15063
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Some sentences depend for their truth on worldly circumstances, and others do not [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
There is a distinction between worldly and unworldly sentences, between sentences that depend for their truth upon the worldly circumstances and those that do not.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], Intro)
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A reaction:
Fine is fishing around in the area between the necessary, the a priori, truthmakers, and truth-conditions. He appears to be attempting a singlehanded reconstruction of the concepts of metaphysics. Is he major, or very marginal?
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15072
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Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
At the bottom are tensed or temporal facts, subject to the vicissitudes of time and hence of the world. Then come the timeless though worldly facts, subject to the world but not to time. Top are transcendental facts, subject to neither world nor time.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08)
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A reaction:
For all of Fine's awesome grasp of logic and semantics, when he divides reality up as boldly as this I start to side a bit with the sceptics about modern metaphysics (like Ladyman and Ross). I daresay Fine acknowledges that it is 'speculative'.
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15071
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Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
A tensed fact is stated by a tensed sentence while a tenseless fact is stated by a tenseless sentence, and they belong to two 'realms' of reality. That Socrates drank hemlock is in the temporal realm, while 2+2=4 is presumably in the timeless realm.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 07)
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A reaction:
Put so strongly, I suddenly find sales resistance to his proposal. All my instincts favour one realm, and I take 2+2=4 to be a highly general truth about that realm. It may be a truth of any possible realm, which would distinguish it.
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15075
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Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
It is natural to suggest that to be a man is to have certain kind of temporal-modal profile. ...but it seems natural that being a man accounts for the profile, ...so one should not appeal to an object's modal features in stating what the object is.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09)
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A reaction:
This strikes me as a correct and very helpful point, as I am tempted to think that the modal dispositions of a thing are intrinsic to its identity. If we accept 'powers', must they be modal in character? Fine backs a sortal approach. That's ideology.
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15073
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Self-identity should have two components, its existence, and its neutral identity with itself [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
The existential identity of an object with itself needs analysis into two components, one the neutral identity of the object with itself, and the other its existence. The existence of the object appears to be merely a gratuitous addition to its identity.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08)
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A reaction:
This is at least a step towards clarification of the notion, which might be seen as just a way of asserting that something 'has an identity'. Fine likes the modern Fregean way of expressing this, as an equality relation.
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15069
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Possible worlds may be more limited, to how things might actually turn out [Fine,K]
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Full Idea:
An alternative conception of a possible world says it is constituted, not by the totality of facts, or of how things might be, but by the totality of circumstances, or how things might turn out.
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From:
Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 02)
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A reaction:
The general idea is to make a possible world more limited than in Idea 15068. It only contains properties arising from 'engagement with the world', and won't include timeless sentences. It is a bunch of possibilities, not of actualities?
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7903
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The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
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Full Idea:
The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
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From:
Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
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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').
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8404
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Explain single events by general rules, or vice versa, or probability explains both, or they are unconnected [Field,H]
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Full Idea:
Some think singular causal claims should be explained in terms of general causal claims; some think the order should be reversed; some think a third thing (e.g. objective probability) will explain both; and some think they are only loosely connected.
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From:
Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 2)
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A reaction:
I think Ducasse gives the best account, which is the second option, of giving singular causal claims priority. Probability (Mellor) strikes me as a non-starter, and the idea that they are fairly independent seems rather implausible.
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8401
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Physical laws are largely time-symmetric, so they make a poor basis for directional causation [Field,H]
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Full Idea:
It is sometimes pointed out that (perhaps with a few minor exceptions) the fundamental physical laws are completely time-symmetric. If so, then if one is inclined to found causation on fundamental physical law, it isn't evident how directionality gets in.
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From:
Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1)
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A reaction:
All my instincts tell me that causation is more fundamental than laws, and that directionality is there at the start. That, though, raises the nice question of how, if causation explains laws, the direction eventually gets left OUT!
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8402
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The only reason for adding the notion of 'cause' to fundamental physics is directionality [Field,H]
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Full Idea:
Although it is true that the notion of 'cause' is not needed in fundamental physics, even statistical physics, still directionality considerations don't preclude this notion from being consistently added to fundamental physics.
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From:
Hartry Field (Causation in a Physical World [2003], 1)
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A reaction:
This only makes sense if the notion of cause already has directionality built into it, which I think is correct. The physicist might reply that they don't care about directionality, but the whole idea of an experiment seems to depend on it (Idea 8363).
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