22 ideas
| 17518 | Counting 'coin in this box' may have coin as the unit, with 'in this box' merely as the scope [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If we count the concept 'coin in this box', we could regard coin as the 'unit', while taking 'in this box' to limit the scope. Counting coins in two boxes would be not a difference in unit (kind of object), but in scope. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting') | |
| A reaction: This is a very nice alternative to the Fregean view of counting, depending totally on the concept, and rests more on a natural concept of object. I prefer Ayers. Compare 'count coins till I tell you to stop'. |
| 17516 | If counting needs a sortal, what of things which fall under two sortals? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If we accepted that counting objects always presupposes some sortal, it is surely clear that the class of objects to be counted could be designated by two sortals rather than one. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii) | |
| A reaction: His nice example is an object which is both 'a single piece of wool' and a 'sweater', which had better not be counted twice. Wiggins struggles to argue that there is always one 'substance sortal' which predominates. |
| 17520 | Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: In order to know which event has been ostensively identified by a speaker, the auditor must know the limits intended by the speaker. ...Events do not have natural boundaries. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: He distinguishes events thus from natural objects, where the world, to a large extent, offers us the boundaries. Nice point. |
| 17519 | To express borderline cases of objects, you need the concept of an 'object' [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The only explanation of the power to produce borderline examples like 'Is this hazelnut one object or two?' is the possession of the concept of an object. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting') |
| 17511 | Recognising continuity is separate from sortals, and must precede their use [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The recognition of the fact of continuity is logically independent of the possession of sortal concepts, whereas the formation of sortal concepts is at least psychologically dependent upon the recognition of continuity. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be entirely correct. I might add that unity must also be recognised. |
| 17510 | Speakers need the very general category of a thing, if they are to think about it [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: If a speaker indicates something, then in order for others to catch his reference they must know, at some level of generality, what kind of thing is indicated. They must categorise it as event, object, or quality. Thinking about something needs that much. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Ayers defends the view that such general categories are required, but not the much narrower sortal terms defended by Geach and Wiggins. I'm with Ayers all the way. 'What the hell is that?' |
| 17522 | We use sortals to classify physical objects by the nature and origin of their unity [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Sortals are the terms by which we intend to classify physical objects according to the nature and origin of their unity. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: This is as opposed to using sortals for the initial individuation. I take the perception of the unity to come first, so resemblance must be mentioned, though it can be an underlying (essentialist) resemblance. |
| 17515 | Seeing caterpillar and moth as the same needs continuity, not identity of sortal concepts [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: It is unnecessary to call moths 'caterpillars' or caterpillars 'moths' to see that they can be the same individual. It may be that our sortal concepts reflect our beliefs about continuity, but our beliefs about continuity need not reflect our sortals. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vi) | |
| A reaction: Something that metamorphosed through 15 different stages could hardly required 15 different sortals before we recognised the fact. Ayers is right. |
| 17517 | Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The abstract question arises of whether the same matter could be subject to more than one principle of unity simultaneously, or unified by more than one 'form'. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that the unity of the sweater is destroyed by unravelling, and the unity of the thread by cutting. |
| 17513 | If there are two objects, then 'that marble, man-shaped object' is ambiguous [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The statue is marble and man-shaped, but so is the piece of marble. So not only are the two objects in the same place, but two marble and man-shaped objects in the same place, so 'that marble, man-shaped object' must be ambiguous or indefinite. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') | |
| A reaction: It strikes me as basic that it can't be a piece of marble if you subtract its shape, and it can't be a statue if you subtract its matter. To treat a statue as an object, separately from its matter, is absurd. |
| 17523 | Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Sortals, in their primitive use, apply to the individual. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') | |
| A reaction: If the sortal applies to the individual, any essence must pertain to that individual, and not to the class it has been placed in. |
| 17521 | You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: It would be impossible for anyone to have the concept of a stage who did not already possess the concept of a physical object. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl') |
| 17514 | Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Temporally extended 'parts' are still mysteriously inseparable and not subject to rearrangement: a thing cannot be cut temporally in half. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') | |
| A reaction: A nice warning to anyone accepting a glib analogy between spatial parts and temporal parts. |
| 17509 | Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Some hold that the 'covering concept' completes the incomplete concept of identity, determining the kind of sameness involved. Others strongly deny the identity itself is incomplete, and locate the covering concept within the necessary act of reference. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [a bit compressed; Geach is the first view, and Quine the second; Wiggins is somewhere between the two] |
| 17512 | If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: Why are covering concepts required for diachronic identities, when they must be supposed unnecessary for synchronic identities? | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob') |
| 23559 | We have the concept of 'knowledge' as a label for good informants [Craig, by Fricker,M] |
| Full Idea: Craig's explanation of why we have the concept of knowledge is that it arises from our fundamental need to distinguish good informants. | |
| From: report of Edward Craig (Knowledge and the State of Nature [1990]) by Miranda Fricker - Epistemic Injustice 6.1 | |
| A reaction: That is, why do we have the label 'knowledge', in addition to 'true belief'? This strikes me as a good explanation which had never occurred to me. Every social group needs to identify members who have some authority in knowledge of various areas of life. |
| 18076 | Most theories are continually falsified [Kuhn, by Kitcher] |
| Full Idea: Kuhn contends that almost all theories are falsified at almost all times. | |
| From: report of Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]) by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 07.1 | |
| A reaction: This is obviously meant to demolish Karl Popper. |
| 22191 | Kuhn's scientists don't aim to falsifying their paradigm, because that is what they rely on [Kuhn, by Gorham] |
| Full Idea: In Kuhn's view scientists are decidedly not interested in falsifying their paradigm, because without a paradigm there is no systematic inquiry at all. | |
| From: report of Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]) by Geoffrey Gorham - Philosophy of Science 3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be one of the stronger aspects of Kuhn's account. You'd be leaving the big house, to go out on the road with a tent. |
| 22183 | Switching scientific paradigms is a conversion experience [Kuhn] |
| Full Idea: The transfer of allegiance from paradigm to paradigm is a conversion experience which cannot be forced. | |
| From: Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]), quoted by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 5 | |
| A reaction: This is the controversial part of Kuhn, which says that the most important decisions are not really rational. Anyone who thought the interpretation of a bunch of evidence is logical needed their head examined. But it IS rational. |
| 6162 | Kuhn has a description theory of reference, so the reference of 'electron' changes with the descriptions [Rowlands on Kuhn] |
| Full Idea: Kuhn and Feyerabend adopt a description theory of reference; the term 'electron' refers to whatever satisfies the descriptions associated with electrons, and since these descriptions vary between theories, so too must the reference. | |
| From: comment on Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: This is a key idea in modern philosophy, showing why all of reality and science were at stake when Kripke and others introduced a causal theory of reference. All the current debates about externalism and essentialism grow from this problem. |
| 22184 | Incommensurability assumes concepts get their meaning from within the theory [Kuhn, by Okasha] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of incommensurability stems from Kuhn's belief that scientific concepts derive their meaning from the theory in which they play a role. | |
| From: report of Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]) by Samir Okasha - Philosophy of Science: Very Short Intro (2nd ed) 5 | |
| A reaction: Quine was the source of this. Kripke's direct reference theory was meant to be the answer. |
| 7619 | Galileo's notions can't be 'incommensurable' if we can fully describe them [Putnam on Kuhn] |
| Full Idea: To tell us that Galileo had 'incommensurable' notions and then go on to describe them at length is totally incoherent. | |
| From: comment on Thomas S. Kuhn (Structure of Scientific Revolutions (2nd ed) [1962]) by Hilary Putnam - Reason, Truth and History Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: How refreshingly sensible. Incommensurability is the sort of nonsense you slide into if you take an instrumental view of science. But scientists are continually aim to pin down what is actually there. Translation between theories is very difficult! |