17312
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It is more explanatory if you show how a number is constructed from basic entities and relations [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
Being the successor of the successor of 0 is more explanatory than being predecessor of 3 of the nature of 2, since it mirrors more closely the method by which 2 is constructed from a basic entity, 0, and a relation (successor) taken as primitive.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4)
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A reaction:
This assumes numbers are 'constructed', which they are in the axiomatised system of Peano Arithmetic, but presumably the numbers were given in ordinary experience before 'construction' occurred to anyone. Nevertheless, I really like this.
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15584
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I say the manifestation of Being needs humans, and humans only exist as reflected in Being [Heidegger]
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Full Idea:
The fundamental thought of my thinking is precisely that Being, or the manifestation of Being, needs human beings and that, vice versa, human beings are only human beings if they are standing in the manifestation of Being.
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From:
Martin Heidegger (Martin Heidegger in conversation [1969], p.82), quoted by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs'
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A reaction:
I don't think I understand the second half of this, but I sense some sort of intuition that the consciousness of humans 'enlarges' Being, or bestows an identity on it, or some such thing.
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17314
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The relata of grounding are propositions or facts, but for dependence it is objects and their features [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
The relata of the grounding relation are typically taken to be facts or propositions, while the relata of ontological dependence ...are objects and their characteristics, activities, constituents and so on.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.5 n25)
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A reaction:
Interesting. Good riddance to propositions here, but this seems a bit unfair to facts, since I take facts to be in the world. Audi's concept of 'worldly facts' is what we need here.
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17309
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For Fine, essences are propositions true because of identity, so they are just real definitions [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
Fine assumes that essences can be identified with collections of propositions that are true in virtue of the identity of a particular object, or objects. ...There is not, on this approach, much of a distinction between essences and real definitions.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4)
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A reaction:
This won't do, because the essence of a physical object is not a set of propositions, it is some aspects of the object itself, which are described in a definition. Koslicki notes that psuché is an essence, and the soul is hardly a set of propositions!
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17317
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A good explanation captures the real-world dependence among the phenomena [Koslicki]
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Full Idea:
It is plausible to think that an explanation, when successful, captures or represents (by argument, or a why? question) an underlying real-world relation of dependence which obtains among the phenomena cited.
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From:
Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6)
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A reaction:
She cites causal dependence as an example. I'm incline to think that 'grounding' is a better word for the target of good explanations than is 'dependence' (which can, surely, be mutual, where ground has the directionality needed for explanation).
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