40 ideas
19441 | All philosophies presuppose their historical moment, and arise from it [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Every philosophy originates as a manifestation of its time; its origin presupposes its historical time. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.59) | |
A reaction: There seems to be widespread agreement among continental philosophers about this idea, whereas analytic philosophers largely ignore, and treat Plato as if he were a current professor in Chicago. |
19442 | I don't study Plato for his own sake; the primary aim is always understanding [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Plato in writing is only a means for me; that which is primary and a priori, that which is the ground to which all is ultimately referred, is understanding. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.63) | |
A reaction: It always seems to that the main aim of philosophy is understanding - which is why its central activity is explanation. |
19444 | Each proposition has an antithesis, and truth exists as its refutation [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: Every intellectual determination has its antithesis, its contradiction. Truth exists not in unity with, but in refutation of its opposite. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.72) | |
A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of the 'synthesis' in Hegel, in favour of what strikes me as a rather more sensible interpretation of the modern dialectic. Being exists in contrast to nothingness, and truth exists in contrast to its negation? |
19445 | A dialectician has to be his own opponent [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: A thinker is a dialectician only insofar as he is his own opponent. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.72) | |
A reaction: Quite an inspirational slogan for beginners in philosophy. How many non-philosophers are willing to be their own opponent. In law courts and the House of Commons we assign the roles to separate persons. Hence rhetoric replaces reason? |
19443 | Truth forges an impersonal unity between people [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: The urge to communicate is a fundamental urge - the urge for truth. ...That which is true belongs neither to me nor exclusively to you, but is common to all. The thought in which 'I' and 'You' are united is a true thought. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.65) | |
A reaction: Sceptics may doubt that there are such truths, but this is certainly how we experience agreement - that there is some truth shared between us which is no longer the possession of either of us. Nice idea. |
14480 | Maybe analytic truths do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: It is a venerable view that analytic claims do not require truth-makers, as they place no demands on the world, but this claim has often been challenged. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.4) | |
A reaction: She offers two challenges (bottom p.68), but I would have thought that the best response is that the meanings of the words themselves constitute truthmakers - perhaps via the essence of each word, as Fine suggests. |
14471 | Analytical entailments arise from combinations of meanings and inference rules [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: 'Analytically entail' means entail in virtue of the meanings of the expressions involved and rules of inference. So 'Jones bought a house' analytically entails 'Jones bought a building'. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 01.2) | |
A reaction: Quine wouldn't like this, but it sounds OK to me. Thomasson uses this as a key tool in her claim that common sense objects must exist. |
14493 | Existence might require playing a role in explanation, or in a causal story, or being composed in some way [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: A higher standard for saying that entities exist might require that they play an essential role in explanation, or must figure in any complete causal story, or exist according to some uniform and nonarbitrary principle of composition. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 11.2) | |
A reaction: I am struck by the first of these three. If I am defending the notion that essence depends on Aristotle's account of explanation, then if we add that existence also depends on explanation, we get a criterion for the existence of essences. Yay. |
14491 | Rival ontological claims can both be true, if there are analytic relationships between them [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Where there are analytic interrelations among our claims, distinct ontological claims may be true without rivalry, redundancy, or reduction. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 10) | |
A reaction: Thus we might, I suppose, that it is analytically necessary that a lump of clay has a shape, and that a statue be made of something. Interesting. |
14489 | Theories do not avoid commitment to entities by avoiding certain terms or concepts [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: A theory does not avoid commitment to any entities by avoiding use of certain terms or concepts. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4) | |
A reaction: This is a salutary warning to those who apply the notion of ontological commitment rather naively. |
19446 | To our consciousness it is language which looks unreal [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: To sensuous consciousness it is precisely language that is unreal, nothing. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.77) | |
A reaction: Offered as a corrective to the view that our ontological commitments entirely concern what we are willing to say. |
14487 | The simple existence conditions for objects are established by our practices, and are met [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: The existence conditions for ordinary objects are established by our practices, and they are quite minimal, so it is rather obvious that they are fulfilled, and so there are such things. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3) | |
A reaction: This is one of her main arguments. The same argument would have worked for witches or ghosts in certain cultures. |
14485 | Ordinary objects may be not indispensable, but they are nearly unavoidable [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: I do not argue that ordinary objects are indispensable, but rather that they are (nearly) unavoidable. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09) | |
A reaction: Disappointing, given the blurb and title of the book, but put in those terms it will be hard to disagree. Clearly ordinary objects figure in the most useful way for us to talk. I wonder whether we have a clear ontology of 'simples' in which they vanish. |
14508 | A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
A reaction: These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'. |
14511 | There are cases where mere qualities would not ensure an intrinsic identity [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: I have argued that there are possible cases in which no purely qualitative conditions would be both necessary and sufficient for possessing a given thisness. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
A reaction: Are we perhaps confusing our epistemology with our ontology here? We can ensure that something has identity, or ensure that its identity is knowable. If it is 'something', then it has identity. Er, that's it? |
21651 | It is analytic that if simples are arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair [Thomasson, by Hofweber] |
Full Idea: Thomasson argues that the existence of ordinary objects follows analytically from the distribution of simples, assuming that there are any simples. It is an analytic truth that if there are simples arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair. | |
From: report of Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007]) by Thomas Hofweber - Ontology and the Ambitions of Metaphysics 07.3 | |
A reaction: But how do you distinguish when simples are arranged nearly chair-wise from the point where they click into place as actually chair-wise? What is the criterion? |
14486 | Eliminativists haven't found existence conditions for chairs, beyond those of the word 'chair' [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: The eliminativist cannot claim to have 'discovered' some real existence conditions for chairs beyond those entailed by the semantic rules associated with ordinary use of the word 'chair'. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.3) | |
A reaction: It is difficult to understand atoms arranged 'chairwise' or 'baseballwise' if you don't already know what a chair or a baseball are. |
14467 | Ordinary objects are rejected, to avoid contradictions, or for greater economy in thought [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Objections to ordinary objects are the Causal Redundancy claim (objects lack causal powers), the Anti-Colocation view (statues and lumps overlap), Sorites arguments, a more economical ontology, or a more scientific ontology. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: [my summary of two paragraphs] The chief exponents of these views are Van Inwagen and Merricks. Before you glibly accept ordinary objects, you must focus on producing a really strict ontology. These arguments all have real force. |
14479 | To individuate people we need conventions, but conventions are made up by people [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: The conventionalist faces paradox if they hold that conventions are logically prior to people (since this plurality requires conventions of individuation), and people are logically prior to conventions (if they make up the conventions). | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.3) | |
A reaction: [Sidelle is the spokesman for conventionalism] The best defence would be to deny the second part, and say that conventions emerge from whatever is there, but only conventions can individuate the bits of what is there. |
14481 | Wherever an object exists, there are intrinsic properties instantiating every modal profile [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: In a 'modally plenitudinous' ontology, wherever there is an object at all, there are objects with intrinsic modal properties instantiating every consistent modal profile. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.5) | |
A reaction: [She cites K.Bennett, Hawley, Rea, Sidelle] I love this. At last a label for the view I have been espousing. I am a Modal Plenitudinist. I must get a badge made. |
14482 | If the statue and the lump are two objects, they require separate properties, so we could add their masses [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: An objection to the idea that statues are not identical to material lumps of stuff is the proliferation of instances of properties shared by those objects. If the mass of the statue is 500kg, and the mass of the lump is 500kg, do we have 1000kg? | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.3) | |
A reaction: [compressed; she cites Rea 1997 and Zimmerman 1995] To wriggle out of this we would have to understand 'object' rather differently, so that an independent mass is not intrinsic to it. I leave this as an exercise for the reader. |
14483 | Given the similarity of statue and lump, what could possibly ground their modal properties? [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: The 'grounding problem' is that given all that the statue and the lump have in common, what could possibly ground their different modal properties? | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 04.4) | |
A reaction: Their modal properties are, of course, different, because only one of them could survive squashing. Thomasson suggests their difference of sort, but I'm not sure what that means, separately from what they actually are. |
12031 | Essences are taken to be qualitative properties [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Essences have normally been understood to be constituted by qualitative properties. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
A reaction: I add this simple point, because it might be challenged by the view that an essence is a substance, rather than the properties of anything. I prefer that, and would add that substances are individuated by distinctive causal powers. |
14476 | Identity claims between objects are only well-formed if the categories are specified [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Identity claims are only well-formed and truth-evaluable if the terms flanking the statement are associated with a certain category of entity each is to refer to, which disambiguates the reference and identity-criteria. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03) | |
A reaction: The first of her two criteria for identity. She is buying the full Wiggins package. |
14477 | Identical entities must be of the same category, and meet the criteria for the category [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Identity claims are only true if the entities referred to are of the same category, and meet the criteria of identity appropriate for things of that category. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03) | |
A reaction: This may be a little too optimistic about having a set of clear-cut and reasonably objective categories to work with, but attempts at establishing metaphysical categories have not gone especially well. |
12034 | If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
A reaction: The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again. |
14510 | Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
A reaction: See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!). |
16455 | Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
A reaction: [my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described. |
14478 | Modal Conventionalism says modality is analytic, not intrinsic to the world, and linguistic [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Modal Conventionalism has at least three theses: 1) modal truths are either analytic truths, or combine analytic and empirical truths, 2) modal properties are not intrinsic features of the world, 3) modal propositions depend on linguistic conventions. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 03.2) | |
A reaction: [She cites Alan Sidelle 1989 for this view] I disagree mainly with number 2), since I take dispositions to be key intrinsic features of nature, and I interpret dispositions as modal properties. |
14507 | Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Is the world - and are all possible worlds - constituted by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality? | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], Intro) | |
A reaction: 'Thisness' and 'suchness' aim to capture Aristotelian notions of the entity and its attributes. Aristotle talks of 'a this'. Adams is after adding 'haecceities' to the world. My intuitive answer is no, there are no 'pure' identities. We add those. |
11964 | Possible worlds are world-stories, maximal descriptions of whole non-existent worlds [Adams,RM, by Molnar] |
Full Idea: According to a theory proposed by Adams, possible worlds are world-stories, that is maximally complete consistent sets of propositions which between them describe non-existent whole worlds. | |
From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by George Molnar - Powers 12.2.2 | |
A reaction: Presumably this places an additional constraint on the view that a world is just a maximal set of propositions. It seems to require coherence as well as consistency. Suppose an object destroys all others objects. Is that a world? |
16451 | Adams says anti-haecceitism reduces all thisness to suchness [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist thesis (according to Adams's version) is that all thisnesses are reducible to, or supervenient upon, suchnesses. | |
From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 3.5 |
11901 | Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons. | |
From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been | |
A reaction: I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality. |
14512 | Moderate Haecceitism says transworld identities are primitive, but connected to qualities [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: My position, according to which thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive but logically connected to suchnesses, we may call 'Moderate Haecceitism'. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
A reaction: The rather tentative connection to qualities is to block the possibility of Aristotle being a poached egg, which he (quite reasonably!) holds to be counterintuitive. It all feels like a mess to me. |
19447 | The Absolute is the 'and' which unites 'spirit and nature' [Feuerbach] |
Full Idea: The Absolute is spirit and nature. ...But what then is the Absolute? Nothing other than this 'and', that is, the unity of spirit and nature. | |
From: Ludwig Feuerbach (Towards a Critique of Hegel's Philosophy [1839], p.82) | |
A reaction: This is Feuerbach's spin on Hegel. He has been outlining idealist philosophy and the philosophy of nature in Schelling. Is this Spinoza's one substance? |
14466 | A chief task of philosophy is making reflective sense of our common sense worldview [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Showing how, reflectively, we can make sense of our unreflective common sense worldview is arguably one of the chief tasks of philosophy. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: Maybe. The obvious problem is that when you look at weird and remote cultures like the Aztecs, what counts as 'common sense' might be a bit different. She is talking of ordinary objects, though, where her point is reasonable. |
12032 | Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions. | |
From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2) | |
A reaction: One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't. |
14475 | How can causal theories of reference handle nonexistence claims? [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference have problems in handling nonexistence claims | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3) | |
A reaction: This is a very sound reason for shifting from a direct causal baptism view to one in which the baptism takes place by a social consensus. So there is a consensus about 'unicorns', but obviously no baptism. See Evans's 'Madagascar' example. |
14474 | Pure causal theories of reference have the 'qua problem', of what sort of things is being referred to [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: Pure causal theories of reference face the 'qua problem' - that it may be radically indeterminate what the term refers to unless there is some very basic concept of what sort of thing is being referred to. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 02.3) | |
A reaction: She cites Dummett and Wiggins on this. There is an obvious problem that when I say 'look at that!' there are all sorts of conventions at work if my reference is to succeed. |
14488 | Analyticity is revealed through redundancy, as in 'He bought a house and a building' [Thomasson] |
Full Idea: The analytic interrelations among elements of language become evident through redundancy. It is redundant to utter 'He bought a house and a building', since buying a house analytically entails that he bought a building. | |
From: Amie L. Thomasson (Ordinary Objects [2007], 09.4) | |
A reaction: This appears to concern necessary class membership. It is only linguistically redundant if the class membership is obvious. Houses are familiar, uranium samples are not. |