44 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. |
| 15593 | Variables can be viewed as special terms - functions taking assignments into individuals [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The alternative Tarskian way of indicating how a variable is to be interpreted is that a variable x will be a special case of the semantic value of the term; it will be a function which takes each assignment into the individual which it assigns to x. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.B) |
| 15592 | The usual Tarskian interpretation of variables is to specify their range of values [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The usual Tarskian way of indicating how a variable is to be interpreted is to simply specify its range of values. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.B) |
| 15590 | It seemed that Frege gave the syntax for variables, and Tarski the semantics, and that was that [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Once Frege had provided a clear syntactic account of variables and once Tarski had supplemented this with a rigorous semantic account, it would appear that there was nothing more of significance to be said. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: He later remarks that there are now three semantic accounts: the Tarskian, the instantial, and the algebraic [see xref ideas]. He offers a fourth account in his Semantic Relationism. This grows from his puzzles about variables. |
| 15591 | In separate expressions variables seem identical in role, but in the same expression they aren't [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: When we consider the semantic role of 'x' and 'y' in two distinct expressions x>0 and y>0, their semantic roles seems the same. But in the same expression, such as x>y, their roles seem to be different. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.A) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This new puzzle about variables leads Fine to say that the semantics of variables, and other expressions, is not intrinsic to them, but depends on their external relations. Variables denote any term - unless another variable got there first. |
| 15595 | The 'algebraic' account of variables reduces quantification to the algebra of its component parts [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In the 'algebraic' approach to variables, we move from a quantified sentence to the term specifying a property (the λ-term), and then reducing to the algebraic operations for atomic formulas. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.C) | |
| A reaction: [Bealer is a source for this view] Fine describes it as an 'algebra of operations'. I presume this is a thoroughly formalist approach to the matter, which doesn't seem to get to the heart of the semantic question. |
| 15594 | 'Instantial' accounts of variables say we grasp arbitrary instances from their use in quantification [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: According to the 'instantial' approach to variables, a closed quantified sentence is to be understood on the basis of one of its instances; from an understanding of an instance we understand satisfaction by an arbitrary individual. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.D) | |
| A reaction: Fine comments that this is intuitively plausible, but not very precise, because it depends on 'abstraction' of the individual from the expression. |
| 15599 | Cicero/Cicero and Cicero/Tully may differ in relationship, despite being semantically the same [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There may be a semantic relationship between 'Cicero' and 'Cicero' that does not hold between 'Cicero' and 'Tully', despite the lack of an intrinsic semantic difference between the names themselves. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 2.E) | |
| A reaction: This is the key idea of Fine's book, and a most original and promising approach to a rather intractable problem in reference. He goes on to distinguish names which are 'strictly' coreferential (the first pair) from those that are 'accidentally' so. |
| 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. |
| 21982 | I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L] |
| Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people." | |
| From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7 | |
| A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 15603 | I can only represent individuals as the same if I do not already represent them as the same [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I can only represent two individuals as being the same if I do not already represent them as the same. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 3.A) | |
| A reaction: A very nice simple point. If I say 'Hesperus is Hesperus' I am unable to comment on the object, but 'Hesperus is Phosphorus' has a different expressive power. Start from contexts where it is necessary to say that two things are actually one. |
| 15604 | If Cicero=Tully refers to the man twice, then surely Cicero=Cicero does as well? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: 'Cicero=Cicero' and 'Cicero=Tully' are both dyadic predications. It is unnatural to suppose that the use of the same name converts a dyadic predicate into a reflexive predicate, or that there is one reference to Cicero in the first and two in the second. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 3.A) | |
| A reaction: I am deeply suspicious of the supposed 'property' of being self-identical, but that may not deny that it could be a genuine truth (shorthand for 'the C you saw is the same as the C I saw'). Having an identity makes equality with self possible. |
| 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. |
| 15602 | Mental files are devices for keeping track of basic coordination of objects [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Mental files should be seen as a device for keeping track of when objects are coordinated (represented as-the-same) and, rather than understand coordination in terms of mental files, we should understand mental files in terms of coordination. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 3.A) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think that the metaphor of a 'label' is much closer to the situation than that of a 'file'. Thus my concept of Cicero is labelled 'Tully', 'Roman', 'orator', 'philosophical example'... My problem is to distinguish the concept from its labels. |
| 15588 | You cannot determine the full content from a thought's intrinsic character, as relations are involved [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: There is no determining the full content of what someone thinks or believes from the individual things that he thinks or believes; we must also look at the threads that tie the contents of these thoughts or beliefs together. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure what 'full' content could possibly mean. Does that include all our background beliefs which we hardly ever articulate. Content comes in degrees, or needs an arbitrary boundary? |
| 15596 | The standard aim of semantics is to assign a semantic value to each expression [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The aim of semantics, as standardly conceived, is to assign a semantic value to each (meaningful) expression of the language under consideration. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 1.G) | |
| A reaction: Fine is raising the difficulty that these values can get entangled with one another. He proposes 'semantic connections' as a better aim. |
| 15587 | That two utterances say the same thing may not be intrinsic to them, but involve their relationships [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In my 'Semantic Relationism' the fact that two utterances say the same thing is not entirely a matter of their intrinsic semantic features; it may also turn on semantic relationships among the utterances of their parts not reducible to those features. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: You'll need to read the book slowly several times to get the hang of this, but at least it allows that two different utterances might say the same thing (express the same proposition, I would say). |
| 15589 | The two main theories are Holism (which is inferential), and Representational (which is atomistic) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: For holists a proper theory will be broadly inferential, while for their opponents it will be representational in character, describing relations between expressions and reality. Representational semantics is atomist, holist semantics inferential. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine presents these as the two main schools in semantics. His own theory then proposes a more holistic version of the Representational view. He seeks the advantages of Frege's position, but without 'sense'. |
| 15598 | We should pursue semantic facts as stated by truths in theories (and not put the theories first!) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A 'semantics' is a body of semantic facts, and a 'semantic theory' is a body of semantic truths. The natural order is a theory being understood as truths, which state facts. Davidson, alas, reversed this order, with facts understood through theories. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 2.C) | |
| A reaction: [compressed; he cites Davidson 1967, and calls it 'one of the most unfortunate tendencies in modern philosophy of language, ..as if chemistry were understood in terms of formulae rather than chemical facts']. |
| 15600 | Referentialist semantics has objects for names, properties for predicates, and propositions for connectives [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The standard referentialist semantics for a language with names is that the semantic value of the name is the object, the content of a predicate is a property, and the content of a logical connective is an operation on propositions. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 2.F) | |
| A reaction: My particular bęte noire is the idea that every predicate names a property. It is the tyranny of having to have a comprehensive semantic theory that drives this implausible picture. And I don't see how an object can be a semantic value… |
| 15601 | Fregeans approach the world through sense, Referentialists through reference [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Fregeans emphasise an orientation towards the speaker: possession of sense makes language meaningful, and language relates to the world through sense. For the Referentialist its representational relationships make it meaningful, and relate it to the world | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], 2.G) | |
| A reaction: The Referentialist approach is for Kripkean fans of direct reference, rather than the Fregean reference through descriptions. I am inclined to favour the old-fashioned, deeply discredited, much mocked Fregean approach. |
| 15605 | I take indexicals such as 'this' and 'that' to be linked to some associated demonstration [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Demonstrative uses of an indexical such as 'this' or 'that' should be taken to be anaphoric on an associated demonstration. It is a semantic requirement on the use of the indexical that it be coreferential with the demonstration. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Semantic Relationism [2007], Post 'Indexicals') | |
| A reaction: Similarly 'now' must connect to looking at a clock, and 'I' to pointing at some person. The demonstration could be of a verbal event, as much as a physical one. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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'? |