71 ideas
| 13395 | If an analysis shows the features of a concept, it doesn't seem to 'reduce' the concept [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: An analysis of a concept tells us what the concept is by telling us what its constituents are and how they are combined. ..The features of the concept are present in the analysis, making it surprising the 'reductive' analyses are sought. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: He says that there are nevertheless reductive analyses, such as David Lewis's analysis of modality. We must disentangle conceptual analysis from causal analysis (e.g. in his example of the physicalist reduction of mind). |
| 16295 | Tarski proved that truth cannot be defined from within a given theory [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's Theorem states that under fairly generally applicable conditions, the assumption that there is a definition of truth within a given theory for the language of that same theory leads to a contradiction. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 1 | |
| A reaction: That might leave room for a definition outside the given theory. I take the main motivation for the axiomatic approach to be a desire to get a theory of truth within the given theory, where Tarski's Theorem says traditional approaches are just wrong. |
| 15342 | Tarski proved that any reasonably expressive language suffers from the liar paradox [Tarski, by Horsten] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's Theorem on the undefinability of truth says in a language sufficiently rich to talk about itself (which Gödel proved possible, via coding) the liar paradox can be carried out. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.2 | |
| A reaction: The point is that truth is formally indefinable if it leads inescapably to contradiction, which the liar paradox does. This theorem is the motivation for all modern attempts to give a rigorous account of truth. |
| 19069 | 'True sentence' has no use consistent with logic and ordinary language, so definition seems hopeless [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of a consistent use of 'true sentence' which is in harmony with the laws of logic and the spirit of everyday language seems to be very questionable, so the same doubt attaches to the possibility of constructing a correct definition. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933], §1) | |
| A reaction: This is often cited as Tarski having conclusively proved that 'true' cannot be defined from within a language, but his language here is much more circumspect. Modern critics say the claim depends entirely on classical logic. |
| 16296 | Tarski's Theorem renders any precise version of correspondence impossible [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's Theorem applies to any sufficient precise version of the correspondence theory of truth, and all the other traditional theories of truth. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 1 | |
| A reaction: This is the key reason why modern thinkers have largely dropped talk of the correspondence theory. See Idea 16295. |
| 10672 | Tarskian semantics says that a sentence is true iff it is satisfied by every sequence [Tarski, by Hossack] |
| Full Idea: Tarskian semantics says that a sentence is true iff it is satisfied by every sequence, where a sequence is a set-theoretic individual, a set of ordered pairs each with a natural number as its first element and an object from the domain for its second. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Keith Hossack - Plurals and Complexes 3 |
| 15339 | Tarski gave up on the essence of truth, and asked how truth is used, or how it functions [Tarski, by Horsten] |
| Full Idea: Tarski emancipated truth theory from traditional philosophy, by no longer posing Pilate's question (what is truth? or what is the essence of truth?) but instead 'how is truth used?', 'how does truth function?' and 'how can its functioning be described?'. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 02.2 | |
| A reaction: Horsten, later in the book, does not give up on the essence of truth, and modern theorists are trying to get back to that question by following Tarski's formal route. Modern analytic philosophy at its best, it seems to me. |
| 16302 | Tarski did not just aim at a definition; he also offered an adequacy criterion for any truth definition [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski did not settle for a definition of truth, taking its adequacy for granted. Rather he proposed an adequacy criterion for evaluating the adequacy of definitions of truth. The criterion is his famous Convention T. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 | |
| A reaction: Convention T famously says the sentence is true if and only if a description of the sentence is equivalent to affirming the sentence. 'Snow is white' iff snow is white. |
| 19135 | Tarski enumerates cases of truth, so it can't be applied to new words or languages [Davidson on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Tarski does not tell us how to apply his concept of truth to a new case, whether the new case is a new language or a word newly added to a language. This is because enumerating cases gives no clue for the next or general case. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
| A reaction: His account has been compared to a telephone directory. We aim to understand the essence of anything, so that we can fully know it, and explain and predict how it will behave. Either truth is primitive, or I demand to know its essence. |
| 19138 | Tarski define truths by giving the extension of the predicate, rather than the meaning [Davidson on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Tarski defined the class of true sentences by giving the extension of the truth predicate, but he did not give the meaning. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
| A reaction: This is analogous to giving an account of the predicate 'red' as the set of red objects. Since I regard that as a hopeless definition of 'red', I am inclined to think the same of Tarski's account of truth. It works in the logic, but so what? |
| 4699 | Tarski made truth relative, by only defining truth within some given artificial language [Tarski, by O'Grady] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's account doesn't hold for natural languages. The general notion of truth is replaced by "true-in-L", where L is a formal language. Hence truth is relativized to each artificial language. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This is a pretty good indication that Tarski's theory is NOT a correspondence theory, even if its structure may sometimes give that impression. |
| 19324 | Tarski has to avoid stating how truths relate to states of affairs [Kirkham on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Tarski has to define truths so as not to make explicit the relation between a true sentence and an obtaining state of affairs. ...He has to list each sentence separately, and simply assign it a state of affairs. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.8 | |
| A reaction: He has to avoid semantic concepts like 'reference', because he wants a physicalist theory, according to Kirkham. Thus the hot interest in theories of reference in the 1970s/80s. And also attempts to give a physicalist account of meaning. |
| 15410 | Truth only applies to closed formulas, but we need satisfaction of open formulas to define it [Burgess on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: In Tarski's theory of truth, although the notion of truth is applicable only to closed formulas, to define it we must define a more general notion of satisfaction applicable to open formulas. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by John P. Burgess - Philosophical Logic 1.8 | |
| A reaction: This is a helpful pointer to what is going on in the Tarski definition. It culminates in the 'satisfaction of all sequences', which presumable delivers the required closed formula. |
| 18811 | Tarski uses sentential functions; truly assigning the objects to variables is what satisfies them [Tarski, by Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: Tarski invoked the notion of a sentential function, where components are replaced by appropriate variables. A function is then satisfied by assigning objects to variables. An assignment satisfies if the function is true of the things assigned. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 3.2 | |
| A reaction: [very compressed] This use of sentential functions, rather than sentences, looks like the key to Tarski's definition of truth. |
| 15365 | We can define the truth predicate using 'true of' (satisfaction) for variables and some objects [Tarski, by Horsten] |
| Full Idea: The truth predicate, says Tarski, should be defined in terms of the more primitive satisfaction relation: the relation of being 'true of'. The fundamental notion is a formula (containing the free variables) being true of a sequence of objects as values. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 06.3 |
| 19314 | For physicalism, reduce truth to satisfaction, then define satisfaction as physical-plus-logic [Tarski, by Kirkham] |
| Full Idea: Tarski, a physicalist, reduced semantics to physical and/or logicomathematical concepts. He defined all semantic concepts, save satisfaction, in terms of truth. Then truth is defined in terms of satisfaction, and satisfaction is given non-semantically. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.1 | |
| A reaction: The term 'logicomathematical' is intended to cover set theory. Kirkham says you can remove these restrictions from Tarski's theory, and the result is a version of the correspondence theory. |
| 19316 | Insight: don't use truth, use a property which can be compositional in complex quantified sentence [Tarski, by Kirkham] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's great insight is find another property, since open sentences are not truth. It must be had by open and genuine sentences. Clauses having it must generate it for the whole sentence. Truth can be defined for sentences by using it. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.4 | |
| A reaction: The proposed property is 'satisfaction', which can (unlike truth) be a feature open sentences (such as 'x is green', which is satisfied by x='grass'), |
| 19175 | Tarski gave axioms for satisfaction, then derived its explicit definition, which led to defining truth [Tarski, by Davidson] |
| Full Idea: Tarski turned his axiomatic characterisation of satisfaction into an explicit definition of the satisfaction-predicate using some fancy set theoretical apparatus, and this in turn leads to the explicit definition of the truth predicate. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 7 |
| 16303 | Tarski made truth respectable, by proving that it could be defined [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's proof of the definability of truth allowed him to establish truth as a respectable notion by his standards. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 |
| 19134 | Tarski defined truth for particular languages, but didn't define it across languages [Davidson on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Tarski defined various predicates of the form 's is true in L', each applicable to a single language, but he failed to define a predicate of the form 's is true in L' for variable 'L'. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Donald Davidson - Truth and Predication 1 | |
| A reaction: You might say that no one defines 'tree' to be just 'in English', but we might define 'multiplies' to be in Peano Arithmetic. This indicates the limited and formal nature of what Tarski was trying to achieve. |
| 16304 | Tarski didn't capture the notion of an adequate truth definition, as Convention T won't prove non-contradiction [Halbach on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Every really adequate theory of truth should also prove the law of non-contradiction. Therefore Tarski's notion of adequacy in Convention T fails to capture the intuitive notion of adequacy he is after. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 | |
| A reaction: Tarski points out this weakness, in a passage quoted by Halbach. This obviously raises the question of what truth theories should prove, and this is explored by Halbach. If they start to prove arithmetic, we get nervous. Non-contradiction and x-middle? |
| 2571 | Tarski says that his semantic theory of truth is completely neutral about all metaphysics [Tarski, by Haack] |
| Full Idea: Tarski says "we may remain naïve realists or idealists, empiricists or metaphysicians… The semantic conception is completely neutral toward all these issues." | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Susan Haack - Philosophy of Logics 7.5 |
| 10821 | Physicalists should explain reference nonsemantically, rather than getting rid of it [Tarski, by Field,H] |
| Full Idea: Tarski work was to persuade physicalist that eliminating semantics was on the wrong track, and that we should explicate notions in the theory of reference nonsemantically rather than simply get rid of them. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Hartry Field - Tarski's Theory of Truth §3 |
| 10822 | A physicalist account must add primitive reference to Tarski's theory [Field,H on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: We need to add theories of primitive reference to Tarski's account if we are to establish the notion of truth as a physicalistically acceptable notion. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Hartry Field - Tarski's Theory of Truth §4 | |
| A reaction: This is the main point of Field's paper, and sounds very plausible to me. There is something major missing from Tarski, and at some point there needs to be a 'primitive' notion of thought and language making contact with the world, as it can't be proved. |
| 10969 | Tarski had a theory of truth, and a theory of theories of truth [Tarski, by Read] |
| Full Idea: Besides a theory of truth of his own, Tarski developed a theory of theories of truth. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Stephen Read - Thinking About Logic Ch.1 | |
| A reaction: The famous snow biconditional is the latter, and the recursive account based on satisfaction is the former. |
| 17746 | Tarski's 'truth' is a precise relation between the language and its semantics [Tarski, by Walicki] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's analysis of the concept of 'truth' ...is given a precise treatment as a particular relation between syntax (language) and semantics (the world). | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Michal Walicki - Introduction to Mathematical Logic History E.1 | |
| A reaction: My problem is that the concept of truth seems to apply to animal minds, which are capable of making right or wrong judgements, and of realising their errors. Tarski didn't make universal claims for his account. |
| 10904 | Tarskian truth neglects the atomic sentences [Mulligan/Simons/Smith on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: The Tarskian account of truth neglects the atomic sentences. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Mulligan/Simons/Smith - Truth-makers §1 | |
| A reaction: Yes! The whole Tarskian edifice is built on a foundation which it is taboo even to mention. If truth is just the assignment of 'T' and 'F', that isn't even the beginnings of a theory of 'truth'. |
| 15322 | Tarski's had the first axiomatic theory of truth that was minimally adequate [Tarski, by Horsten] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's work is the earliest axiomatic theory of truth that meets minimal adequacy conditions. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Leon Horsten - The Tarskian Turn 01.1 | |
| A reaction: This shows a way in which Tarski gave a new direction to the study of truth. Subsequent theories have been 'stronger'. |
| 16306 | Tarski defined truth, but an axiomatisation can be extracted from his inductive clauses [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski preferred a definition of truth, but from that an axiomatisation can be extracted. His induction clauses can be turned into axioms. Hence he opened the way to axiomatic theories of truth. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 3 |
| 13378 | It is a mistake to think that the logic developed for mathematics can clarify language and philosophy [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: It has often been uncritically assumed that logic that was initially a tool for clarifying mathematics could be seamlessly and uniformly applied in the effort to clarify ordinary language and philosophy, but this has been a real mistake. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I'm not saying he's right (since you need stupendous expertise to make that call) but my intuitions are that he has a good point, and he is at least addressing a crucial question which most analytical philosophers avert their eyes from. |
| 18759 | Identity is invariant under arbitrary permutations, so it seems to be a logical term [Tarski, by McGee] |
| Full Idea: Tarski showed that the only binary relations invariant under arbitrary permutations are the universal relation, the empty relation, identity and non-identity, thus giving us a reason to include '=' among the logical terms. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Vann McGee - Logical Consequence 6 | |
| A reaction: Tarski was looking for a criterion to distinguish logical from non-logical terms, since his account of logical validity depended on it. This idea lies behind whether a logic is or is not specified to be 'with identity' (i.e. using '='). |
| 13402 | We only grasp a name if we know whether to apply it when the bearer changes [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: We cannot be said to have a full grasp of a name unless we have a definite disposition to apply it or to withhold it under whatever conceivable changes the bearer of the name might come to undergo. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This is right, and an excellent counterproposal to the logicians' notion that names have to rigidly designate. As a bare minimum, you are not supposed to deny the identity of your parents because they have grown a bit older, or a damaged painting. |
| 13405 | The baptiser picks the bearer of a name, but social use decides the category [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The person who introduces a proper name gets to pick its bearer, but its category - and consequently the meaning of the name - is determined by social use. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 7) | |
| A reaction: New 'division of labour'. The idea that a name has some sort of meaning seems right and important. If babies were switched after baptism, social use might fix the name to the new baby. The namer could stipulate the category at the baptism. Too neat. |
| 13399 | Examples show that ordinary proper names are not rigid designators [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: There are plenty of examples to show that ordinary proper names simply are not rigid designators. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: His examples are the planet Venus and the dust of which it is formed, and a statue made of clay. In other words, for some objects, perhaps under certain descriptions (e.g. functional ones), the baptised matter can change. Rigidity is an extra topping. |
| 10823 | A name denotes an object if the object satisfies a particular sentential function [Tarski] |
| Full Idea: To say that the name x denotes a given object a is the same as to stipulate that the object a ... satisfies a sentential function of a particular type. | |
| From: Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933], p.194) |
| 13398 | We could make a contingent description into a rigid and necessary one by adding 'actual' to it [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: 'The winner of the Derby' satisfies some horse, but only accidentally. But we could 'rigidify' the description by inserting 'actual' into it, giving 'the actual winner of the Derby'. Winning is a contingent property, but actually winning is necessary. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: I like this unusual proposal because instead of switching into formal logic in order to capture the ideas we are after, he is drawing on the resources of ordinary language, offering philosophers a way of speaking plain English more precisely. |
| 13392 | Philosophers reduce complex English kind-quantifiers to the simplistic first-order quantifier [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: There is a readiness of philosophers to 'translate' English, with its seeming multitude of kind-driven quantifiers, into first-order logic, with its single wide-open quantifier. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: As in example he says that reference to a statue involves a 'statue-quantifier'. Thus we say things about the statue that we would not say about the clay, which would involve a 'clay-quantifier'. |
| 18756 | Tarski built a compositional semantics for predicate logic, from dependent satisfactions [Tarski, by McGee] |
| Full Idea: Tarski discovered how to give a compositional semantics for predicate calculus, defining truth in terms of satisfaction, and showing how satisfaction for a complicated formula depends on satisfaction of the simple subformulas. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Vann McGee - Logical Consequence 4 | |
| A reaction: The problem was that the subformulas may contain free variables, and thus not be sentences with truth values. 'Satisfaction' can handle this, where 'truth' cannot (I think). |
| 19313 | Tarksi invented the first semantics for predicate logic, using this conception of truth [Tarski, by Kirkham] |
| Full Idea: Tarski invented a formal semantics for quantified predicate logic, the logic of reasoning about mathematics. The heart of this great accomplishment is his theory of truth. It has been called semantic 'theory' of truth, but Tarski preferred 'conception'. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Richard L. Kirkham - Theories of Truth: a Critical Introduction 5.1 |
| 16323 | The object language/ metalanguage distinction is the basis of model theory [Tarski, by Halbach] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's distinction between object and metalanguage forms the basis of model theory. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Volker Halbach - Axiomatic Theories of Truth 11 |
| 8940 | Tarski avoids the Liar Paradox, because truth cannot be asserted within the object language [Tarski, by Fisher] |
| Full Idea: In Tarski's account of truth, self-reference (as found in the Liar Paradox) is prevented because the truth predicate for any given object language is never a part of that object language, and so a sentence can never predicate truth of itself. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Jennifer Fisher - On the Philosophy of Logic 03.I | |
| A reaction: Thus we solve the Liar Paradox by ruling that 'you are not allowed to say that'. Hm. The slightly odd result is that in any conversation about whether p is true, we end up using (logically speaking) two different languages simultaneously. Hm. |
| 10154 | Tarski's theory of truth shifted the approach away from syntax, to set theory and semantics [Feferman/Feferman on Tarski] |
| Full Idea: Tarski's theory of truth has been most influential in eventually creating a shift from the entirely syntactic way of doing things in metamathematics (promoted by Hilbert in the 1920s, in his theory of proofs), towards a set-theoretical, semantic approach. | |
| From: comment on Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Feferman / Feferman - Alfred Tarski: life and logic Int III |
| 13404 | To exist necessarily is to have an essence whose own essence must be instantiated [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: For a thing to exist necessarily is for it to have an entity-essence whose own entity-essence entails being instantiated. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the culmination of a lengthy discussion, and is not immediately persuasive. For Jubien the analysis rests on a platonist view of properties, which doesn't help. |
| 13386 | If objects are just conventional, there is no ontological distinction between stuff and things [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Under the Quinean (conventional) view of objects, there is no ontological distinction between stuff and things. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: This is the bold nihilistic account of physical objects, which seems to push all of our ontology into language (English?). We could devise divisions into things that were just crazy, and likely to lead to the rapid extinction of creatures who did it. |
| 13403 | The category of Venus is not 'object', or even 'planet', but a particular class of good-sized object [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The category of Venus is not 'physical object' or 'mereological sum', but narrower. Surprisingly, it is not 'planet', since it might cease to be a planet and still merit the name 'Venus'. It is something like 'well-integrated, good-sized physical object'. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: Jubien is illustrating Idea 13402. This is a nice demonstration of how one might go about the task of constructing categories - by showing the modal profiles of things to which names have been assigned. Categories are file names. |
| 14348 | An 'antidote' allows a manifestation to begin, but then blocks it [Corry] |
| Full Idea: An 'antidote' (or 'mask') to a disposition (unlike a 'finkish' one) leaves the disposition intact, but interferes with the causal chain between the disposition and its manifestation so that the manifestation doesn't come about. | |
| From: Richard Corry (Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Bird 1997] Thus the disposition of the poison at least begins to manifest, but its disposition to kill is blocked. So what was the disposition of the poison? |
| 14347 | A 'finkish' disposition is one that is lost immediately after the appropriate stimulus [Corry] |
| Full Idea: An object's disposition is said to be 'finkish' if the object loses the disposition after the occurrence of the appropriate stimulus, but before the manifestation has had time to come about. | |
| From: Richard Corry (Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Lewis 1997] An example would be some sort of safety device which only cuts in if the disposition seems about to operate (e.g. turns off electricity). It seems to block analyses of dispositions simply in terms of their outcomes. |
| 14350 | If a disposition is never instantiated, it shouldn't be part of our theory of nature [Corry] |
| Full Idea: If we have no good reason to believe that a disposition is instantiated, then the disposition should play no role in our theorizing about the world. | |
| From: Richard Corry (Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? [2010], 3) | |
| A reaction: It is part of our theory that a substantial lump of uranium will explode, but also that a galaxy-sized lump of uranium would explode. Surely we are committed to the latter, even though it never happens? |
| 13375 | The idea that every entity must have identity conditions is an unfortunate misunderstanding [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The pervasiveness, throughout philosophy, of the assumption that entities of various kinds need identity conditions is one unfortunate aspect of Quine's important philosophical legacy. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Lowe seems to be an example of a philosopher who habitually demands individuation conditions for everything that is referred to. Presumably the alternative is to take lots of things as primitive, but this seems to be second best. |
| 13393 | Any entity has the unique property of being that specific entity [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: For any entity of any sort, abstract or concrete, I assume there is a property of being that specific entity. For want of a better term, I will call such properties entity-essences. They are 'singulary' - not instantiable by more than one thing at a time. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Baffling. Why would someone who has mocked all sorts of bogus philosophical claims based on logic then go on to assert the existence of such weird things as these? I can't make sense of this property being added to a thing's other properties. |
| 13388 | It is incoherent to think that a given entity depends on its kind for its existence [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: It is simply far-fetched - even incoherent - to think that, given an entity, of whatever kind, its being a single entity somehow consists in its satisfying some condition involving the kind to which it belongs (or concepts related to that kind). | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: Well said. I can't see how philosophers have allowed themselves to drift into such a daft view. Kinds blatantly depend on the individuals that constitute them, so how could the identity of the individuals depend on their kind? |
| 13384 | Objects need conventions for their matter, their temporal possibility, and their spatial possibility [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: We need a first convention to determine what matter constitutes objects, then a second to determine whether there are different temporal possibilities for a given object, then a third for different spatial possibilities. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: This is building up a Quinean account of objects, as mere matter in regions of spacetime, which are then precisely determined by a set of social conventions. |
| 13385 | Basically, the world doesn't have ready-made 'objects'; we carve objects any way we like [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: There is a certain - very mild - sense in which I don't think the physical world comes with ready-made objects. I think instead that we (conventionally) carve it up into objects, and this can be done any way we like. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: I have no idea how one could begin to refute such a view. Obviously there are divisions (even if only of physical density) in the world, but nothing obliges us to make divisions at those points. We happily accept objects with gaps in them. |
| 13383 | If the statue is loved and the clay hated, that is about the object first qua statue, then qua clay [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If a sculptor says 'I love the statue but I really hate that piece of clay - it is way too hard to work with' ...the statement is partly is partly about that object qua statue and partly about that object qua piece of clay. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: His point is that identity is partly determined by the concept or category under which the thing falls. Plausible. Lots of identity muddles seem to come from our conceptual scheme not being quite up to the job when things change. |
| 13400 | If one entity is an object, a statue, and some clay, these come apart in at least three ways [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: A single entity is a physical object, a piece of clay and a statue. We seem to have that the object could be scattered, but not the other two; the object and the clay could be spherical, but not the statue; and only the object could have different matter. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: His proposal, roughly, is to reduce object-talk to property-talk, and then see the three views of this object as referring to different sets of properties, rather than to a single thing. Promising, except that he goes platonist about properties. |
| 13401 | The idea of coincident objects is a last resort, as it is opposed to commonsense naturalism [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I find it surprising that some philosophers accept 'coincident objects'. This notion clearly offends against commonsense 'naturalism' about the world, so it should be viewed as a last resort. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 5.2 n9) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite clear why he invokes 'naturalism', but I pass on his intuition because it seems right to me. |
| 13380 | Parts seem to matter when it is just an object, but not matter when it is a kind of object [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: When thought of just as an object, the parts of a thing seem definitive and their arrangement seems inconsequential. But when thought of as an object of a familiar kind it is reversed: the arrangement is important and the parts are inessential. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: This is analogous to the Ship of Theseus, where we say that the tour operator and the museum keeper give different accounts of whether it is the same ship. The 'kind' Jubien refers to is most likely to be a functional kind. |
| 13376 | We should not regard essentialism as just nontrivial de re necessity [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I argue against the widely accepted characterization of the doctrine of 'essentialism' as the acceptance of nontrivial de re necessity | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely. The notion of an essence is powerful if clearly distinguished. The test is: can everything being said about essences be just as easily said by referring to necessities? If so, you are talking about the wrong thing. |
| 13381 | Thinking of them as 'ships' the repaired ship is the original, but as 'objects' the reassembly is the original [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Thinking about the original ship as a ship, we think we continue to have the 'same ship' as each part is replaced; ...but when we think of them as physical objects, we think the original ship and the outcome of the reassembly are one and the same. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me that you cannot eliminate how we are thinking of the ship as influencing how we should read it. My suggestion is to think of Theseus himself valuing either the repaired or the reassembled version. That's bad for Jubien's account. |
| 13382 | Rearranging the planks as a ship is confusing; we'd say it was the same 'object' with a different arrangement [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: That the planks are rearranged as a ship elevates the sense of mystery, because arrangements matter for ships, but if they had been arranged differently we would have the same intuition - that it still counts as the same object. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: Implausible. Classic case: can I have my pen back? - smashes it to pieces and hands it over with 'there you are' - that's not my pen! - Jubien says it's the same object! - it isn't my pen, and it isn't the same object either! Where is Shelley's skylark? |
| 13379 | If two objects are indiscernible across spacetime, how could we decide whether or not they are the same? [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If a bit of matter has a qualitatively indistinguishable object located at a later time, with a path of spacetime connecting them, how could we determine they are identical? Neither identity nor diversity follows from qualitative indiscernibility. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: All these principles expounded by Leibniz were assumed to be timeless, but for identity over time the whole notion of things retaining identity despite changing has to be rethought. Essentialism to the rescue. |
| 13394 | Entailment does not result from mutual necessity; mutual necessity ensures entailment [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Typically philosophers say that for P to entail Q is for the proposition that all P's are Q's to be necessary. I think this analysis is backwards, and that necessity rests on entailment, not vice versa. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: His example is that being a horse and being an animal are such that one entails the other. In other words, necessities arise out of property relations (which for Jubien are necessary because the properties are platonically timeless). Wrong. |
| 13391 | Modality concerns relations among platonic properties [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I think modality has to do with relations involving the abstract part of the world, specifically with relations among (Platonic) properties. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: [Sider calls Jubien's the 'governance' view, since abstract relations govern the concrete] I take Jubien here (having done a beautiful demolition job on the possible worlds account of modality) to go spectacularly wrong. Modality starts in the concrete. |
| 13374 | To analyse modality, we must give accounts of objects, properties and relations [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The ultimate analysis of possibility and necessity depends on two important ontological decisions: the choice of an analysis of the intuitive concept of a physical object, and the other is the positing of properties and relations. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: In the same passage he adopts Quine's view of objects, leading to mereological essentialism, and a Platonic view of properties, based on Lewis's argument for taking some things at face value. One might start with processes and events instead. |
| 13389 | The love of possible worlds is part of the dream that technical logic solves philosophical problems [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I believe the contemporary infatuation with possible worlds in philosophy stems in part from a tendency to think that technical logic offers silver-bullet solutions to philosophical problems. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I would say that the main reason for the infatuation is just novelty. As a technical device it was only invented in the 1960s, so we are in a honeymoon period, as we would be with any new gadget. I can't imagine possible worlds figuring much in 100 years. |
| 13390 | Possible worlds don't explain necessity, because they are a bunch of parallel contingencies [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental problem is that in world theory, what passes for necessity is in effect just a bunch of parallel 'contingencies'. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Jubien's general complaint is that there is no connection between the possible worlds and the actual world, so they are irrelevant, but this is a nicely different point - that lots of contingent worlds can't add up to necessity. Nice. |
| 14351 | Maybe an experiment unmasks an essential disposition, and reveals its regularities [Corry] |
| Full Idea: The dispositional essentialist can argue that what happens in laboratory conditions is that, by controlling external influences, we effectively 'unmask' the relevant dispositions, and thus observe the regularities to which those dispositions give rise. | |
| From: Richard Corry (Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? [2010], 5) | |
| A reaction: That seems to me to be exactly right, though Corry dislikes it, and even suggests that dispositional essentialist might not like it. |
| 13396 | Analysing mental concepts points to 'inclusionism' - that mental phenomena are part of the physical [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: We have (physicalist) 'inclusionism' when the mental is included in the physical, and mental phenomena are to be found among physical phenomena. Only inclusionism is compatible with a genuine physicalist analysis of mental concepts. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], 4.5) | |
| A reaction: This isn't the thesis of conceptual dualism (which I like), but an interesting accompaniment for it. Jubien is offering this as an alternative to 'reductive' analysis, translating all the mental concepts into physical language. He extends 'physical'. |
| 13377 | First-order logic tilts in favour of the direct reference theory, in its use of constants for objects [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: First-order logic tilts in favor of the direct reference account of proper names by using individual constants to play the intuitive role of names, and by 'interpreting' the constants simply as the individuals that are assigned to them for truth-values. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Possibility [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the kind of challenge to orthodoxy that is much needed at the moment. We have an orthodoxy which is almost a new 'scholasticism', that logic will clarify our metaphysics. Trying to enhance the logic for the job may be a dead end. |
| 20407 | Taste is the capacity to judge an object or representation which is thought to be beautiful [Tarski, by Schellekens] |
| Full Idea: Taste is the faculty for judging an object or a kind of representation through a satisfaction or a dissatisfaction, ...where the object of such a satisfaction is called beautiful. | |
| From: report of Alfred Tarski (The Concept of Truth for Formalized Languages [1933]) by Elizabeth Schellekens - Immanuel Kant (aesthetics) 1 | |
| A reaction: We usually avoid the word 'faculty' nowadays, because it implies a specific mechanism, but 'capacity' will do. Kant is said to focus specifically on beauty, whereas modern aestheticians have a broader view of the type of subject matter. |
| 14346 | Dispositional essentialism says fundamental laws of nature are strict, not ceteris paribus [Corry] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional essentialism implies that the fundamental laws of nature must be strict, not ceteris paribus. | |
| From: Richard Corry (Dispositional Essentialism Grounds Laws of Nature? [2010], 1) | |
| A reaction: I am not keen on the 'laws' of nature, but since essentialism seems to make them necessary, you can't get stricter than that. |