36 ideas
| 11115 | 'All horses' either picks out the horses, or the things which are horses [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Two ways to see 'all horses are animals' are as picking out all the horses (so that it is a 'horse-quantifier'), ..or as ranging over lots of things in addition to horses, with 'horses' then restricting the things to those that satisfy 'is a horse'. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: Jubien says this gives you two different metaphysical views, of a world of horses etc., or a world of things which 'are horses'. I vote for the first one, as the second seems to invoke an implausible categorical property ('being a horse'). Cf Idea 11116. |
| 11116 | Being a physical object is our most fundamental category [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Being a physical object (as opposed to being a horse or a statue) really is our most fundamental category for dealing with the external world. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: This raises the interesting question of why any categories should be considered to be more 'fundamental' than others. I can only think that we perceive something to be an object fractionally before we (usually) manage to identify it. |
| 11117 | Haecceities implausibly have no qualities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Properties of 'being such and such specific entity' are often called 'haecceities', but this term carries the connotation of non-qualitativeness which I don't favour. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 2) | |
| A reaction: The way he defines it makes it sound as if it was a category, but I take it to be more like a bare individual essence. If it has not qualities then it has no causal powers, so there could be no evidence for its existence. |
| 11119 | De re necessity is just de dicto necessity about object-essences [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: I suggest that the de re is to be analyzed in terms of the de dicto. ...We have a case of modality de re when (and only when) the appropriate property in the de dicto formulation is an object-essence. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 5) |
| 11118 | Modal propositions transcend the concrete, but not the actual [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Where modal propositions may once have seemed to transcend the actual, they now seem only to transcend the concrete. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 4) | |
| A reaction: This is because Jubien has defended a form of platonism. Personally I take modal propositions to be perceptible in the concrete world, by recognising the processes involved, not the mere static stuff. |
| 11108 | Your properties, not some other world, decide your possibilities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The possibility of your having been a playwright has nothing to do with how people are on other planets, whether in our own or in some other realm. It is only to do with you and the relevant property. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think that this simple point is conclusive disproof of possible worlds as an explanation of modality (apart from Jubien's other nice points). What we need to understand are modal properties, not other worlds. |
| 11111 | Modal truths are facts about parts of this world, not about remote maximal entities [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Typical modal truths are just facts about our world, and generally facts about very small parts of it, not facts about some infinitude of complex, maximal entities. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: I think we should embrace this simple fact immediately, and drop all this nonsense about possible worlds, even if they are useful for the semantics of modal logic. |
| 11105 | We have no idea how many 'possible worlds' there might be [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: As soon as we start talking about 'possible world', we beg the question of their relevance to our prior notion of possibility. For all we know, there are just two such realms, or twenty-seven, or uncountably many, or even set-many. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11107 | If there are no other possible worlds, do we then exist necessarily? [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Suppose there happen to be no other concrete realms. Would we happily accept the consequence that we exist necessarily? | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11106 | If all possible worlds just happened to include stars, their existence would be necessary [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If all of the possible worlds happened to include stars, how plausible is it to think that if this is how things really are, then we've just been wrong to regard the existence of stars as contingent? | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11112 | Possible worlds just give parallel contingencies, with no explanation at all of necessity [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: In the world theory, what passes for 'necessity' is just a bunch of parallel 'contingencies'. The theory provides no basis for understanding why these contingencies repeat unremittingly across the board (while others do not). | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 11109 | If other worlds exist, then they are scattered parts of the actual world [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: Any other realms that happened to exist would just be scattered parts of the actual world, not entire worlds at all. It would just happen that physical reality was fragmented in this remarkable but modally inconsequential way. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is aimed explicitly at Lewis's modal realism, and strikes me as correct. Jubien's key point here is that they are irrelevant to modality, just as foreign countries are irrelevant to the modality of this one. |
| 11113 | Worlds don't explain necessity; we use necessity to decide on possible worlds [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: The suspicion is that the necessity doesn't arise from how worlds are, but rather that the worlds are taken to be as they are in order to capture the intuitive necessity. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) | |
| A reaction: It has always seemed to me rather glaring that you need a prior notion of 'possible' before you can start to talk about 'possible worlds', but I have always been too timid to disagree with the combination of Saul Kripke and David Lewis. Thank you, Jubien! |
| 11110 | We mustn't confuse a similar person with the same person [Jubien] |
| Full Idea: If someone similar to Humphrey won the election, that nicely establishes the possibility of someone's winning who is similar to Humphrey. But we mustn't confuse this possibility with the intuitively different possibility of Humphrey himself winning. | |
| From: Michael Jubien (Analyzing Modality [2007], 1) |
| 23308 | Reasoning relates to understanding as time does to eternity [Boethius, by Sorabji] |
| Full Idea: Boethius says that reasoning [ratiocinatio] is related to intellectual understanding [intellectus] as time to eternity, involving as it does movement from one stage to another. | |
| From: report of Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], 4, prose 6) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Shifting' | |
| A reaction: This gives true understanding a quasi-religious aura, as befits a subject which is truly consoling. |
| 5771 | Knowledge of present events doesn't make them necessary, so future events are no different [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Just as the knowledge of present things imposes no necessity on what is happening, so foreknowledge imposes no necessity on what is going to happen. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.IV) | |
| A reaction: This, I think, is the key idea if you are looking for a theological answer to the theological problem of free will. Don't think of God as seeing the future 'now'. God is outside time, and so only observes all of history just as we observe the present. |
| 5767 | Rational natures require free will, in order to have power of judgement [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: There is freedom of the will, for it would be impossible for any rational nature to exist without it. Whatever by nature has the use of reason has the power of judgement to decide each matter. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.II) | |
| A reaction: A view taken up by Aquinas (Idea 1849) and Kant (Idea 3740). The 'power of judgement' pinpoints the core of rationality, and it is not clear how a robot could fulfil such a power, if it lacked consciousness. Does a machine 'judge' barcodes? |
| 4871 | A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza] |
| Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature. | |
| From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10) | |
| A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character. |
| 5768 | God's universal foreknowledge seems opposed to free will [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: God's universal foreknowledge and freedom of the will seem clean contrary and opposite. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: The original source of the great theological and philosophical anguish over free will. The problem is anything which fixes future facts, be it oracular knowledge or scientific prediction. Personally I think free will was an invention by religions. |
| 5769 | Does foreknowledge cause necessity, or necessity cause foreknowledge? [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Does foreknowledge of the future cause the necessity of events, or necessity cause the foreknowledge? | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing question, though not one that bothers me. I don't understand how foreknowledge causes necessity, unless God's vision of the future is a kind of 'freezing ray'. Even the gods must bow to necessity (Idea 3016). |
| 5762 | The wicked want goodness, so they would not be wicked if they obtained it [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If the wicked obtained what they want - that is goodness - they could not be wicked. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice paradox which arises from Boethius being, like Socrates, an intellectualist. The question is whether the wicked want the good de re or de dicto. If they wanted to good de re (as its true self) they would obviously not be wicked. |
| 5770 | Rewards and punishments are not deserved if they don't arise from free movement of the mind [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If there is no free will, then in vain is reward offered to the good and punishment to the bad, because they have not been deserved by any free and willed movement of the mind. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.III) | |
| A reaction: I just don't see why decisions have to come out of nowhere in order to have any merit. People are different from natural forces, because the former can be persuaded by reasons. A moral agent is a mechanism which decides according to reasons. |
| 5764 | When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: When people fall into wickedness they lose their human nature. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: This is a view I find quite sympathetic, but which is a million miles from the modern view. Today's paper showed a picture of a famous criminal holding a machine gun and a baby. We seem to delight in the idea that human nature is partly wicked. |
| 5756 | Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Happiness is a good which once obtained leaves nothing more to be desired. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.I) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the ancient 'eudaimonism' of Socrates and Aristotle, which might not be entirely compatible with orthodox Christianity. It is not true, though, that happy people lack ambition. To be happy, an unfilfilled aim may be needed. |
| 5763 | The bad seek the good through desire, but the good through virtue, which is more natural [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The supreme good is the goal of good men and bad men alike, and the good seek it by means of a natural activity - the exercise of virtue - while the bad strive to acquire it by means of their desires, which is not a natural way of obtaining the good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.II) | |
| A reaction: Interesting here is the slightly surprising claim that the pursuit of virtue is 'natural', implying that the mere pursuit of desire is not. Doesn't nature have to be restrained to achieve the good? Boethius is in the tradition of Aristotle and stoicism. |
| 5759 | Varied aims cannot be good because they differ, but only become good when they unify [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The various things that men pursue are not perfect and good, because they differ from one another; ..when they differ they are not good, but when they begin to be one they become good, so it is through the acquisition of unity that these things are good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
| A reaction: This is a criticism of Aristotle's pluralism about the good(s) for man. Boethius' thought is appealing, and ties in with the Socratic notion that the virtues might be unified in some way. I think it is right that true virtues merge together, ideally. |
| 5754 | You can't control someone's free mind, only their body and possessions [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: The only way one man can exercise power over another is over his body and what is inferior to it, his possessions. You cannot impose anything on a free mind. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], II.VI) | |
| A reaction: Written, of course, in prison. Boethius had not met hypnotism, or mind-controlling drugs, or invasive brain surgery. He hadn't read '1984'. He hadn't seen 'The Ipcress File'. (In fact, he should have got out more…) |
| 16692 | Divine eternity is the all-at-once and complete possession of unending life [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Divine eternity is the all-at-once [tota simul] and complete possession of unending life. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], V.6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a famous definition, and 'tota simul' became the phrase used for 'entia successiva', such as a day, or the Olympic Games. |
| 5752 | Where does evil come from if there is a god; where does good come from if there isn't? [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: A philosopher (possibly Epicurus) asked where evil comes from if there is a god, and where good comes from if there isn't. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.IV) | |
| A reaction: A nice question. The best known answer to the first question is 'Satan'. Some would say that in the second case good is impossible, but I would have thought that the only possible answer is 'mankind'. |
| 5758 | God is the good [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: God is the good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XI) | |
| A reaction: This summary follows on from the rather dubious discussion in Idea 5757. If God IS the good, it is not clear how God could be usefully described as 'good'. We would know that he was good a priori, without any enquiry into his nature being needed. |
| 5757 | God is the supreme good, so no source of goodness could take precedence over God [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: That which by its own nature is something distinct from supreme good, cannot be supreme good. ..It is impossible for anything to be by nature better than that from which it is derived, so that which is the origin of all things is supreme good. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.X) | |
| A reaction: This is the contortion early Christians got into once they decided God had to be 'supreme' in the moral world (and every other world). Boethius allows a possible external source of all morality, but then has to say that this source is morally inferior. |
| 5760 | The power through which creation remains in existence and motion I call 'God' [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: For this power, whatever it is, through which creation remains in existence and in motion, I use the word which all people use, namely God. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
| A reaction: An interesting caution in the phrase 'whatever it is'. Boethius would have been very open-minded in discussion with modern science about the stability of nature. Personally I reject Boethius' theory, but don't have a better one. Cf Idea 1431. |
| 5753 | The regular events of this life could never be due to chance [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: I could never believe that events of such regularity as we find in this life are due to the haphazards of chance. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], I.VI) | |
| A reaction: It depends what you mean by 'chance'. Boethius infers a conscious mind, and presumes this to be God, but that is two large and unsupported steps. Modern atheists must acknowledge Boethius' problem. Why is there order? |
| 5765 | The reward of the good is to become gods [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: Goodness is happiness, ..but we agree that those who attain happiness are divine. The reward of the good, then, is to become gods. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.III) | |
| A reaction: Kant offered a similar argument (see Idea 1455). Most of us are unlikely to agree with the second premise of Boethius' argument. The idea that we might somehow become gods gripped the imagination for the next thousand years. |
| 5761 | God can do anything, but he cannot do evil, so evil must be nothing [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: 'There is nothing that an omnipotent power could not do?' 'No.' 'Then can God do evil?' 'No.' 'So evil is nothing, since that is what He cannot do who can do anthing.' | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], III.XII) | |
| A reaction: A lovely example of the contortions necessary once you insist that God must be 'omnipotent', in some absolute sense of the term. Saying that evil is 'nothing' strikes me as nothing more than a feeble attempt to insult it. |
| 5766 | If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere [Boethius] |
| Full Idea: If you could see the plan of Providence, you would not think there was evil anywhere. | |
| From: Boethius (The Consolations of Philosophy [c.520], IV.VI) | |
| A reaction: This brings out the verificationist in me. See Idea 1467, by Antony Flew. Presumably Boethius would retain his faith as Europe moved horribly from 1939 to 1945, and even if the whole of humanity sank into squalid viciousness. |