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15957
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Essential definitions show the differences that discriminate things, and make them what they are [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
Essential definitions are such as are taken from the essential differences of things, which constitute them in such a sort of natural bodies, and discriminate them from all those of any other sort.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.41?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles
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A reaction:
I don't think this goes as far as the aim Aristotle had in definitions, which was more than merely to 'discriminate' each thing. A full definition explains the thing as well.
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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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15965
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Boyle attacked a contemporary belief that powers were occult things [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
Boyle attacks an idea of powers, held by some modern schoolmen and chemists, that makes powers occult.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.3
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A reaction:
[This involves Boyle's famous example of a key having the power to turn a lock] On p.86 Alexander says the 'occult' belief is in affinities, antipathies, attractions and repulsions. How did Boyle explain magnetism?
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12017
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In all instances of identity, there must be some facts to ensure the identity [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
For each instance of identity or failure of identity, there must be facts in virtue of which that instance obtains. ..Enough has been said to lend this doctrine some plausibility.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.5)
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A reaction:
Penelope Mackie picks this out from Forbes as a key principle. It sounds to be in danger of circularity, unless the 'facts' can be cited without referring to, or implicitly making use of, identities - which seems unlikely.
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12024
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If we combined two clocks, it seems that two clocks may have become one clock. [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
If we imagine a possible world in which two clocks in a room make one clock from half the parts of each, the judgement 'these two actual clocks could have been a single clock' does not seem wholly false.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 7.4)
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A reaction:
You would, of course, have sufficient parts left over to make a second clock, so they look like a destroyed clock, so I don't think I find Forbes's intuition on this one very persuasive.
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16034
|
Form is not a separate substance, but just the manner, modification or 'stamp' of matter [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
I understand the word 'form' to mean, not a real substance distinct from matter, but only the matter itself of a natural body, with its peculiar manner of existence [corpuscular structure], which may be called its 'essential modification' or 'stamp'.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.324), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3
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A reaction:
I don't think Aristotle ever thought that a form was separate from its matter, let alone qualifying as a substance. On the whole, Boyle attacks scholastic philosophy, rather than Aristotle.
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15953
|
To cite a substantial form tells us what produced the effect, but not how it did it [Boyle]
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Full Idea:
If it be demanded why rhubarb purges choler, snow dazzles the eyes rather than grass etc., that these effects are performed by substantial forms of the respective bodies is at best but to tell me what is the agent, not how the effect is wrought.
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From:
Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666], p.47?), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.2
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A reaction:
This is the problem of the 'virtus dormitiva' of opium (which at least tells you it was the opium what done it). I take Aristotle to have aspired to a lot more than this. He wanted a full definition, which would contain lots of information about the form.
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11885
|
Only individual essences will ground identities across worlds in other properties [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Forbes argues that, unless we posit individual essences, we cannot guarantee that identities across possible worlds will be appropriately grounded in other properties.
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From:
report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.4
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A reaction:
There is a confrontation between Wiggins, who says identity is primitive, and Forbes, who says identity must be grounded in other properties. I think I side with Forbes.
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12015
|
Non-trivial individual essence is properties other than de dicto, or universal, or relational [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
A non-trivial individual essence is properties other than a) those following from a de dicto truth, b) properties of existence and self-identity (or their cognates), c) properties derived from necessities in some other category.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1)
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A reaction:
[I have compressed Forbes] Rather than adding all these qualificational clauses to our concept, we could just tighten up on the notion of a property, saying it is something which is causally efficacious, and hence explanatory.
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12013
|
Essential properties depend on a category, and perhaps also on particular facts [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
The essential properties of a thing will typically depend upon what category of thing it is, and perhaps also on some more particular facts about the thing itself.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1)
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A reaction:
I see no way of dispensing with the second requirement, in the cases of complex entities like animals. If all samples are the same, then of course we can define a sample's essence through its kind, but not if samples differ in any way.
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12020
|
An individual might change their sex in a world, but couldn't have differed in sex at origin [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
In the time of a single world, the same individual can undergo a change of sex, but it is less clear that an individual of one sex could have been, from the outset, an individual of another.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 6.5)
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A reaction:
I don't find this support for essentiality of origin very persuasive. I struggle with these ideas. Given my sex yesterday, then presumably I couldn't have had a different sex yesterday. Given that pigs can fly, pigs can fly. What am I missing?
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11888
|
Identities must hold because of other facts, which must be instrinsic [Forbes,G, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Forbes has two principles of identity, which we can call the No Bare Identities Principle (identities hold in virtue of other facts), and the No Extrinsic Determination Principle (that only intrinsic facts of a thing establish identity).
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From:
report of Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 127-8) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 2.7
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A reaction:
The job of the philosopher is to prise apart the real identities of things from the way in which we conceive of identities. I take these principles to apply to real identities, not conceptual identities.
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12008
|
Unlike places and times, we cannot separate possible worlds from what is true at them [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
There is no means by which we might distinguish a possible world from what is true at it. ...Whereas our ability to separate a place, or a time, from its occupier is crucial to realism about places and times, as is a distance relation.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 4.2)
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A reaction:
He is objecting to Lewis's modal realism. I'm not fully convinced. It depends whether we are discussing real ontology or conceptual space. In the latter I see no difference between times and possible worlds. In ontology, a 'time' is weird.
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12016
|
The problem of transworld identity can be solved by individual essences [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
The motivation for investigating individual essences should be obvious, since if every object has such an essence, the problem of elucidating transworld identity can be solved.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 5.1)
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A reaction:
It is important that, if necessary, the identities be 'individual', and not just generic, by sortal, or natural kind. We want to reason about (and explain) truths at the fine-grained level of the individual, not just at the broad level of generalisation.
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12029
|
We believe in thisnesses, because we reject bizarre possibilities as not being about that individual [Forbes,G]
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Full Idea:
The natural response to an unreasonable hypothesis of possibility for an object x, that in such a state of affairs it would not be x which satisfies the conditions, is evidence that we do possess concepts of thisness for individuals.
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From:
Graeme Forbes (The Metaphysics of Modality [1985], 9.4)
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A reaction:
We may have a 'concept' of thisness, but we needn't be committed to the 'existence' of a thisness. There is a fairly universal intuition that cessation of existence of an entity when it starts to change can be a very vague matter.
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15962
|
Boyle's term 'texture' is not something you feel, but is unobservable structures of particles [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
Perhaps Boyle's most important technical terms is 'texture'. ...It must not be confused with the way we feel the texture of a surface like sandpaper or velvet; it is rather a structure of unobservable particles and so it is not directly observable.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 03.2
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A reaction:
This is the basis for Alexander's reassessment of what Boyle and Locke meant by a 'secondary quality', which, he says, is a physical feature of objects, not a mental experience.
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15952
|
The corpuscles just have shape, size and motion, which explains things without 'sympathies' or 'forces' [Boyle, by Alexander,P]
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Full Idea:
In Boyle's corpuscular philosophy, all material substances are composed of minute particles or corpuscles, with ordinary properties such as shape, size and motion. There was no need for occult relations between them, such as sympathies, or even forces.
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From:
report of Robert Boyle (The Origin of Forms and Qualities [1666]) by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 01.1
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