Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'A Slim Book about Narrow Content' and 'Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic'

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25 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 1. Aims of Science
Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints [Segal]
     Full Idea: Science is in the business of carving nature at the joints.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5)
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 8. Naturalising Reason
Psychology studies the way rationality links desires and beliefs to causality [Segal]
     Full Idea: A person's desires and beliefs tend to cause what they tend to rationalise. This coordination of causality and rationalisation lies at the heart of psychology.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.3)
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 3. Modal Logic Systems / h. System S5
In S5 matters of possibility and necessity are non-contingent [Williamson]
     Full Idea: In system S5 matters of possibility and necessity are always non-contingent.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 3)
     A reaction: This will be because if something is possible in one world (because it can be seen to be true in some possible world) it will be possible for all worlds (since they can all see that world in S5).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 1. Types of Modality
Necessity is counterfactually implied by its negation; possibility does not counterfactually imply its negation [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Modal thinking is logically equivalent to a type of counterfactual thinking. ...The necessary is that which is counterfactually implied by its own negation; the possible is that which does not counterfactually imply its own negation.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
     A reaction: I really like this, because it builds modality on ordinary imaginative thinking. He says you just need to grasp counterfactuals, and also negation and absurdity, and you can then understand necessity and possibility. We can all do that.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 5. Metaphysical Necessity
Is 'Hesperus = Phosphorus' metaphysically necessary, but not logically or epistemologically necessary? [Segal]
     Full Idea: It is metaphysically necessary that Hesperus is Phosphorus, but not logically necessary, since logical deduction could not reveal its truth, and it is not epistemologically necessary, as the ancient Greeks didn't know the identity. (Natural necessity?)
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6)
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 8. Conditionals / a. Conditionals
Strict conditionals imply counterfactual conditionals: □(A⊃B)⊃(A□→B) [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The strict conditional implies the counterfactual conditional: □(A⊃B) ⊃ (A□→B) - suppose that A would not have held without B holding too; then if A had held, B would also have held.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
     A reaction: [He then adds a reading of his formula in terms of possible worlds] This sounds rather close to modus ponens. If A implies B, and A is actually the case, what have you got? B!
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 9. Counterfactuals
Counterfactual conditionals transmit possibility: (A□→B)⊃(◊A⊃◊B) [Williamson]
     Full Idea: The counterfactual conditional transmits possibility: (A□→B) ⊃ (◊A⊃◊B). Suppose that if A had held, B would also have held; the if it is possible for A to hold, it is also possible for B to hold.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 1)
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
Rather than define counterfactuals using necessity, maybe necessity is a special case of counterfactuals [Williamson, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
     Full Idea: Instead of regarding counterfactuals as conditionals restricted to a range of possible worlds, we can define the necessity operator by means of counterfactuals. Metaphysical necessity is a special case of ordinary counterfactual thinking.
     From: report of Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010]) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 2
     A reaction: [compressed] I very much like Williamson's approach, of basing these things on the ordinary way that ordinary people think. To me it is a welcome inclusion of psychology into metaphysics, which has been out in the cold since Frege.
10. Modality / D. Knowledge of Modality / 4. Conceivable as Possible / b. Conceivable but impossible
If claims of metaphysical necessity are based on conceivability, we should be cautious [Segal]
     Full Idea: Since conceivability is the chief method of assessing the claims of metaphysical necessity, I think such claims are incautious.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.6)
14. Science / D. Explanation / 3. Best Explanation / c. Against best explanation
The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth [Segal]
     Full Idea: The success and virtue of an explanation do not guarantee its truth.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2)
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination
Imagination is important, in evaluating possibility and necessity, via counterfactuals [Williamson]
     Full Idea: Imagination can be made to look cognitively worthless. Once we recall its fallible but vital role in evaluating counterfactual conditionals, we should be more open to the idea that it plays such a role in evaluating claims of possibility and necessity.
     From: Timothy Williamson (Modal Logic within Counterfactual Logic [2010], 6)
     A reaction: I take this to be a really important idea, because it establishes the importance of imagination within the formal framework of modern analytic philosopher (rather than in the whimsy of poets and dreamers).
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology
Folk psychology is ridiculously dualist in its assumptions [Segal]
     Full Idea: Commonsense psychology is a powerful explanatory theory, and largely correct, but it seems to be profoundly dualist, and treats minds as immaterial spirits which can transmigrate and exist disembodied.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2)
     A reaction: Fans of folk psychology tend to focus on central normal experience, but folk psychology also seems to range from quirky to barking mad. A 'premonition' is a widely accepted mental event.
18. Thought / C. Content / 5. Twin Earth
If 'water' has narrow content, it refers to both H2O and XYZ [Segal]
     Full Idea: My view is that the concepts of both the Earth person and the Twin Earth person refer to BOTH forms of diamonds or water (H2O and XYZ).
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.7)
     A reaction: Fair enough, though that seems to imply that my current concepts may actually refer to all sorts of items of which I am currently unaware. But that may be so.
Humans are made of H2O, so 'twins' aren't actually feasible [Segal]
     Full Idea: Humans are largely made of H2O, so there could be no twin on Twin Earth, and (as Kuhn noted) nothing with a significantly different structure from H2O could be macroscopically very like water (but topaz and citrine will do).
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1)
     A reaction: A small point, but one that appeals to essentialists like me (see under Natural Theory/Laws of Nature). We can't learn much metaphysics from impossible examples.
Externalists can't assume old words refer to modern natural kinds [Segal]
     Full Idea: The question of what a pre-scientific term extends over is extremely difficult for a Putnam-style externalist to answer. …There seems no good reason to assume that they extend over natural kinds ('whale', 'cat', 'water').
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5.1)
     A reaction: The assumption seems to be that they used to extend over descriptions, and now they extend over essences, or expert references. This can't be right. They have never changed, but now contain fewer errors.
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Concepts can survive a big change in extension [Segal]
     Full Idea: We need to think of concepts as organic entities that can persist through changes of extension.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.3)
     A reaction: This would be 'organic' in the sense of modifying and growing. This is exactly right, and the interesting problem becomes the extreme cases, where an individual stretches a concept a long way.
Must we relate to some diamonds to understand them? [Segal]
     Full Idea: Is a relationship with diamonds necessary for having a concept of diamonds?
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4)
     A reaction: Probably not, given that I have a concept of kryptonite, and that I can invent my own concepts. Suppose I was brought up to believe that diamonds are a myth?
Maybe content involves relations to a language community [Segal]
     Full Idea: It has been argued (e.g. by Tyler Burge) that certain relations to other language users are determinants of content.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 1.4)
     A reaction: Burge's idea (with Wittgenstein behind him) strikes me as plausible (more plausible than water and elms determining the content). Our concepts actually shift during conversations.
Externalism can't explain concepts that have no reference [Segal]
     Full Idea: Empty terms and concepts provide the largest problem for the externalist thesis of the world dependence of concepts.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.2)
     A reaction: A speculative concept could then become a reality (e.g. an invention). The solution seems to be to say that there is an internal and an external component to most concepts.
If content is external, so are beliefs and desires [Segal]
     Full Idea: If we accept Putnam's externalist conclusion about the meaning of a word, it is a short step to a similar conclusion about the contents of the twins' beliefs, desires and so on.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 2.1)
     A reaction: This is the key step which has launched a whole new externalist view of the nature of the mind. It is one thing to say that I don't quite know what my words mean, another that I don't know my own beliefs.
Maybe experts fix content, not ordinary users [Segal]
     Full Idea: Putnam and Burge claim that there could be two words that a misinformed subject uses to express different concepts, but that express just one concept of the experts.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 3.2)
     A reaction: This pushes the concept outside the mind of the user, which leaves an ontological problem of what concepts are made of, how you individuate them, and where they are located.
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
If content is narrow, my perfect twin shares my concepts [Segal]
     Full Idea: To say that contents of my belief are narrow is to say that they are intrinsic to me, hence that any perfect twin of mine would have beliefs with the same contents.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 5)
     A reaction: I personally find this more congenial than externalism. If my twin and I studied chemistry, we would reach identical conclusions about water, as long as we remained perfect twins.
18. Thought / C. Content / 10. Causal Semantics
If thoughts ARE causal, we can't explain how they cause things [Segal]
     Full Idea: If we identify a psychological property with its causal role then we lose the obvious explanation of why the event has the causal role that it has.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1)
     A reaction: This pinpoints very nicely one of the biggest errors in modern philosophy. There are good naturalistic reasons to reduce everything to causal role, but there is a deeper layer. Essences!
Even 'mass' cannot be defined in causal terms [Segal]
     Full Idea: We can't define mass in terms of its causal powers because massive objects do different things in different physical systems. …What an object (or concept) with a given property does depends on what it interacts with.
     From: Gabriel M.A. Segal (A Slim Book about Narrow Content [2000], 4.1)
     A reaction: This leaves an epistemological problem, that we believe in mass, but can only get at it within a particular gravitational or inertial system. Don't give up on ontology at this point.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').