62 ideas
| 18450 | Philosophy has its own mode of death, by separating soul from body [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: There is a double death. One, known by all men, consists in the separation of the body with the soul; the other, characteristic of philosophers, results in the separation of the soul from the body. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn9 3) |
| 19023 | Slippery slope arguments are challenges to show where a non-arbitrary boundary lies [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Slippery slope arguments are not intended as demonstrative arguments, but rather as a challenge to show where a boundary is, and to show that the boundary is not arbitrary. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.3.3) | |
| A reaction: [extracted from details of its context] You could respond by saying that a slippery slope levels off, rather than hitting a wall or plunging to perdition. |
| 19033 | Deontic modalities are 'ought-to-be', for sentences, and 'ought-to-do' for predicates [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Deontic modality can be divided into sentence-modifying 'ought-to-be' modals, and predicate-modifying 'ought-to-do' modals. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.9.2) | |
| A reaction: [She cites Brennan 1993] These two seem to correspond to what is 'good' (ought to be), and what is 'right' (ought to do). Since I like that distinction, I also like this one. |
| 19032 | S5 is undesirable, as it prevents necessities from having contingent grounds [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Wedgwood (2007:220) argues that S5 is undesirable because it excludes that necessary truths may have contingent grounds. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.4 n5) | |
| A reaction: Cameron defends the possibility of necessity grounded in contingency, against Blackburn's denial of it. It's interesting that we choose the logic on the basis of the metaphysics. Shouldn't there be internal reasons for a logic's correctness? |
| 19036 | The Barcan formula endorses either merely possible things, or makes the unactualised impossible [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Subscribers to the Barcan formula must either be committed to the existence of mere possibilia (such as possible unicorns), or deny many unactualised possibilities of existence. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: It increasingly strikes me that the implications of the Barcan formula are ridiculous. Williamson is its champion, but I'm blowed if I can see why. What could a possible unicorn be like? Without them, must we say unicorns are impossible? |
| 15375 | If terms change their designations in different states, they are functions from states to objects [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: The common feature of every designating term is that designation may change from state to state - thus it can be formalized by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3) | |
| A reaction: Specifying the objects sounds OK, but specifying states sounds rather tough. |
| 15376 | Intensional logic adds a second type of quantification, over intensional objects, or individual concepts [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: To first order modal logic (with quantification over objects) we can add a second kind of quantification, over intensions. An intensional object, or individual concept, will be modelled by a function from states to objects. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.3) |
| 15378 | Awareness logic adds the restriction of an awareness function to epistemic logic [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Awareness logic enriched Hintikka's epistemic models with an awareness function, mapping each state to the set of formulas we are aware of at that state. This reflects some bound on the resources we can bring to bear. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Fagin and Halpern 1988 for this] |
| 15379 | Justication logics make explicit the reasons for mathematical truth in proofs [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: In justification logics, the logics of knowledge are extended by making reasons explicit. A logic of proof terms was created, with a semantics. In this, mathematical truths are known for explicit reasons, and these provide a measure of complexity. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.6.1) |
| 11026 | Classical logic is deliberately extensional, in order to model mathematics [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Mathematics is typically extensional throughout (we write 3+2=2+3 despite the two terms having different meanings). ..Classical first-order logic is extensional by design since it primarily evolved to model the reasoning of mathematics. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §1) |
| 11028 | λ-abstraction disambiguates the scope of modal operators [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: λ-abstraction can be used to abstract and disambiguate a predicate. De re is [λx◊P(x)](f) - f has the possible-P property - and de dicto is ◊[λxP(x)](f) - possibly f has the P-property. Also applies to □. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], §3.3) | |
| A reaction: Compare the Barcan formula. Originated with Church in the 1930s, and Carnap 1947, but revived by Stalnaker and Thomason 1968. Because it refers to the predicate, it has a role in intensional versions of logic, especially modal logic. |
| 19034 | The world is either a whole made of its parts, or a container which contains its parts [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We can think of the world as a 'whole' that has everything as its parts, like raisins in a cake, or we can think of the world as a 'container', which is disjoint from everything there is, like a bottle containing water. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Space and time seem to have a special role here, and it is hard to think of any other candidates for being the 'container'. I think I will apply my 'what's it made of' test to ontology, and opt for the world as a 'whole'. |
| 19015 | Grounding can be between objects ('relational'), or between sentences ('operational') [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: 'Relational' grounding is between entities, best expressed by the two-place predicate 'x grounds y'. 'Operational' grounding is between sentences, best expressed by the two-place sentence operator read as 'because of' or 'in virtue of'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.6) |
| 19012 | The Humean supervenience base entirely excludes modality [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Humean supervenience excludes modality - the whole modal package - from the supervenience base. The Humean world is, at root, thoroughly non-modal. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This sums up my problem with David Lewis with perfect clarity. He is just excessively empirical. Hume himself also excluded modality from the basic impressions. Locke allows powerful essences (even if they are well hidden). |
| 19024 | A determinate property must be a unique instance of the determinable class [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The crucial feature of the determinates / determinables relation is that to possess the determinable property, an object must possess exactly one of the determinate properties. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.7.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a determinable being a function, and the determinate being its output. If 'scarlet' is a determinate of the determinables 'red' or 'coloured', it is not obvious that there is only one possible shade of scarlet. This schema oversimplifies. |
| 18451 | The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Being everywhere and nowhere, the incorporeal, wherever it happens to be, betrays its presence only by a certain kind of disposition. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 4Enn3 21(20)) | |
| A reaction: There is a mystical or dualist view of fundamental powers, as the spiritual engine which drives passive physical nature. It's rubbish of course, but if powers are primitive in a naturalistic theory, it is not a view which can be refuted. |
| 19021 | I have an 'iterated ability' to learn the violin - that is, the ability to acquire that ability [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: I do not have the ability to play the violin. Nor does my desk. Unlike my desk, however, I possess the ability to learn to play the violin - the ability, that is, to acquire the ability to play the violin. I have an 'iterated ability' to play the violin. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: An important idea, though the examples are more likely to come from human behaviour than from the non-human physical world. |
| 19016 | We should think of dispositions as 'to do' something, not as 'to do something, if ....' [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We should think in terms of dispositions in terms of the manifestation alone - not as a disposition to ...if..., but as a disposition to ..., full stop. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: This way of individuating dispositions seems plausible. Some dispositions only have one trigger, but others have many. All sorts of things are inclined to trigger a human smile, but we are just disposed to smile. Some people smile at disasters. |
| 19017 | Nomological dispositions (unlike ordinary ones) have to be continually realised [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Nomological dispositions such as electric charge seem different from ordinary dispositions. A particle's being electrically charged is not just a possibility of exerting a certain force. Rather, the particle has to exert a force in certain circumstances. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: I can only pull when there is something to pull, but a magnet seems to have a 'field' of attraction which is pullish in character. Does it detect something to pull (like a monad)? Can there be a force which has no object? |
| 19014 | How can spatiotemporal relations be understood in dispositional terms? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Spatiotemporal relations are a prime example of properties that are difficult to understand in dispositional terms. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.6) | |
| A reaction: [Vetter refers to A.Bird 2007 Ch.8 for an attempt] One approach would be to question whether they are 'properties'. I don't think of relations as properties, even if they are predicates. Is space a property of something? |
| 18459 | Diversity arises from the power of unity [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Diversity is born of the development of the power of unity. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 42) | |
| A reaction: I doubt whether even Porphyry understood this, but we might say that once the principle of unification enters into nature, it will inevitably result in diversity. One all-embracing unity would be indiscernible. |
| 19030 | Why does origin matter more than development; why are some features of origin more important? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Not every feature of an individual's origin is plausibly considered necessary, so we can distinguish two questions: 'why origin, rather than development?', and 'why these particular features of origin?'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: [she cites P. Mackie 1998] The point is that exactly where someone was born doesn't seem vital. If it is nothing more than that every contingent object must have an origin, that is not very exciting. |
| 19040 | We take origin to be necessary because we see possibilities as branches from actuality [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The plausibility of the necessity of origin is a symptom of our general tendency to think of possibility in terms of the 'branching model' - that unactualised possibilities must branch off from actuality, at some point. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.9) | |
| A reaction: [she cites P. Mackie 1998] It is hard to see how we could flatly deny some possibilities which had absolutely no connection with actuality, and were probably quite unimaginable for us. |
| 19008 | The modern revival of necessity and possibility treated them as special cases of quantification [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Necessity and possibility had a revival with the development of modal logic, treating them as special cases of the existential and universal quantifiers, ranging over an infinity of possible worlds. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The problem seems to be that possible worlds offer a very useful and interesting 'model' of modality, but say nothing at all about its nature. Any more than a weather map will show you what weather is. |
| 19029 | It is necessary that p means that nothing has the potentiality for not-p [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Necessities mark the limits of the potentialities that objects have. More precisely, it is necessary that p just in case nothing has, or had, or will have a potentiality to be such that not-p. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: [See Vetter's other ideas for her potentiality account of modality] If we wish to build a naturalistic account of modality (and if you don't want that then your untethered metaphysics will drift away in logical space) then this is the way to go. |
| 19028 | Possibilities are potentialities of actual things, but abstracted from their location [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: When we speak of possibility, we speak of potentiality in abstraction from its possessor; a possibility is a potentiality somewhere or other in the world, no matter where. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: I note that, as so often, this is psychological abstraction, which is usually sneered at by modern philosophers (e.g. Geach), and yet is employed all the time. This is Vetter's key thesis, which I like. |
| 19010 | All possibility is anchored in the potentiality of individual objects [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality is, metaphorically speaking, possibility anchored in individual objects; I claim that all possibility is thus anchored in some individual object(s) or other. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This will be fine for specific physical possibilities, but may become tricky for possibilities that are increasingly abstract, or universal, or idealised. I agree with the general approach. Anchor modality in reality (which is physical!). |
| 19013 | Possibility is a generalised abstraction from the potentiality of its bearer [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: We should think of possibility as potentiality in abstraction from its bearer. So 'it is possible that p' is defined as 'something has an iterated potentiality for it to be the case that p'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: If possibilities are abstractions from potentialities, I am inclined the treat potentialities as abstractions from dispositions, and dispositions (and properties) as abstractions from powers. Powers are not abstractions - they are the reality. |
| 23705 | A potentiality may not be a disposition, but dispositions are strong potentialities [Vetter, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye] |
| Full Idea: Although not all potentialities are dispositions, Vetter claims that all dispositions are potentialities which are had to a sufficiently high degree. | |
| From: report of Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015]) by Friend/Kimpton-Nye - Dispositions and Powers 2.4.2 | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible. A potentiality could be faint or negligible, but once it is a serious possibility it becomes a 'disposition'. ...I suppose. But if the meteor is probably going to hit my house, it doesn't mean it has a disposition to do so. |
| 19009 | Potentiality does the explaining in metaphysics; we don't explain it away or reduce it [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: This book is a plea for recognising potentiality as an explanans in the metaphysics of modality, rather than as something in need of explanation or reduction. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Something has to do the explaining, and it is obviously much better to have some aspect of the real world do the job, rather than remote abstractions such as laws, possible worlds or Forms. Personally I like the potentiality of 'powers'. |
| 19027 | Potentiality logic is modal system T. Stronger systems collapse iterations, and necessitate potentials [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The logic for potentiality corresponds to modal system T, the minimum for metaphysics. The S4 axiom ◊◊φ → ◊φ says iterated potentialities collapse, and the S5 ◊φ → □◊φ says potentialities can't be lost. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.9) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This seems persuasive. I nice example of modern analytic metaphysics, that you have to find a logic that suits your theory. N.Salmon defends system T for all of metaphysics, though most people favour S5. |
| 19025 | Potentialities may be too weak to count as 'dispositions' [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentialities may get exercised despite having a degree that is too low for them to qualify as dispositions. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.7.4) | |
| A reaction: The key reason why her book is called 'Potentialities', rather than 'Dispositions'. She still wants to offer a naturalistic picture which ties potentialities to individual objects, but I am wondering whether potentialities are too abstract for the job. |
| 19022 | Water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break (by freezing) [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Water has no potentiality to break. But water has a potentiality to be frozen and turn into ice, which does have a potentiality to break. So water has a potentiality to acquire a potentiality to break. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: Thus potentially has an 'iterated' character to it, and an appropriate modal logic for it will have to allow for those iterations. She suggests a version of System T modal logic. |
| 19019 | Potentiality is the common genus of dispositions, abilities, and similar properties [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality can now be recognised as the common genus of dispositions and such related properties as abilities. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Vetter defends a metaphysics of modality based on potentialities, rather than on narrower concepts such as dispositions, powers or essences. She can evade the problems which those narrower concepts raise. |
| 19031 | There are potentialities 'to ...', but possibilities are 'that ....'. [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Potentialities are 'potentialities to ....', while possibilities are 'possibilities that ....'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: This feels a bit like a stipulation, rather than a precise description of normal usage. That said, it is quite a nice distinction. It sounds as if an event follows a potentiality, and a state of affairs follows a possibility. Active and passive? |
| 19011 | If worlds are sets of propositions, how do we know which propositions are genuinely possible? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: If possible worlds are sets of propositions, we need some way to distinguish those sets of propositions that do from those that do not correspond to genuine possibilities. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The idea of a 'genuine' possibility does not seem to play a role in the conceptual scheme of those who treat possibility entirely in terms of possible worlds. If possibility is primitive, or is a set of worlds, there can be no criterion for 'genuine'. |
| 15377 | Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds [Fitting] |
| Full Idea: Definite descriptions pick out different objects in different possible worlds quite naturally. | |
| From: Melvin Fitting (Intensional Logic [2007], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: A definite description can pick out the same object in another possible world, or a very similar one, or an object which has almost nothing in common with the others. |
| 19037 | Are there possible objects which nothing has ever had the potentiality to produce? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Is it not possible that there be objects with (natural) properties that no actual thing ever had the potentiality to have, to produce, or constitute? (Call such properties 'super-alien properties'). | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: This is a problem for her potentiality account of possibility. Her solution is (roughly) to either deny the super-aliens, or have chains of iterated possibility which take this case back to actuality. That sounds OK to me. |
| 18452 | Memory is not conserved images, but reproduction of previous thought [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Memory does not consist in preserving images. It is a faculty of reproducing the conceptions with which our soul has been occupied. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn6 25(2)) |
| 19018 | Explanations by disposition are more stable and reliable than those be external circumstances [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Patterns of behaviour may be explained by circumstances external to the individual, but dispositional explanations, based on the instrinsic make-up of individuals are typically more reliable and stable. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is very nice support for the view I have been defending. She doesn't deal in essences, and prefers 'potentialities' (as broader) to 'dispositions'. The point is to explain events by the natures of the ingredients. |
| 19020 | Grounding is a kind of explanation, suited to metaphysics [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Grounding is a kind of explanation - and specifically, the kind of metaphysical explanation that metaphysicians are after. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: Depending on how you interpret 'grounding', it is plausible that it is the sort of explanation that physicists and economists are after as well. If the aim is to understand the structure of everything, the target is to know what grounds what. |
| 18453 | Intelligence is aware of itself, so the intelligence is both the thinker and the thought [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Since intelligence is intelligible for intelligence, intelligence is its own object. ...Intelligence, therefore, is simultaneously thinker and thought, all that thinks and all that is thought. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
| A reaction: This is a bit of a problem for Descartes, if the Cogito is taken as offering evidence (thought) for the existence of a thinker ('I'). Porphyry implies that the separation Descartes requires is impossible. |
| 18462 | The soul is everywhere and nowhere in the body, and must be its cause [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The soul is neither a body, nor in the body, but is only the cause of the body, because she is simultaneously everywhere and nowhere in the body. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) | |
| A reaction: This is the rather bewildering phenomenology of consciousness which persuaded Descartes of dualism. |
| 18463 | Successful introspection reveals the substrate along with the object of thought [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: He who by thought can penetrate within his own substance, and can thus acquire knowledge of it, finds himself in this actualisation of knowledge and consciousness, where the substrate that knows is identical with the object that is known. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 44) | |
| A reaction: It seems remarkably that this ability is confidently asserted by Porphyry, and flatly denied by Hume. Were they just different people, or were they looking for different things, or was one of them deluded? |
| 18458 | The soul is bound to matter by the force of its own disposition [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The individual soul, which declines towards matter, is bound to the matter by the form which her disposition has made her choose. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 39) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the soul is boss over the matter, and yet the soul is 'made' to choose union with matter. The Universal Soul is seen by Porphyr as the controller of the situation. |
| 18464 | Justice is each person fulfilling his function [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Justice, as has been rightly said, consists in each one fulfilling his [authentic and proper] function. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 44) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably a direct reference to the theory in Plato's 'Republic'. It makes the connection between virtue and function which I take to be basic to virtue theory, giving it a naturalistic advantaged over other theories. |
| 18448 | We should avoid the pleasures of love, or at least, should not enact our dreams [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The pleasures of love will not even involuntarily be tasted, at least, she will not allow herself to be drawn beyond the lights of fancy that occur in dreams. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
| A reaction: Presumably erotic dreams are only tolerated because not much can be done about them. This brings out the puritanism of neo-platonism. |
| 18444 | Civil virtues make us behave benevolently, and thereby unite citizens [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The object of the civil virtues is to make us benevolent in our dealings with our fellow-human beings, and are so-called because they unite citizens. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.1) | |
| A reaction: Modern commentators underestimate the close link between ancient virtue and citizenship. It is hard for one person to have much of a notion of virtue if they live on a desert island, beyond caring for personal health. |
| 18445 | Civil virtues control the passions, and make us conform to our nature [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The civil virtues moderate the passions; their object is to teach us to live in conformity with the laws of human nature. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.2) | |
| A reaction: The link with human nature is basic to virtue theory, but this proposal is rather too vague. Are passions not part of the laws of human nature? |
| 18446 | Purificatory virtues detach the soul completely from the passions [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The object of the 'purificatory' virtues is to detach the soul completely from the passions. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
| A reaction: This is an aspect of virtue theory which doesn't appear in Aristotle. He is in favour of rational control of the passions, but not of totally abandoning them. The neo-platonists are much more puritanical. They seem to go against human nature. |
| 18447 | There are practical, purificatory, contemplative, and exemplary virtues [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The practical virtues make man virtuous; the purificatory virtues make man divine....; the contemplative virtues defiy; while the exemplary virtues make a man the parent of divinities. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn2 I.4) | |
| A reaction: I like the idea of the 'exemplary' virtues. I think an entire theory of morality could be built on the notion that we are all role-models for one another. |
| 18456 | Unified real existence is neither great nor small, though greatness and smallness participate in it [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: By its identity and numerical unity, real existence is neither great nor small, neither very large nor very small, though it causes even greatest and smallest to participate in its nature. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 37(5)) | |
| A reaction: Note the platonic word 'participate' [metechein], suggesting that he is talking about the Form of Existence here. Note also that we have 'real' existence here, implying a lesser type of existence that participates in it. |
| 19039 | The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The Armstrong/Tooley/Dretske view, which takes laws to be substantial but grounded in a relation of nomic necessitation external to the properties themselves, is not an attractive option for the dispositionalist. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.8) | |
| A reaction: The point is that the dispositionalist sees laws as grounded in the properties. I prefer her other option, of dispositionalism plus a 'shallow' view of laws (which she attributes to Mumford). The laws are as Lewis says, but powers explain them. |
| 19038 | Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Even on the dispositional essentialist view the world might have been governed by different laws, if those laws involved different properties. What is excluded is the possibility of different laws involving the same properties as our actual laws. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.8) | |
| A reaction: Important. Critics of dispositional essentialism accuse it of promoting the idea that the laws of nature are necessary, a claim for which we obviously have no evidence. I prefer to say they are necessary given that 'stuff', rather than those properties. |
| 18454 | Time is the circular movement of the soul [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: It is the circular movement of the soul that constitutes time, just as the permanence of intelligence in itself constitutes eternity. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
| A reaction: Plato loved circles. If you think time is subjective, this is trying to express your intuition. Personally I think it is nonsense |
| 18455 | Some think time is seen at rest, as well as in movement [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Some have believed that time manifested in rest as well as in movement. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 5Enn3 32(5-7)) | |
| A reaction: If you like this idea, you should see Shoemaker's lovely three-worlds thought experiment. |
| 19026 | If time is symmetrical between past and future, why do they look so different? [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Any defender of the symmetry of time will have to provide some explanation of the obstinate appearance that the future is very different from the past. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 5.8) | |
| A reaction: Presumably you have to say that it is all there, but only one end of the time spectrum is revealed to us, namely the past. But how do we get this uniquely lopsided view? Being an ominiscient god is more obvious than being a lopsided human. |
| 19041 | Presentists explain cross-temporal relations using surrogate descriptions [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: Presentists usually deal with the lack of cross-temporal relations by the construction of a surrogate, by way of paraphrasing the objectionable relation ascriptions. 'I admire Socrates' becomes 'I admire the Socrates properties'. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.9) | |
| A reaction: [compressed. The cites Markosian 2004:63] Why can't I just say 'I admire Socrates, who no longer exists'? The present includes tensed facts, and memories and evidence-based theories. Admiring is not a direct relation between objects. |
| 18460 | God is nowhere, and hence everywhere [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: The divinity is everywhere because it is nowhere. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) |
| 18461 | Everything existing proceeds from divinity, and is within divinity [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: All things that possess or do not possess existence proceed from divinity, and are within divinity. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 43) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see Porphyry endorsing Meinongian objects. I doubt whether he counts as a pantheist, but this is a very pantheistic remark. |
| 18449 | Nature binds or detaches body to soul, but soul itself joins and detaches soul from body [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Nature binds the body to the soul, but it is the soul herself that has bound herself to the body. It, therefore, belongs to nature to detach the body from the soul, while it is the soul herself that detaches herself from the body. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 1Enn9 2) | |
| A reaction: Baffling. What happens if there is a conflict? I suppose either party can cancel the bargain, but who wins when they disagree? |
| 18457 | Individual souls are all connected, though distinct, and without dividing universal Soul [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Individual souls are distinct without being separated from each other, and without dividing the universal Soul into a number of parts; they are united to each other without becoming confused. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn4 39) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like Jung's theory that there is a universal subconscious which links us all together. Taken literally, I assume it is nonsense. As an invitation to acknowledge how much we all have in common, it is a nice corrective to liberal individualism. |