25 ideas
| 14600 | Analysis aims at secure necessary and sufficient conditions [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: An analysis is an attempt at providing finite, non-circular, and intuitively adequate necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3) | |
| A reaction: Specifying the 'conditions' for something doesn't seem to quite add up to telling you what the thing is. A trivial side-effect might qualify as a sufficient condition for something, if it always happens. |
| 14603 | 'Reification' occurs if we mistake a concept for a thing [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: 'Reification' occurs when a mere concept is mistaken for a thing. We seem generally prone to this sort of error. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think we should face up to the fact that this is the only way we can think about generalised or abstract entities, and stop thinking of it as an 'error'. We have evolved to think well about objects, so we translate everything that way. |
| 14607 | T adds □p→p for reflexivity, and is ideal for modeling lawhood [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: System T is a normal modal system augmented with the reflexivity-generating axiom □p→p, and is, I think, the best modal logic for modeling lawhood. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], n46) | |
| A reaction: Schaffer shows in the article why transitivity would not be appropriate for lawhood. |
| 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. |
| 3338 | Numbers have been defined in terms of 'successors' to the concept of 'zero' [Peano, by Blackburn] |
| Full Idea: Dedekind and Peano define the number series as the series of successors to the number zero, according to five postulates. | |
| From: report of Giuseppe Peano (works [1890]) by Simon Blackburn - Oxford Dictionary of Philosophy p.279 |
| 5897 | 0 is a non-successor number, all successors are numbers, successors can't duplicate, if P(n) and P(n+1) then P(all-n) [Peano, by Flew] |
| Full Idea: 1) 0 is a number; 2) The successor of any number is a number; 3) No two numbers have the same successor; 4) 0 is not the successor of any number; 5) If P is true of 0, and if P is true of any number n and of its successor, P is true of every number. | |
| From: report of Giuseppe Peano (works [1890]) by Antony Flew - Pan Dictionary of Philosophy 'Peano' | |
| A reaction: Devised by Dedekind and proposed by Peano, these postulates were intended to avoid references to intuition in specifying the natural numbers. I wonder if they could define 'successor' without reference to 'number'. |
| 14604 | If a notion is ontologically basic, it should be needed in our best attempt at science [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Science represents our best systematic understanding of the world, and if a certain notion proves unneeded in our best attempt at that, this provides strong evidence that what this notion concerns is not ontologically basic. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: But is the objective of science to find out what is 'ontologically basic'? If scientists can't get a purchase on a question, they have no interest in it. What are electrons made of? |
| 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. |
| 14599 | Three types of reduction: Theoretical (of terms), Definitional (of concepts), Ontological (of reality) [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical reduction concerns terms found in a theory; Definitional reduction concerns concepts found in the mind; Ontological reduction is independent of how we conceptualize entities, or theorize about them, and is about reality. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 1) | |
| A reaction: An Aristotelian definition refers to reality, rather than to our words or concepts. |
| 14605 | Tropes are the same as events [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Tropes can be identified with events. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], n17) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably on the view of events, associated with Kim, as instantiations of properties. This idea is a new angle on tropes and events which had never occurred to me. |
| 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') |
| 14601 | Individuation aims to count entities, by saying when there is one [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: Individuation principles are attempts to describe how to count entities in a given domain, by saying when there is one. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], 3) | |
| A reaction: At last, someone tells me what they mean by 'individuation'! So it is just saying what your units are prior to counting, followed (presumably) by successful counting. It seems to aim more at kinds than at particulars. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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') |
| 14606 | Only ideal conceivability could indicate what is possible [Schaffer,J] |
| Full Idea: The only plausible link from conceivability to possibility is via ideal conceivability. | |
| From: Jonathan Schaffer (Causation and Laws of Nature [2008], n22) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Chalmers 2002] I'm not sure what 'via' could mean here. Since I don't know any other way than attempted conceivability for assessing a possibility, I am a bit baffled by this idea. |