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21982
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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]
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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."
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From:
Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
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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.
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19428
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Because something does exist, there must be a drive in possible things towards existence [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
From the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, we recognise that there is in possible things, that is, in the very possibility or essence, a certain exigent need of existence, and, so to speak, some claim to existence.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.347)
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A reaction:
I love the fact that Leibniz tried to explain why there is something rather than nothing. Bede Rundle and Dale Jacquette are similar heroes. As Leibniz tells us, contradictions have no claim to existence, but non-contradictions do.
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14292
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Dispositions seem more ethereal than behaviour; a non-occult account of them would be nice [Goodman]
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Full Idea:
Dispositions of a thing are as important to us as overt behaviour, but they strike us by comparison as rather ethereal. So we are moved to enquire whether we can bring them down to earth, and explain disposition terms without reference to occult powers.
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From:
Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], II.3)
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A reaction:
Mumford quotes this at the start of his book on dispositions, as his agenda. I suspect that the 'occult' aspect crept in because dispositions were based on powers, and the dominant view was that these were the immediate work of God.
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5047
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The world is physically necessary, as its contrary would imply imperfection or moral absurdity [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Although the world is not metaphysically necessary, such that its contrary would imply a contradiction or logical absurdity, it is necessary physically, that is, determined in such a way that its contrary would imply imperfection or moral absurdity.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.139)
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A reaction:
How does Leibniz know things like this? The distinction between 'metaphysical' necessity and 'natural' (what he calls 'physical') necessity is a key idea. But natural necessity is controversial. See 'Essentialism'.
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18749
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Goodman argued that the confirmation relation can never be formalised [Goodman, by Horsten/Pettigrew]
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Full Idea:
Goodman constructed arguments that purported to show that a satisfactory syntactic analysis of the confirmation relation can never be found. In response, philosophers of science tried to model it in probabilistic terms.
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From:
report of Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954]) by Horsten,L/Pettigrew,R - Mathematical Methods in Philosophy 4
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A reaction:
I take this idea to say that Bayesianism was developed in response to the grue problem. This is an interesting light on 'grue', which never bothered me much. The point is it scuppered formal attempts to model induction.
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19429
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The principle of determination in things obtains the greatest effect with the least effort [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
There is always in things a principle of determination which is based on consideration of maximum and minimum, such that the greatest effect is obtained with the least, so to speak, expenditure.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.347)
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A reaction:
This is obvious in human endeavours. Leibniz applied it to physics, producing a principle that shortest paths are always employed. It has a different formal name in modern physics, I think. He says if you make an unrestricted triangle, it is equilateral.
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4794
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We don't use laws to make predictions, we call things laws if we make predictions with them [Goodman]
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Full Idea:
Rather than a sentence being used for prediction because it is a law, it is called a law because it is used for prediction.
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From:
Nelson Goodman (Fact, Fiction and Forecast (4th ed) [1954], p.21), quoted by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §5.4
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A reaction:
This smacks of dodgy pragmatism, and sounds deeply wrong. The perception of a law has to be prior to making the prediction. Why do we make the prediction, if we haven't spotted a law. Goodman is mesmerised by language instead of reality.
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