13 ideas
| 15642 | If kinds depend only on what can be observed, many underlying essences might produce the same kind [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: If the kinds there are depend not on the essences of the objects but on their observed distinguishing particulars, ...then for any kind that we think there is, it is possible that there are many underlying essences which are observably indistinguishable. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: Eagle is commenting on Locke's reliance on nominal essences. This seems to be the genuine problem with jadeite and nephrite (both taken to be 'jade'), or with 'fool's gold'. This isn't an objection to Locke; it just explains the role of science. |
| 15645 | Nominal essence are the observable properties of things [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: It is clear the nominal essences really are the properties of the things which have them: they are (a subset of) the observable properties of the things. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: I think this is wrong. The surface characteristics are all that is available to us, so our classifications must be based on those, but it is on the ideas of them, not their intrinsic natures. That is empiricsm! What makes the properties 'essential'? |
| 15643 | Nominal essence mistakenly gives equal weight to all underlying properties that produce appearances [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: Nominal essence does not allow for gradations in significance for the underlying properties. Those are all essential for the object behaving as it observably does, and they must all be given equal weight when deciding what the object does. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], IV) | |
| A reaction: This is where 'scientific' essentialism comes in. If we take one object, or one kind of object, in isolation, Eagle is right. When we start to compare, and to set up controlled conditions tests, we can dig into the 'gradations' he cares about. |
| 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? |
| 16422 | The necessity of a proposition concerns reality, not our words or concepts [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The necessity or contingency of a proposition has nothing to do with our concepts or the meanings of our words. The possibilities would have been the same even if we had never conceived of them. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds in need of qualification, since some of the propositions will be explicitly about words and concepts. Still, I like this idea. |
| 16423 | Conceptual possibilities are metaphysical possibilities we can conceive of [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual possibilities are just (metaphysical) possibilities that we can conceive of. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) |
| 16421 | Critics say there are just an a priori necessary part, and an a posteriori contingent part [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Critics say there are no irreducible a posteriori truths. They can be factored into a part that is necessary, but knowable a priori through conceptual analysis, and a part knowable only a posteriori, but contingent. 2-D semantics makes this precise. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 1) | |
| A reaction: [Critics are Sidelle, Jackson and Chalmers] Interesting. If gold is necessarily atomic number 79, or it wouldn't be gold, that sounds like an analytic truth about gold. Discovering the 79 wasn't a discovery of a necessity. Stalnaker rejects this idea. |
| 16429 | A 'centred' world is an ordered triple of world, individual and time [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A 'centred' possible world is an ordered triple consisting of a possible world, an individual in the domain of that world, and a time. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) |
| 16428 | Meanings aren't in the head, but that is because they are abstract [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Meanings ain't in the head. Putnam's famous slogan actually fits Frege's anti-psychologism better than it fits Purnam's and Burge's anti-individualism. The point is that intensions of any kind are abstract objects. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: If intensions are abstract, that leaves (for me) the question of what they are abstracted from. I take it that there are specific brain events that are being abstractly characterised. What do we call those? |
| 16432 | One view says the causal story is built into the description that is the name's content [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: In 'causal descriptivism' the causal story is built into the description that is the content of the name (and also incorporates a rigidifying operator to ensure that the descriptions that names abbreviate have wide scope). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 5) | |
| A reaction: Not very controversial, I would say, since virtually every fact about the world has a 'causal story' built into it. Must we insist on rigidity in order to have wide scope? |
| 16430 | Two-D says that a posteriori is primary and contingent, and the necessity is the secondary intension [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Two-dimensionalism says the necessity of a statement is constituted by the fact that the secondary intensions is a necessary proposition, and their a posteriori character is constituted by the fact that the associated primary intension is contingent. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 2) | |
| A reaction: This view is found in Sidelle 1989, and then formalised by Jackson and Chalmers. I like metaphysical necessity, but I have some sympathy with the approach. The question must always be 'where does this necessity derive from'? |
| 16431 | In one view, the secondary intension is metasemantic, about how the thinker relates to the content [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: On the metasemantic interpretation of the two-dimensional framework, the second dimension is used to represent the metasemantic facts about the relation between a thinker or speaker and the contents of her thoughts or utterances. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Conceptual truth and metaphysical necessity [2003], 4) | |
| A reaction: I'm struggling to think what facts there might be about the relation between myself and the contents of my thoughts. I'm more or less constituted by my thoughts. |
| 15641 | Kinds are fixed by the essential properties of things - the properties that make it that kind of thing [Eagle] |
| Full Idea: The natural thought is to think that real kinds are given only by classification on the basis of essential properties: properties that make an object the kind of thing that it is. | |
| From: Antony Eagle (Locke on Essences and Kinds [2005], II) | |
| A reaction: Circularity alert! Circularity alert! Essence gives a thing its kind - and hence we can see what the kind is? Test for a trivial property! Eagle is not unaware of these issues. Does he mean 'necessary' rather than 'essential'? |