22 ideas
| 17713 | After 1903, Husserl avoids metaphysical commitments [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In Husserl's philosophy after 1903, he is unwilling to commit himself to any specific metaphysical views. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.2) |
| 17715 | The truth of the axioms doesn't matter for pure mathematics, but it does for applied [Mares] |
| Full Idea: The epistemological burden of showing that the axioms are true is removed if we are only studying pure mathematics. If, however, we want to look at applied mathematics, then this burden returns. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 11.4) | |
| A reaction: One of those really simple ideas that hits the spot. Nice. The most advanced applied mathematics must rest on counting and measuring. |
| 17716 | Mathematics is relations between properties we abstract from experience [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelians treat mathematical facts as relations between properties. These properties, moreover, are abstracted from our experience of things. ...This view finds a natural companion in structuralism. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 11.7) | |
| A reaction: This is the view of mathematics that I personally favour. The view that we abstract 'five' from a group of five pebbles is too simplistic, but this is the right general approach. |
| 16648 | Accidents must have formal being, if they are principles of real action, and of mental action and thought [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: Accidents are principles of acting and principles of cognizing substance, and are the per se objects of the senses. But it is ridiculous to say that something is a principle of acting (either real or intentional) and yet does not have any formal being. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.12.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.5 | |
| A reaction: Pasnau cites this as the key scholastic argument for accidental properties having some independent and real existence (as required for Transubstantiation). Rival views say accidents are just 'modes' of a thing's existence. Aquinas compromised. |
| 15386 | If only the singular exists, science is impossible, as that relies on true generalities [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
| Full Idea: Scotus argued that if everything is singular, with no objective common feature, science would be impossible, as it proceeds from general concepts. General is the opposite of singular, so it would be inadequate to understand a singular reality. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'John Duns' | |
| A reaction: [compressed] It is a fact that if you generalise about 'tigers', you are glossing over the individuality of each singular tiger. That is OK for 'electron', if they really are identical, but our general predicates may be imposing identity on electrons. |
| 15387 | If things were singular they would only differ numerically, but horse and tulip differ more than that [Duns Scotus, by Panaccio] |
| Full Idea: Scotus argued that there must be some non-singular aspects of things, since there are some 'less than numerical differences' among them. A horse and a tulip differ more from each other than do two horses. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Claude Panaccio - Medieval Problem of Universals 'John Duns' | |
| A reaction: This seems to treat being 'singular' as if it were being a singularity. Presumably he is contemplating a thing being nothing but its Scotist haecceity. A neat argument, but I don't buy it. |
| 16632 | We distinguish one thing from another by contradiction, because this is, and that is not [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: What is it [that establishes distinctness of things]? It is, to be sure, that which is universally the reason for distinguishing one thing from another: namely, a contradiction…..If this is, and that is not, then they are not the same entity in being. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.11.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.2 | |
| A reaction: This is a remarkably intellectualist view of such things. John Wycliff, apparently, enquired about how animals were going to manage all this sort of thing. It should appeal to the modern logical approach to metaphysics. |
| 13094 | The haecceity is the featureless thing which gives ultimate individuality to a substance [Duns Scotus, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: For Scotus, the haecceity of an individual was a positive non-quidditative entity which, together with a common nature from which it was formally distinct, played the role of the ultimate differentia, thus individuating the substance. | |
| From: report of John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.3 | |
| A reaction: Most thinkers seem to agree (with me) that this is a non-starter, an implausible postulate designed to fill a gap in a metaphysic that hasn't been properly worked out. Leibniz is the hero who faces the problem and works around it. |
| 16770 | It is absurd that there is no difference between a genuinely unified thing, and a mere aggregate [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: It seems absurd …that there should be no difference between a whole that is one thing per se, and a whole that is one thing by aggregation, like a cloud or a heap. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], III.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.5 | |
| A reaction: Leibniz invented monads because he was driven crazy by the quest for 'true unity' in things. Objective unity may be bogus, but I suspect that imposing plausible unity on things is the only way we can grasp the world. |
| 10919 | What prevents a stone from being divided into parts which are still the stone? [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: What is it in this stone, by which ...it is absolutely incompatible with the stone for it to be divided into several parts each of which is this stone, the kind of division that is proper to a universal whole as divided into its subjective parts? | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], II d3 p1 q2 n48) | |
| A reaction: This is the origin of the concept of haecceity, when Scotus wants to know what exactly individuates each separate entity. He may have been mistaken in thinking that such a question has an answer. |
| 16768 | Two things are different if something is true of one and not of the other [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: If this is, and that is not, then they are not the same entity in being. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Ordinatio [1302], IV.11.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the contrapositive of the indiscernibility of identicals, expressed in terms of what is true about a thing, rather than what properties pertain to it. |
| 17703 | Light in straight lines is contingent a priori; stipulated as straight, because they happen to be so [Mares] |
| Full Idea: It seems natural to claim that light rays moving in straight lines is contingent but a priori. Scientists stipulate that they are the standard by which we measure straightness, but their appropriateness for this task is a contingent feature of the world. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.9) | |
| A reaction: This resembles the metre rule in Paris. It is contingent that something is a certain way, so we make being that way a conventional truth, which can therefore be known via the convention, rather than via the contingent fact. |
| 17714 | Aristotelians dislike the idea of a priori judgements from pure reason [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelians tend to eschew talk about a special faculty of pure reason that is responsible for all of our a priori judgements. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.9) | |
| A reaction: He is invoking Carrie Jenkins's idea that the a priori is knowledge of relations between concepts which have been derived from experience. Nice idea. We thus have an empirical a priori, integrated into the natural world. Abstraction must be involved. |
| 17705 | Empiricists say rationalists mistake imaginative powers for modal insights [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Empiricist critiques of rationalism often accuse rationalists of confusing the limits of their imaginations with real insight into what is necessarily true. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 03.01) | |
| A reaction: See ideas on 'Conceivable as possible' for more on this. You shouldn't just claim to 'see' that something is true, but be willing to offer some sort of reason, truthmaker or grounding. Without that, you may be right, but you are on weak ground. |
| 17700 | The most popular view is that coherent beliefs explain one another [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In what is perhaps the most popular version of coherentism, a system of beliefs is a set of beliefs that explain one another. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 01.5) | |
| A reaction: These seems too simple. My first response would be that explanations are what result from coherence sets of beliefs. I may have beliefs that explain nothing, but at least have the virtue of being coherent. |
| 17704 | Operationalism defines concepts by our ways of measuring them [Mares] |
| Full Idea: The central claim of Percy Bridgman's theory of operational definitions (1920s), is that definitions of certain scientific concepts are given by the ways that we have to measure them. For example, a straight line is 'the path of a light ray'. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.9) | |
| A reaction: It is often observed that this captures the spirit of Special Relativity. |
| 17710 | Aristotelian justification uses concepts abstracted from experience [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Aristotelian justification is the process of reasoning using concepts that are abstracted from experience (rather than, say, concepts that are innate or those that we associate with the meanings of words). | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: See Carrie Jenkins for a full theory along these lines (though she doesn't mention Aristotle). This is definitely my preferred view of concepts. |
| 17706 | The essence of a concept is either its definition or its conceptual relations? [Mares] |
| Full Idea: In the 'classical theory' a concept includes in it those concepts that define it. ...In the 'theory theory' view the content of a concept is determined by its relationship to other concepts. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 03.10) | |
| A reaction: Neither of these seem to give an intrinsic account of a concept, or any account of how the whole business gets off the ground. |
| 17701 | Possible worlds semantics has a nice compositional account of modal statements [Mares] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds semantics is appealing because it gives a compositional analysis of the truth conditions of statements about necessity and possibility. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.2) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I get this. Is the meaning composed by the gradual addition of worlds? If not, how is meaning composed in the normal way, from component words and phrases? |
| 17702 | Unstructured propositions are sets of possible worlds; structured ones have components [Mares] |
| Full Idea: An unstructured proposition is a set of possible worlds. ....Structured propositions contain entities that correspond to various parts of the sentences or thoughts that express them. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: I am definitely in favour of structured propositions. It strikes me as so obvious as to be not worth discussion - so I am obviously missing something here. Mares says structured propositions are 'more convenient'. |
| 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. |
| 17708 | Maybe space has points, but processes always need regions with a size [Mares] |
| Full Idea: One theory is that space is made up of dimensionless points, but physical processes cannot take place in regions of less than a certain size. | |
| From: Edwin D. Mares (A Priori [2011], 06.7) | |
| A reaction: Thinkers in sympathy with verificationism presumably won't like this, and may prefer Feynman's view. |