I) | |
A reaction: One would need to reread Merricks to get this clear, but my instinct is that the two scenarios are not very different. 'A brown Fido' would require Fido to be necessarily brown to do the job. |
14396 | If 'truth supervenes on being', worlds with the same entities, properties and relations have the same truths [Merricks] |
Full Idea: 'Truth supervenes on being' says that any two possible worlds alike with respect to what entities exist and which properties (and relations) each of those entities exemplifies are thereby alike with respect to what is true. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4) | |
A reaction: Merricks says this view is found in early Wittgenstein, as well as in David Lewis. He suggests that this is a weaker and more plausible thesis than the full commitment to truthmakers. It still allows some truths to lack truthmakers. Sounds plausible. |
14400 | If truth supervenes on being, that won't explain why truth depends on being [Merricks] |
Full Idea: If 'truth supervenes on being' aims to articulate the idea that truth depends on being, it must say more than that truth supervenes on being. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 4.VI) | |
A reaction: This is a perennial problem with supervenience accounts, such as the supervenience of beauty on the object, or of mind on brain. |
14394 | It is implausible that claims about non-existence are about existing things [Merricks] |
Full Idea: It is implausible that a claim asserting that a thing fails to exist is made true by - and so is appropriately about - some other, existing thing. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.V) |
14390 | Truthmaker isn't the correspondence theory, because it offers no analysis of truth [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Because Truthmaker offers no analysis of being true, Truthmaker is not the correspondence theory of truth. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 1.IV) | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that the correspondence theory offers an 'analysis' of truth. It doesn't seem to do much more than offer a word which suggests an analogy with some relation in the world. |
14412 | Speculations about non-existent things are not about existent things, so Truthmaker is false [Merricks] |
Full Idea: That 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' is true, but not appropriately about any existing entities or their properties. Since Truthmaker says that all truths are about existing entities, it must be false. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.VI) | |
A reaction: Since I don't necessarily agree that 'there might have been a dozen more fundamental particles' (see Scientific Essentialism), and I take the disagreement to have some basis, I doubt this idea. What stops 'there could be circular squares' from being true? |
14414 | I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but is it about me? [Merricks] |
Full Idea: I am a truthmaker for 'that a human exists', but it is not obvious that that proposition is thus about me. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) | |
A reaction: This is part of the general rather good objection that it is often unclear what a truth is 'about' (Idea 14408). The original Gettier examples about justification illustrate this problem. They make things true, in a surprising way. |
14418 | Being true is not a relation, it is a primitive monadic property [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Being true is not a relation. …Being true is a monadic property. …Being true is a primitive property. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.IV) | |
A reaction: Even after reading Merricks on this, I am not sure I understand it. If a single sentence floats in the void, it is hard to see how the 'monadic' property of truth could accrue to it. |
14391 | If the correspondence theory is right, then necessary truths must correspond to something [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Suppose for the sake of argument that the correspondence theory is correct. Then it is analytic that each necessary truth, in virtue of being true, corresponds to something. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 2.II) | |
A reaction: The sort of nice simple observation for which I admire Merricks. You don't have to give up on the correspondence theory at this point, but you will have to go through with some substantial metaphysics to keep it afloat. |
14419 | Deflationism just says there is no property of being truth [Merricks] |
Full Idea: I take 'deflationism' to be nothing other than the claim that there is no property of being true. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 8.V) |
13212 | Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Nothing is actually infinite. A thing is infinite only potentially. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 318a21) | |
A reaction: Aristotle is the famous spokesman for this view, though it reappeared somewhat in early twentieth century discussions (e.g. Hilbert). I sympathise with this unfashionable view. Multiple infinites are good fun, but no one knows what they really are. |
13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Some things are-potentially while others are-actually. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 327b24) | |
A reaction: I've read a lot of Aristotle, but am still not quite clear what this distinction means. I like the distinction between a thing's actual being and its 'modal profile', but the latter may extend well beyond what Aristotle means by potential being. |
14393 | The totality state is the most plausible truthmaker for negative existential truths [Merricks] |
Full Idea: The claim that the totality state is the sole truthmaker for negative existential truths emerges as the best position for a truthmaker theorist. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.III) |
16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In that which underlies a change there is a factor corresponding to the definition [logon] and there is a material factor. When a change is in these constitutive factors there is coming to be or passing away, but in a thing's qualities it is alteration. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a24) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a key summary of Aristotle's account of change, in the context of his hylomorphism (form-plus-matter). The logos is the account of the thing, which seems to be the definition, which seems to give the form (principle or structure). |
16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When a change occurs in the qualities [pathesi] and is accidental [sumbebekos], there is alteration (rather than true change). | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a27) | |
A reaction: [tr. partly Gill] Aristotle doesn't seem to have a notion of 'properties' in quite our sense. 'Pathe' seems to mean experienced qualities, rather than genuine causal powers. Gill says 'pathe' are always accidental. |
12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Since we must distinguish the substratum and the property whose nature is to be predicated of the substratum,..there is alteration when the substratum persists...but when nothing perceptible persists as a substratum, this is coming-to-be and passing-away. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b08-16) | |
A reaction: As usual, Aristotle clarifies the basis of the problem, by distinguishing two different types of change. Notice the empirical character of his approach, resting on whether or not the substratum is 'perceptible'. |
13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Every coming-to-be is a passing away of something else and every passing-away some other thing's coming-to-be. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a07) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the closest that Aristotle gets to sympathy with the Heraclitus view that all is flux. When a sparrow dies and disappears, I am not at all clear what comes to be, except some ex-sparrow material. |
14413 | Some properties seem to be primitive, but others can be analysed [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Some properties (perhaps negative charge, or the relation of identity) admit of no analysis, and so are primitive. But others are analysable, and so not primitive | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.I) |
14416 | An object can have a disposition when the revelant conditional is false [Merricks] |
Full Idea: It is possible for an object to have a disposition even though the relevant conditional is false. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.III) | |
A reaction: This is the now standard observation that finks (killing the disposition) and antidotes (blocking the effect of the disposition) can intervene, as in safety mechanisms in electrical gadgets. There may be replies available here. |
14392 | Fregeans say 'hobbits do not exist' is just 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified [Merricks] |
Full Idea: A Fregean about existence claims would say that 'that hobbits do not exist' is nothing other than the claim that 'being a hobbit' is not exemplified. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 3.II) | |
A reaction: 'My passport has ceased to exist' seems to be a bit more dramatic than a relationship with a concept. |
12134 | Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Matter, in the proper sense of the term, is to be identified with the substratum which is receptive of coming-to-be and passing-away; but the substratum of the remaining kinds of change is also matter, because these substrata receive contraries. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 320a03) | |
A reaction: This must be compared with his complex discussion of the role of matter in his Metaphysics, where he has introduced 'form' as the essence of things. I don't think the two texts are inconsistent, but it's tricky... See Idea 12133 on types of change. |
14410 | You believe you existed last year, but your segment doesn't, so they have different beliefs [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Your belief that you existed in the year 2000 is true; the belief of a segment of you that it then existed is false; so, by the indiscernibility of identicals, there must be two beliefs here. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n20) | |
A reaction: Merricks may be begging the question here. But in the segment view there is nothing which can truly believe it existed a year ago, so therefore nothing here has continued existence, so the segments cannot be part of a single thing. |
16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The question might be raised whether substance (i.e. the 'this') comes-to-be at all. Is it not rather the 'such', the 'so-great', or the 'somewhere', which comes-to-be? | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b21) | |
A reaction: This is interesting because it pulls the 'tode ti', the 'this-such', apart, showing that he does have a concept of a pure 'this', which seems to constitute the basis of being ('ousia'). We can say 'this thing', or 'one of these things'. |
16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In addition, coming-to-be may proceed out of nothing pre-existing - a thesis which, more than any other, preoccupied and alarmed the earliest philosophers. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b29) | |
A reaction: This is the origin of the worry about 'ex nihilo' coming-to-be. Christians tended to say that only God could create in this way. |
13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The substratum [hupokeimenon?] is the material cause of the continuous occurrence of coming-to-be, because it is such as to change from contrary to contrary. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a19) | |
A reaction: Presumably Aristotle will also be seeking the 'formal' cause as well as the 'material' cause (not to mention the 'efficient' and 'final' causes). |
13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is 'alteration' when the substratum is perceptible and persists, but changes in its own properties. ...But when nothing perceptible persists in its identity as a substratum, and the thing changes as a whole, it is coming-to-be of a substance. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b11-17) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Note that a substratum can be perceptible - it isn't just some hidden mystical I-know-not-what (as Locke calls it). This whole text is a wonderful source on the subject of physical change. Note too the reliance on what is perceptible. |
490 | Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus] |
Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity. | |
From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where? |
14417 | Counterfactuals aren't about actuality, so they lack truthmakers or a supervenience base [Merricks] |
Full Idea: A counterfactual is not appropriately about the way anything is, …but about how something would be, had other things differed from how they actually are. As a result, true counterfactuals have neither truthmakers nor a superveniece base. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 7.IV) | |
A reaction: Might not the truthmakers for counterfactuals reside in the dispositional facts about actuality? We assess the truth of counterfactuals in degrees, so something must determine our views. |
14402 | If 'Fido is possibly black' depends on Fido's counterparts, then it has no actual truthmaker [Merricks] |
Full Idea: If Fido's being possibly black reduces (in Lewis's account) to the existence of black counterparts of Fido, then 'Fido is possibly black' is actually true, but it has no actually existing truthmaker. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 5.I) | |
A reaction: This problem is increasingly the target of my views about dispositions and powers. Fido is not possibly a prize-winning novelist, but is possibly dead or in good health, because of the actual nature and dispositions of Fido. |
16717 | Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: What sorts of contrarities, and how many of them, are to be accounted 'originative sources' of body? | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 329b04) | |
A reaction: Pasnau says these pages of Aristotle are the source of the doctrine of primary and secondary qualities. Essentially, hot, cold, wet and dry are his four primary qualities. |
13216 | Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The matter is that of which points and lines are limits, and it is something that can never exist without quality and without form. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 320b16) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a contradiction here somewhere. Matter has to be substantial enough to have a form, and yet seems to be the collective 'limit' of the points and lines. I wonder what 'limit' is translating? Sounds a bit too modern. |
17994 | The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: We must reckon as an 'orginal source' and as 'primary' the matter which underlies, though it is inseparable from the contrary qualities: for 'the hot' is not matter for 'the cold' nor 'cold' for 'hot', but the substratum is matter for them both. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 329a30) | |
A reaction: A much discussed passage. |
13224 | There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: No one supposes a single 'element' to persist, as the basis of all, in such a way that it is Water as well as Air (or any other element) at the same time. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 332a09) | |
A reaction: Of course, we now think that oxygen is a key part of both water and of air, but Aristotle's basic argument still seems right. How could multiplicity be explained by a simply unity? The One is cool, but explains nothing. |
16594 | The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: These bodies (Fire, Water and the like) change into one another (and are not immutable as Empedocles and other thinkers assert, since 'alteration' would then have been impossible). | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 329b1) | |
A reaction: This is why Aristotle proposes that matter [hule] underlies the four elements. Gill argues that by matter Aristotle means the elements. |
13223 | Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The four couples of elementary qualities attach themselves to the apparently 'simple' bodies (Fire, Air, Earth, Water). Fire is hot and dry, whereas Air is hot and moist (being a sort of aqueous vapour); Water is cold and moist, and Earth is cold and dry. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 330b02) | |
A reaction: This is the traditional framework accepted throughout the middle ages, and which had a huge influence on medicine. It all looks rather implausible now. Aristotle was a genius, but not critical enough about evidence. |
13220 | Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Bodies are divisible through and through. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 326b27) | |
A reaction: This is Aristotle's flat rejection of atomism, arrived at after several sustained discussions, in this text and elsewhere. I don't think we are in a position to say that Aristotle is wrong. |
13210 | Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If having divided a piece of wood I put it together, it is equal to what it was and is one. This is so whatever the point at which I cut the wood. The wood is therefore divided potentially through and through. So what is in the wood besides the division? | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 316b11) | |
A reaction: Part of a very nice discussion of the implications of the thought experiment of cutting something 'through and through'. It seems to me that the arguments are still relevant, in the age of quarks, electrons and strings. |
13211 | If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Dividing a body at all points might actually occur, so the body will be both actually indivisible and potentially divided. Then nothing will remain and the body passes into what is incorporeal. So it might be reassembled out of points, or out of nothing. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 316b24) | |
A reaction: [a bit compressed] This sounds like an argument in favour of atomism, but Aristotle was opposed to that view. He is aware of the contradictions that seem to emerge with infinite division. Graham Priest is interesting on the topic. |
13228 | There is no time without movement [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There can be no time without movement. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 337a24) | |
A reaction: See Shoemaker's nice thought experiment as a challenge to this. Intuition seems to cry out that if movement stopped for a moment, that would not stop time, even though there was no way to measure its passing. |
14407 | Presentist should deny there is a present time, and just say that things 'exist' [Merricks] |
Full Idea: I think presentists should deny that there is anything at all that is the present time, just as they should deny that there are past times or future times. They should say that existing at the present time is just 'existing'. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
A reaction: The whole context is needed to understand Merrick's interesting claim. If there is no present, when can events happen? |
14411 | Maybe only presentism allows change, by now having a property, and then lacking it [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Maybe presentism alone allows for genuine change, by permitting the direct having of a property by something and then, later, the absolute lacking of that property by that same thing. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.IV n23) | |
A reaction: Four-dimensionalism (perdurantism) is the view which is most often charged with not explaining change, and that tends to be associated with eternalism. Are there just two coherent packages of views here? |
14406 | Presentists say that things have existed and will exist, not that they are instantaneous [Merricks] |
Full Idea: Presentists deny that everything is instantaneous; they think that many objects not only exist, but also have existed and will exist. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
A reaction: The second half is because presentists are committed to the truth of tensed existence claims (despite a lack of any theory as to how they work). Does anyone hold a theory of Instantaneousism? |
14405 | How can a presentist explain an object's having existed? [Merricks] |
Full Idea: I am not sure what account presentists should give of an object's having existed. | |
From: Trenton Merricks (Truth and Ontology [2007], 6.I) | |
A reaction: Personally I am pretty puzzled by the eternalist and growing-block accounts of an object having existed, so we are all up a gum tree here. The best bet is to pull truth and existence apart, but heaven knows what that implies. See Idea 14399. |
16595 | If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If some one of the things 'which are' is constantly disappearing, why has not the whole of 'what is' been used up long ago and vanished away - assuming of course that the material of all the several comings-to-be was infinite? | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 318a17) | |
A reaction: This thought is the basis of Aquinas's Third Way for proving the existence of God (as the force which prevents the vicissitudes of nature from sliding into oblivion). |
13227 | Being is better than not-being [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Being is better than not-being. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 336b29) | |
A reaction: [see also Metaphysics 1017a07 ff, says the note] This peculiar assumption is at the heart of the ontological argument. Is the existence of the plague bacterium, or of Satan, or of mass-murderers, superior? |
13226 | An Order controls all things [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: There is an Order controlling all things. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 336b13) | |
A reaction: Presumably the translator provides the capital letter. How do we get from 'there is an order in all things' to 'there is an order which controls all things'? |