100 ideas
| 12865 | Analytic philosophers may prefer formal systems because natural language is such mess [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The untidiness of natural language in its use of 'part' is perhaps one of the chief reasons why mereolologists have preferred to investigate formal systems with nice algebraic properties rather than get out and mix it with reality in all its messiness. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 12864 for the uses of 'part'] I am in the unhappy (and probably doomed) position of wanting to avoid both approaches. I try to operate as if the English language were transparent and we can just discuss the world. Very naïve. |
| 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). |
| 12815 | Classical mereology doesn't apply well to the objects around us [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The most fundamental criticism of classical mereology is that the theory is not applicable to most of the objects around us, and is accordingly of little use as a formal reconstruction of the concepts of part and whole which we actually employ. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This sounds splendidly dismissive, but one might compare it with possible worlds semantics for modal logic, which most people take with a pinch of salt as an actual commitment, but find wonderfully clarifying in modal reasoning. |
| 12832 | Complement: the rest of the Universe apart from some individual, written x-bar [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'complement' of each individual in mereology is the rest of the Universe outside it, that is U - x, but written as x-bar [x with a horizontal bar above it]. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.10) | |
| A reaction: [Don't have a font for x-bar] See Idea 12831 for the 'Universe'. Simons suggest that the interest of this term is mainly historical and algebraic. |
| 12834 | Criticisms of mereology: parts? transitivity? sums? identity? four-dimensional? [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Main criticisms of mereology: we don't mean 'part' as improper; transitivity of 'part' is sometimes not transitive; no guarantee that there are 'sums'; the identity criteria for individuals are false; we are forced into materialistic four-dimensionalism. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: [Compressed summary; for four-dimensionalism see under 'Identity over Time'] Simons says these are in ascending order of importance. |
| 12819 | A 'part' has different meanings for individuals, classes, and masses [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It emerges that 'part', like other formal concepts, is not univocal, but has analogous meanings according to whether we talk of individuals, classes, or masses. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that unrestricted sums are appropriate for the last two, but not for individuals. There must be something univocal about the word - some awareness of a possible whole or larger entity to which the thing could belong. |
| 12822 | Proper or improper part: x < y, 'x is (a) part of y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A 'proper or improper part' is expressed by 'x < y', read as 'x is (a) part of y'. The relatively minor deviation from normal usage (of including an improper part, i.e. the whole thing) is warranted by its algebraical convenience. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.02) | |
| A reaction: Including an improper part (i.e. the whole thing) is not, Simons points out, uncontroversial, because the part being 'equal' to the whole is read as being 'identical' to the whole, which Simons is unwilling to accept. |
| 12824 | Disjoint: two individuals are disjoint iff they do not overlap, written 'x | y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Two individuals are 'disjoint' mereologically if and only if they do not overlap, expressed by 'x | y', read as 'x is disjoint from y'. Disjointedness is symmetric. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.04) |
| 12827 | Difference: the difference of individuals is the remainder of an overlap, written 'x - y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'difference' of two individuals is the largest individual contained in x which has no part in common with y, expressed by 'x - y', read as 'the difference of x and y'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.07) |
| 12823 | Overlap: two parts overlap iff they have a part in common, expressed as 'x o y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Two parts 'overlap' mereologically if and only if they have a part in common, expressed by 'x o y', read as 'x overlaps y'. Overlapping is reflexive and symmetric but not transitive. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.03) | |
| A reaction: Simons points out that we are uncomfortable with overlapping (as in overlapping national boundaries), because we seem to like conceptual boundaries. We avoid overlap even in ordering primary colour terms, by having a no-man's-land. |
| 12825 | Product: the product of two individuals is the sum of all of their overlaps, written 'x · y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: For two overlapping individuals their 'product' is the individual which is part of both and such that any common part of both is part of it, expressed by 'x · y', read as 'the product of x and y'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.05) | |
| A reaction: That is, the 'product' is the sum of any common parts between two individuals. In set theory all sets intersect at the null set, but mereology usually avoids the 'null individual'. |
| 12826 | Sum: the sum of individuals is what is overlapped if either of them are, written 'x + y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'sum' of two individuals is that individual which something overlaps iff it overlaps at least one of x and y, expressed by 'x + y', read as 'the sum of x and y'. It is central to classical extensional mereologies that any two individuals have a sum. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.06) | |
| A reaction: This rather technical definition (defining an individual by the possibility of it being overlapped) does not always coincide with the smallest individual containing them both. |
| 12828 | General sum: the sum of objects satisfying some predicate, written σx(Fx) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'general sum' of all objects satisfying a certain predicate is denoted by a variable-binding operator, expressed by 'σx(Fx)', read as 'the sum of objects satisfying F'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.08) | |
| A reaction: This, it seems, is introduced to restrict some infinite classes which aspire to be sums. |
| 12829 | General product: the nucleus of all objects satisfying a predicate, written πx(Fx) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'general product' or 'nucleus' of all objects satisfying a certain predicate is denoted by a variable-binding operator, expressed by 'πx(Fx)', read as 'the product of objects satisfying F'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.08) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12825 for 'product'. 'Nucleus' is a helpful word here. Thought: is the general product a candidate for a formal definition of essence? It would be a sortal essence - roughly, what all beetles have in common, just by being beetles. |
| 12830 | Universe: the mereological sum of all objects whatever, written 'U' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'Universe' in mereology is the sum of all objects whatever, a unique individual of which all individuals are part. This is denoted by 'U'. Strictly, there can be no 'empty Universe', since the Universe is not a container, but the whole filling. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.09) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, contrasts with set theory, which cannot have a set of all sets. At the lower end, set theory does have a null set, while mereology has no null individual. See David Lewis on combining the two theories. |
| 12831 | Atom: an individual with no proper parts, written 'At x' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An 'atom' in mereology is an individual with no proper parts. We shall use the expression 'At x' to mean 'x is an atom'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.11) | |
| A reaction: Note that 'part' in standard mereology includes improper parts, so every object has at least one part, namely itself. |
| 12844 | Dissective: stuff is dissective if parts of the stuff are always the stuff [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Water is said not to be 'dissective', since there are parts of any quantity of water which are not water. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This won't seem to do for any physical matter, but presumably parts of numbers are always numbers. |
| 12813 | Two standard formalisations of part-whole theory are the Calculus of Individuals, and Mereology [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The standardly accepted formal theory of part-whole is classical extensional mereology, which is known in two logical guises, the Calculus of Individuals of Leonard and Goodman, and the Mereology of Lesniewski. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons catalogues several other modern attempts at axiomatisation in his chapter 2. |
| 12821 | The part-relation is transitive and asymmetric (and thus irreflexive) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Formally, the part-relation is transitive and asymmetric (and thus irreflexive). Hence nothing is a proper part of itself, things aren't proper parts of one another, and if one is part of two which is part of three then one is part of three. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.1) |
| 18847 | Each wheel is part of a car, but the four wheels are not a further part [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The four wheels of a car are parts of it (each is part of it), but there is not a fifth part consisting of the four wheels. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: This raises questions about the transitivity of parthood. If there are parts of parts of wholes, the basic parts are OK, and the whole is OK, but how can there also be an intermediate part? Try counting the parts of this whole! |
| 12816 | Classical mereology doesn't handle temporal or modal notions very well [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The underlying logic of classical extensional mereology does not have the resources to deal with temporal and modal notions such as temporary part, temporal part, essential part, or essential permanent part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons tries to rectify this in the later chapters of his book, with modifications rather than extensions. Since everyone struggles with temporal and modal issues of identity, we shouldn't judge too harshly. |
| 12846 | A 'group' is a collection with a condition which constitutes their being united [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We call a 'collection' of jewels a 'group' term. Several random musicians are unlikely to be an orchestra. If they come together regularly in a room to play, such conditions are constitutive of an orchestra. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Clearly this invites lots of borderline cases. Eleven footballers don't immediately make a team, as followers of the game know well. |
| 12848 | The same members may form two groups [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Groups may coincide in membership without being identical - extensionality goes. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.9) | |
| A reaction: Thus an eleven-person orchestra may also constitute a football team. What if a pile of stones is an impediment to you, and useful to me? Is it then two groups? Suppose they hum while playing football? (Don't you just love philosophy?) |
| 12861 | 'The wolves' are the matter of 'the pack'; the latter is a group, with different identity conditions [Simons] |
| Full Idea: 'The wolves' is a plural term referring to just these animals, whereas 'the pack' of wolves refers to a group, and the group and plurality, while they may coincide in membership, have different identity conditions. The wolves are the matter of the pack. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Even a cautious philosopher like Simons is ready to make bold ontological commitment to 'packs', on the basis of something called 'identity conditions'. I think it is just verbal. You can qualify 'the wolves' and 'the pack' to make them identical. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 12876 | Philosophy is stuck on the Fregean view that an individual is anything with a proper name [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Modern philosophy is still under the spell of Frege's view that an individual is anything that has a proper name. (Note: But not only are empty names now recognised, but some are aware of the existence of plural reference). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably every electron in the universe is an individual, and every (finite) number which has never been named has a pretty clear identity. Presumably Pegasus, John Doe, and 'the person in the kitchen' have to be accommodated. |
| 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. |
| 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'. |
| 12845 | Some natural languages don't distinguish between singular and plural [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The syntactic distinction between singular and plural is not a universal feature of natural languages. Chinese manages nicely without it, and Sanskrit makes a tripartite distinction between singular, dual, and plural (more than two). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: Simons is mounting an attack on the way in which modern philosophy and logic has been mesmerised by singular terms and individuated objects. Most people seem now to agree with Simons. There is stuff, as well as plurals. |
| 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. |
| 12838 | Four-dimensional ontology has no change, since that needs an object, and time to pass [Simons] |
| Full Idea: In the four-dimensional ontology there may be timeless variation, but there is no change. Change consists in an object having first one property and then another contrary one. But processes all have their properties timelessly. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Possibly Simons is begging the question here. The phenomena which are traditionally labelled as 'change' are all nicely covered in the four-D account. Change is, we might say, subsumed in the shape of the space-time 'worm'. |
| 12842 | There are real relational changes, as well as bogus 'Cambridge changes' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to call bogus Cambridge changes 'relational changes', since there are real relational changes, such as the changes in the relative positions and distances of several bodies. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you distinguish the two. If we swap seats, that is a real change. If everyone moves away from where I am sitting, is that real or Cambridge? If I notice, I might be upset, but suppose I don't notice? Nothing about me changes. |
| 12841 | I don't believe in processes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: I have been unable to see that there are processes. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n4) | |
| A reaction: My problem here is that I am inclined to think of the mind as a process of the brain. The fact that a reductive account can be given of a process doesn't mean that we can deny there existence. Is there no such thing as decay, or erosion? |
| 12836 | Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Proponents of process ontology (except perhaps Whitehead, who is obscure) indulge in double-talk with concrete examples. It is cheating to talk of 'cat-processes', or 'bathing in river-stages'. You can't change the subject and leave the predicate alone. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to admit processes into one's ontology, and another to have a 'process ontology', which presumably reduces objects to processes. I suppose the interest of continuant objects is precisely the aspect of them that is above any process. |
| 12880 | Moments are things like smiles or skids, which are founded on other things [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A 'moment' is something which is founded on something else. Examples are legion: smiles, headaches, gestures, skids, collisions, fights, thought, all founded on their participants, the continuants involved in them. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: The idea of a 'moment' and 'foundation' come from Husserl Log. Inv. 3. Simons says moments 'have a bright future in ontology'. It would be better if fewer of his examples involved human beings and their perceptions. |
| 12883 | Moving disturbances are are moments which continuously change their basis [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Moving disturbances are a special and interesting kind of continuant: moments which continuously change their fundaments. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: [a smile is a moment, and the face its fundament] I'm thinking he's got this wrong. Compare Idea 12882. Disturbances can't be continuants, because the passing of time is essential to them, but not to a continuant. |
| 12881 | A smiling is an event with causes, but the smile is a continuant without causes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A smiling, being an event, has causes and effects, whereas the smile thereby produced is a continuant, and has itself neither causes nor effects. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: This is dogmatic, hopeful and a bit dubious. Simons is very scathing about processes in ontology. There seem to be two descriptions, with distinctive syntax, but it is hard to believe that in reality we have two types of thing present. |
| 12882 | A wave is maintained by a process, but it isn't a process [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A wave is maintained by a process transferring motion from particle to particle of the medium, but it is not identical with this process. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of the mind as a process. There are some 'things' which only seem to exist if they have a duration. Bricks can be instantaneous, but minds and waves can't. A wave isn't a continuant. A hill isn't a wave. |
| 12840 | I do not think there is a general identity condition for events [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Like Anscombe (1979) I do not think there is such a creature as a general identity condition for events. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n1) | |
| A reaction: My working definition of an event is 'any part of a process which can be individuated'. This leaves you trying to define a process, and define individuate, and then to realise that individuation is not an objective matter. |
| 12839 | Relativity has an ontology of things and events, not on space-time diagrams [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A closer examination of the concepts and principles of relativity shows that they rest squarely on an ontology of things and events (not on convenient 'space-time diagrams'). Acceleration concerns non-zero mass, but only continuants can have a mass. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that fans of four-dimensionalism like to claim that they are more in touch with modern physics, because 'time is just another dimension, like space, so objects are spread across it'. Simons sounds right about this. |
| 12879 | Independent objects can exist apart, and maybe even entirely alone [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An object a is ontologically independent of b if a can exist without b, if there is a possible world in which in which a exists and b does not. In the strongest sense, an object is independent if it could be all there is. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: Simons calls the strongest version a 'startling' one which maybe not even God could achieve. |
| 12847 | Mass nouns admit 'much' and 'a little', and resist 'many' and 'few'. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Syntactic criteria for mass nouns include that they admit 'much' and 'a little', and resist 'many' and 'few'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: That is, they don't seem to be countable. Sortal terms are those which pick out countables. |
| 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. |
| 12863 | Mass terms (unlike plurals) are used with indifference to whether they can exist in units [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Mass terms and plural terms differ principally in the indifference of mass terms to matters of division. A mass term can be used irrespective of how, indeed whether, the denotatum comes parcelled in units. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: It seems more to the point to say that mass terms (stuff) don't need units to exist, and you can disperse the units (the cups of water) without affecting the identity of the stuff. You can't pulverise a pile of stones and retain the stones. |
| 12862 | Gold is not its atoms, because the atoms must be all gold, but gold contains neutrons [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The mass of gold cannot be identified with the gold atoms, because whatever is part of the gold atoms is gold, whereas not every part of the gold is gold (for example, the neutrons in it are not gold). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: There is something too quick about arguments like this. It comes back to nominal v real essence. We apply 'gold' to the superficial features of the stuff, but deep down we may actually mean the atomic structure. See Idea 12812. |
| 12859 | A mixture can have different qualities from its ingredients. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The qualities of a mixture need not be those of its ingredients in isolation. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: It depends on what you mean by a quality. Presumably we can give a reductive account of the qualities of the mixture, as long as no reaction has taken place. The taste of a salad is just the sum of its parts. |
| 12858 | Mixtures disappear if nearly all of the mixture is one ingredient [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If a cupful of dirty water is mixed evenly with a ton of earth, no dirty water remains, and the same goes if we mix it evenly with a lake of clean water. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: This means that a mixture is a vague entity, subject to the sorites paradox. If the dirt was cyanide, we would consider the water to be polluted by it down to a much lower level. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 12850 | To individuate something we must pick it out, but also know its limits of variation [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We have not finished deciding what Fido is when we can pick him out from his surroundings at any one time. ...Knowing what Fido is depends on knowing roughly within what limits his flux of parts is tolerable. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: I like this. We don't know the world until we know its modal characteristics (its powers or dispositions). Have you 'individuated' a hand grenade if you think it is a nice ornament? |
| 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? |
| 12860 | Sortal nouns for continuants tell you their continuance- and cessation-conditions [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A sortal noun for a kind of continuant tells us, among other things, under what conditions the object continues to exist and under what conditions it ceases to exist. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds blatantly false. If you know something is a 'snake', that doesn't tell you how hot it must get before the snakes die. Obviously if you know all about snakes (from studying individual snakes!), then you know a lot about the next snake. |
| 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. |
| 12886 | A whole requires some unique relation which binds together all of the parts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A whole must at least approximate to this condition: every member of some division of the object stands in a certain relation to every other member, and no member bears this relation to anything other than members of the division. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Simons proceeds to formalise this, and I suspect that he goes for this definition because (unlike looser ones) it can be formalised. See Simons's Idea 12865. We'll need to know whether these are internal or external relations. |
| 12857 | Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There mere fact that Tibbles can survive the mutilation of losing a tail, whereas the sum of Tib and the tail cannot, is enough to distinguish them, even if no such mutilation ever occurs. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12835 for details of the Tibbles example. Either we go for essentialism here, or the whole notion of identity collapses. But the essential features of a person are not just those whose loss would kill them. |
| 12835 | Does Tibbles remain the same cat when it loses its tail? [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The cat is 'Tibbles' with a tail; 'Tib' is Tibbles after the loss of the tail. 1) Tibbles isn't Tib at t; 2) Tibbles is Tib at t'; 3) Tibbles at t is Tibbles at t'; 4) Tib at t is Tib at t'; so 5) Tibbles at t is Tib at t (contradicting 1). What's wrong? | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: [The example is in Wiggins 1979, from Geach, from William of Sherwood] Simons catalogues nine assumptions which are being made to produce the contradiction. 1) rests on Leibniz's law. Simons says two objects are occupying Tibbles. |
| 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. |
| 12820 | Without extensional mereology two objects can occupy the same position [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If we reject extensionality in mereology, it has as a consequence that more than one object may have exactly the same parts at the same time, and hence occupy the same position. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons defends this claim. I'm unconvinced that we must choose between the two views. The same parts should ensure the same physical essence, which seems to guarantee the same identity. Not any old parts generate an essence. |
| 12866 | Composition is asymmetric and transitive [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Composition is asymmetric and transitive: if a is made up of b, and b of c, then a is made up of c; and if a is made of b, then b is not made up of a. We cannot say the snow is made up of the snowball. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: ...And snowballs composed of snow can then compose a snowman (transitivity). |
| 12867 | A hand constitutes a fist (when clenched), but a fist is not composed of an augmented hand [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Composition entails constitution, but does the converse hold? A hand constitutes a fist in virtue of being clenched, but it is not obvious that it composes a fist, and certainly a fist is not composed of a hand plus some additional part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: There are subtleties of ordinary usage in 'compose' and 'constitute' which are worth teasing apart, but that isn't the last word on such relationships. 'Compose' seems to point towards matter, while 'constitute' seems to point towards form. |
| 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. |
| 12864 | We say 'b is part of a', 'b is a part of a', 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There are four cases of possible forms of expression when a is made up of b: we say 'b is part of a', or 'b is a part of a', or 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Personally I don't want to make much of these observations of normal English usage, but they are still interesting, and Simons offers a nice discussion of them. |
| 12814 | Classical mereology says there are 'sums', for whose existence there is no other evidence [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Either out of conviction or for reasons of algebraic neatness, classical extensional mereology asserts the existence of certain individuals, mereological sums, for whose existence in general we have no evidence outside the theory itself. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Observing that we have no evidence for sums 'outside the theory' is nice. It is a nice ontological test, with interesting implications for Quinean ontological commitment. |
| 12817 | 'Mereological extensionality' says objects with the same parts are identical [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Classical extensional mereology won't extend well to temporal and modal facts, because of 'mereological extensionality', which is the thesis that objects with the same parts are identical (by analogy with the extensionality of sets). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons challenges this view, claiming, for example, that the Ship of Theseus is two objects rather than one. I suppose 'my building bricks' might be 'your sculpture', but this is very ontologically extravagant. This is a mereological Leibniz's Law. |
| 12833 | If there are c atoms, this gives 2^c - 1 individuals, so there can't be just 2 or 12 individuals [Simons] |
| Full Idea: In classical mereology, if there are c atoms, where c is any cardinal number, there are 2^c - 1 individuals, so the cardinality of models is restricted. There are no models with cardinality 2, 12 or aleph-0, for example. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The news that there is no possible world containing just 2 or just 12 individuals ought to worry fans of extensional mereology. A nice challenge for God - create a world containing just 12 individuals. |
| 12849 | Sums are more plausible for pluralities and masses than they are for individuals [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We are on stronger grounds in asserting the general existence of sums when considering pluralities and masses than when considering individuals. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: I was thinking that the modern emphasis on referring to plurals was precisely to resist the idea that we must 'sum' them into one thing. If so, we wouldn't want to then sum several plurals. If a mass isn't a sum, how can we sum some masses? |
| 12877 | Sums of things in different categories are found within philosophy. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Cross-categorial sums are not unknown in philosophy. A body and the events which befall it are intimately connected, and the mysterious four-dimensional blocks might be mereological sums of the body and its life. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Simons here ventures into the territory of abstracta, which he said he wouldn't touch. Presumably his first example has 'a biography' as its whole, which is not just a philosophical notion. Why will some categories sum, and others won't? |
| 12888 | The wholeness of a melody seems conventional, but of an explosion it seems natural [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The example of a melody shows that what counts as a temporal individual is partly a matter of human stipulation. But with a natural event like an explosion there is little or no room for decision about what is a part, and whether it is a single event. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: You could have a go at giving a natural account of the wholeness of a melody, in terms of the little aesthetic explosion that occurs in the brain of a listener. |
| 12871 | Objects have their essential properties because of the kind of objects they are [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An object has the essential properties it has in virtue of being the kind of object it is. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: He attributes this to Husserl and Wiggins. I just don't get it. What makes something the 'kind of object it is'? They've got it the wrong way round. Does God announce that this thing is a tiger, and is then pleasantly surprised to discover its stripes? |
| 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. |
| 12870 | We must distinguish the de dicto 'must' of propositions from the de re 'must' of essence [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish the 'must' of necessity as applied to a proposition or state of affairs (de dicto) from the 'must' of essence, concerning the way in which an object has an attribute (de re). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: A helfpful distinction, but a possible confusion of necessity and essentiality (Simons knows this). Modern logicians seem to run them together, because they only care about identity. I don't, because I care about explanations. |
| 12873 | Original parts are the best candidates for being essential to artefacts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Original parts are the best candidates for being essential to artefacts. It is hard to conceive how an object could have as essential a part which was attached at some time after the object had come into being. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Without its big new memory upgrade my computer would be hopelessly out of date. Simons is awesome in some ways, but seems rather confused when it comes to discussing essence. I think Wiggins may have been a bad influence on him. |
| 12874 | An essential part of an essential part is an essential part of the whole [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An essential part of an essential part is an essential part of the whole. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Sounds beyond dispute, but worth pondering. It seems to be only type-parts, not token-parts, which are essential. Simons is thinking of identity rather than function, but he rejects Chisholm's idea that all parts are essential. So which ones are? |
| 12837 | Four dimensional-objects are stranger than most people think [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The strangeness of four-dimensional objects is almost always underestimated in the literature. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12836, where he has criticised process ontologists for smuggling in stages and process as being OF conventional objects. |
| 12856 | Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If we could show that intermittence could occur not only among artefacts and higher-order objects, but also among natural things, then we should have given it a secure place on the ontological map. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.7) | |
| A reaction: Interesting ontological test. Having identified fairly clear intermittent artefacts (Idea 12851), if we then fail to find any examples in nature, must we revisit the artefacts and say they are not intermittents? He suggests freezing an organ in surgery. |
| 12885 | Objects like chess games, with gaps in them, are thereby less unified [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Temporal objects which are scattered in time - i.e. have temporal gaps in them, like interrupted discussions or chess games - are less unified than those without gaps. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Is he really saying that a discussion or a chess game is less unified if there is even the slightest pause in it? Otherwise, how long must the pause be before it disturbs the unity? Do people play internet chess, as they used to play correspondence chess? |
| 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? |
| 12854 | An entrepreneur and a museum curator would each be happy with their ship at the end [Simons] |
| Full Idea: At the end of the Ship of Theseus story both an entrepreneur and a museum curator can be content, each having his ship all to himself, ..because each was all along claiming a different object from the other. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: Simons has the entrepreneur caring about function (for cruises), and the curator caring about matter (as a relic of Theseus). It is bold of Simons to say on that basis that it starts as two objects, one 'matter-constant', the other 'form-constant'. |
| 12855 | The 'best candidate' theories mistakenly assume there is one answer to 'Which is the real ship?' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'best candidate' theories get into difficulty because it is assumed that there is a single uniquely correct answer to the question 'Which is the real ship?' | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: My own example supports Simons. If Theseus discards the old planks as rubbish, then his smart new ship is the original. But if he steals his own ship (to evade insurance regulations) by substituting a plank at a time, the removed planks are the original. |
| 12872 | The zygote is an essential initial part, for a sexually reproduced organism [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It is essential to an organism arising from sexual reproduction that it has its zygote as initial improper part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: It can't be necessary that an organism which appears to be sexually reproduced actually is so (if you don't believe that, read more science fiction). It may well just be analytic that sexual reproduction involves a zygote. Nothing to do with essence. |
| 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. |
| 12889 | The limits of change for an individual depend on the kind of individual [Simons] |
| Full Idea: What determines the limits of admissible change and secures the identity of a continuant is a matter of the kind of object in question. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: This gives some motivation for the sortal view of essence, which I find hard to take. However, if my statue were pulverised it would make good compost. |
| 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. |
| 12843 | With activities if you are doing it you've done it, with performances you must finish to have done it [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Action theorists distinguish between activity verbs such as 'weep' and 'talk' (where continuous entails perfect - John is weeping so John has now wept), and performance verbs like 'wash', where John is washing doesn't yet mean John has washed. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: How to distinguish them, bar examples? In 'has wept' and 'has washed', I'm thinking that it is the 'has' which is ambiguous, rather than the more contentful word. One is 'has participated' and the other is 'has completed'. I've participated in washing! |
| 12875 | One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A performance of a certain work with a false note is still a performance of that work, albeit a slightly imperfect one, and not (as Goodman has argued) a performance of a different work. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly right, but invites the question of how many wrong notes are permissable. One loud very wrong note could ruin a very long performance (but of that work, presumably). This is about classical music, but think about jazz. |
| 20365 | We only see points in motion, and thereby infer movement [Rescher] |
| Full Idea: We perceive motion only as isolated points, and then infer it without actually seeing it. | |
| From: Nicholas Rescher (Scepticism [1980], §112) | |
| A reaction: Note how writing suddenly becomes readable as you slow down on entering a railway station. Is that points suddenly becoming unified? This is an empiricist endorsement of Russell's 'at-at' account of motion. |