Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Causation' and 'Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

4 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity
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?
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations
8406 Not all explanations are causal, but if a thing can be explained at all, it can be explained causally [Sanford]
     Full Idea: Although not all explanations are causal, anything which can be explained in any way can be explained causally.
     From: David H. Sanford (Causation [1995], p.79)
     A reaction: A nice bold claim with which I am in sympathy, but he would have a struggle proving it. Does this imply that causal explanations are basic, or in some way superior? Note that functional explanations would thus have underlying causal explanations.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought
18424 If two people can have phenomenally identical experiences, they can't involve the self [Brogaard]
     Full Idea: It is plausible that you and I can have perceptual experiences with the same phenomenology of two trees at different distances from us (perhaps at different times). ..So our perceptual experiences cannot contain you or me in the content of representation.
     From: Berit Brogaard (Perceptual Content and Monadic Truth [2009], p.223), quoted by Cappelen,H/Dever,Josh - The Inessential Indexical 08.2
     A reaction: If you accept the example, which seems reasonable, then that pretty conclusively shows that perception is not inherently indexical.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / c. Conditions of causation
8407 A totality of conditions necessary for an occurrence is usually held to be jointly sufficient for it [Sanford]
     Full Idea: A totality of conditions necessary for an occurrence is jointly sufficient for it. This is a widely held but controversial view, and it is not a logical truth.
     From: David H. Sanford (Causation [1995], p.82)
     A reaction: This wouldn't work for an impossible occurrence. What are the necessary conditions to produce a large planet made of uranium? One of them would have to be a naturally impossible necessity.