7 ideas
18914 | Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen] |
Full Idea: An alternative, and still controversial, extension of first-order logic is due to Donald Davidson, who allows for quantification over events. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3 | |
A reaction: I'm suddenly thinking this is quite an attractive proposal. We need to quantify over facts, or states of affairs, or events, or some such thing, to talk about the world properly. Objects, predicates and sets/parts is too sparse. I like facts. |
9843 | You can't identify events by causes and effects, as the event needs to be known first [Dummett on Davidson] |
Full Idea: Davidson's criterion for the identity of events is a mistake, because we cannot know the causes and effects of an event until we know what that event comprises. | |
From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.10 | |
A reaction: How many attempts by analytical philosophers to give necessary and sufficient conditions for things seem to founder in this way. Their predecessor is at the end of 'Theaetetus'; you have to know what the sun is before you can define it. |
14602 | Events can only be individuated causally [Davidson, by Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: Davidson claims that events can only be individuated causally. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], 3) by Jonathan Schaffer - Causation and Laws of Nature 3 | |
A reaction: Schaffer rejects this in favour of individuating events by their spatiotemporal locations and intrinsic natures (which seem to be property instantiations, a la Kim). Schaffer was a pupil of David Lewis. |
14004 | We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne] |
Full Idea: Davidson claims that we require the existence of events in order to make sense of a) action statements, b) causal statements, c) explanation, d) the mind-body problem, and e) the logic of adverbial modification. | |
From: report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], Intro IIb) by Craig Bourne - A Future for Presentism | |
A reaction: Events are a nice shorthand, but I don't like them in a serious ontology. Prior says there objects and what happens to them; Kim reduces events to other things. Processes are more clearly individuated than events. |
8278 | The claim that events are individuated by their causal relations to other events is circular [Lowe on Davidson] |
Full Idea: Davidson has urged that events are individuated by the causal relations which they bear to one another, in accordance with the principle that events are identical just in case they have the same causes and effects. But the principle is viciously circular. | |
From: comment on Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 7.4 | |
A reaction: You wouldn't want to identify a person just by their relationships, even though those will certainly be unique. Generally it is what I am (right now) naming as the Functional Fallacy: believing that specifying the function of x explains x. |
20565 | Men are created equal, and with certain inalienable rights [Jefferson] |
Full Idea: We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that all Men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the Pursuit of Happiness. | |
From: Thomas Jefferson (U.S. Declaration of Independence [1775]), quoted by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.4 | |
A reaction: In the context, saying equality and rights are 'natural' is just a way of saying we will fight to the death to defend them. The big modern problem for the U.S. is that nominal equality before the law doesn't ensure equality in society. |
7825 | The politics of Leibniz was the reunification of Christianity [Stewart,M] |
Full Idea: The politics of Leibniz may be summed up in one word: theocracy. The specific agenda motivating much of his work was to reunite the Protestant and Catholic churches | |
From: Matthew Stewart (The Courtier and the Heretic [2007], Ch. 5) | |
A reaction: This would be a typical project for a rationalist philosopher, who thinks that good reasoning will gradually converge on the one truth. |