9 ideas
10369 | How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated [Kim, by Schaffer,J] |
Full Idea: How fine-grained Kim's events are depends on how finely properties are individuated. | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.2 | |
A reaction: I don't actually buy the idea that an event could just be an 'exemplification'. Change seems to be required, and processes, or something like them, must be mentioned. Degrees of fine-graining sound good, though, for processes too. |
8976 | If events are ordered triples of items, such things seem to be sets, and hence abstract [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: If Kim's events are just the ordered triple of | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You might reply that the object, and maybe the attribute, are concrete, and the time is natural, but the combination really is an abstraction, even though it is located (like the equator). Where is the set of my books located? |
8975 | Events cannot be merely ordered triples, but must specify the link between the elements [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events cannot just be the ordered triple of | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: Why should they even be in that particular order? This requirement rather messes up Kim's plan for a very streamlined, Ockhamised ontology. Circles have symmetry at all times. Is 'near Trafalgar Square' a property? |
8974 | Events are composed of an object with an attribute at a time [Kim, by Simons] |
Full Idea: Kim's events are exemplifications by an object of an attribute at a time...It does not make events basic entities, as the three constituents are more basic, but it gives identity conditions (two events are the same if object, attribute and time the same). | |
From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: [Aristotle is said to be behind this] I am more sympathetic to this view than the claim that events are primitive. If a pebble is ellipsoid for a million years, is that an event? I think the concept of a 'process' is the most fruitful one to investigate. |
8977 | Since properties like self-identity and being 2+2=4 are timeless, Kim must restrict his properties [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: Since some tautologously universal properties such as self-identity or being such that 2+2=4 apply to all things at all times, that is stretching Kim's events too far. Candidate properties need to be realistically restricted, and it is unclear how. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 2.1 | |
A reaction: You could deploy Schoemaker's concept of natural properties in terms of the source of causal powers, but the problem would be that you were probably hoping to then use Kim's events to define causation. Answer: treat causation as the primitive. |
8980 | Kim's theory results in too many events [Simons on Kim] |
Full Idea: The criticism most frequently levelled against Kim's theory is that it results in an unacceptable plurality of finely differentiated events, because of the requirement for identity of the constituent property. | |
From: comment on Jaegwon Kim (Events as property exemplifications [1976]) by Peter Simons - Events 4.4 | |
A reaction: This may mean that the Battle of Waterloo was several trillion events, which seems daft to the historian, but it doesn't to the physicist. A cannon firing is indeed an accumulation of lots of little events. |
8090 | Since the language of thought is the same for all, it must be something like logical form [Fodor, by Devlin] |
Full Idea: Fodor and Jackendorff argue that since the internal language of thought, or conceptual structure, has to be more or less the same for all people, of whatever language, it will surely be something like logical form. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.8 | |
A reaction: The discovery (by, e.g., Frege and Russell) that there is something called 'logical form', which we can track down and represent in precise and fairly unambiguous symbolism, may be one of the greatest of all human discoveries. Perhaps. |
11143 | If concept-learning is hypothesis-testing, that needs innate concepts to get started [Fodor, by Margolis/Laurence] |
Full Idea: Fodor argues that virtually all lexical concepts are innate, because most models of learning treat concept-learning as hypothesis testing, but that invariably employs the very concept to be learned. | |
From: report of Jerry A. Fodor (The Language of Thought [1975]) by E Margolis/S Laurence - Concepts 3.3 | |
A reaction: The obvious response is to reject the theory which gave rise to this difficulty. I take concept formation to be a fairly mechanical and barely conscious response to environment, not a process of fully rational and conscious hypothesising. |
7903 | 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'). |