30 ideas
| 15053 | If metaphysics can't be settled, it hardly matters whether it makes sense [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If there is no way of settling metaphysical questions, then who cares whether or not they make sense? | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4 n20) | |
| A reaction: This footnote is aimed at logical positivists, who seemed to worry about whether metaphysics made sense, and also dismissed its prospects even if it did make sense. |
| 15054 | 'Quietist' says abandon metaphysics because answers are unattainable (as in Kant's noumenon) [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The 'quietist' view of metaphysics says that realist metaphysics should be abandoned, not because its questions cannot be framed, but because their answers cannot be found. The real world of metaphysics is akin to Kant's noumenal world. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Blackburn, Dworkin, A.Fine, and Putnam-1987 as quietists] Fine aims to clarify the concepts of factuality and of ground, in order to show that metaphysics is possible. |
| 15007 | If you make 'grounding' fundamental, you have to mention some non-fundamental notions [Sider on Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: My main objection to Fine's notion of grounding as fundamental is that it violates 'purity' - that fundamental truths should involve only fundamental notions. | |
| From: comment on Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 08.2 | |
| A reaction: [p.106 of Sider for 'purity'] The point here is that to define a grounding relation you have to mention the 'higher' levels of the relationship (as in a 'city' being grounded in physical stuff), which doesn't seem fundamental enough. |
| 15006 | Something is grounded when it holds, and is explained, and necessitated by something else [Fine,K, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: When p 'grounds' q then q holds in virtue of p's holding; q's holding is nothing beyond p's holding; the truth of p explains the truth of q in a particularly tight sense (explanation of q by p in this sense requires that p necessitates q). | |
| From: report of Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 15-16) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 08.1 | |
| A reaction: This proposal has become a hot topic in current metaphysics, as attempts are made to employ 'grounding' in various logical, epistemological and ontological contexts. I'm a fan - it is at the heart of metaphysics as structure of reality. |
| 17292 | Avoid 'in virtue of' for grounding, since it might imply a reflexive relation such as identity [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: We should not use 'in virtue of' where it might express a reflexive relation, such as identity. Since grounding is a relation of determination, and closely linked to the concept of explanation, it is irreflexive and asymmetric. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: E.g. he says someone isn't a bachelor in virtue of being an unmarried man, since a bachelor just is an unmarried man. I can't disagree. 'Determination' looks like the magic word, even if we don't know how it cashes out. |
| 17295 | Ground relations depend on the properties [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: On my view, grounding relations depend on the natures of the properties involved in them. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm cautious about this if we don't find out more exactly what properties are (and they had better not just be predicates). Maybe properties are the only apparatus we have here, though I prefer 'powers' for the fundamentals. |
| 17297 | A ball's being spherical non-causally determines its power to roll [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: The fact that a given thing is spherical non-causally determines the fact that it has the power to roll. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Quine won't accept this, because you have added something called a 'power' to the ball (intrinsically, it seems), over and above its observable sphericity. Does being a ball 'determine' that it can't be in two places at once? Order of explanation? |
| 17302 | Ground is irreflexive, asymmetric, transitive, non-monotonic etc. [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: The logical principles about grounding include irreflexivity, asymmetry, transitivity, non-monotonicity, and so forth. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.8) | |
| A reaction: [It can't ground itself, there is no mutual grounding, grounds of grounds ground, and grounding judgements are not fixed] |
| 17303 | The best critique of grounding says it is actually either identity or elimination [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: I think the most promising skeptical strategy is to insist on either identity or elimination wherever grounding is alleged to hold. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.9) | |
| A reaction: This comes after an assessment of the critiques of grounding by Oliver, Hofweber and Daly. So we don't say chemistry grounds biology, we either say biology is chemistry, or that there is no biology. Everything is just simples. Not for me. |
| 15055 | Grounding relations are best expressed as relations between sentences [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I recommend that a statement of ground be cast in the following 'canonical' form: Its being the case that S consists in nothing more than its being the case that T, U... (where S, T, U... are particular sentences). | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that grounding is to be undestood in terms of sentences (and 'its being the case that...'), rather than in terms of objects, properties or relations. Fine thus makes grounding a human activity, rather than a natural activity. |
| 17294 | Grounding is a singular relation between worldly facts [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: On my view, grounding is a singular relation between facts. ...Facts, on this view, are obtaining states of affairs. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: He rest this claim on his 'worldly' view of facts, Idea 17293. I seem to be agreeing with him. Note that it is not between types of fact, even if there are such general truths, such as in chemistry. |
| 17300 | If grounding relates facts, properties must be included, as well as objects [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: Taking facts to be the relata of grounding has the interesting consequence that it does not relate ordinary particulars, objects, considered apart from their properties. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: It will depend on what you mean by properties, and it seems to me that something like 'powers' must be invoked, to get the active character that seems to be involved in grounding. |
| 17296 | We must accept grounding, for our important explanations [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: The reason we must countenance grounding is that it is indispensible to certain important explanations. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. The first given of all philosophy is the drive to exlain. However, we mustn't go inventing features of the world, simply to give us the possibility of explaining it. The objective fact seems to be the without-which-not relation. |
| 17301 | Reduction is just identity, so the two things are the same fact, so reduction isn't grounding [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: I deny that when p grounds q, q thereby reduces to p, and I deny that if q reduces to p, then p grounds q. ...On my view, reduction is nothing other than identity, so p is the same fact as q. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: Very good. I can't disagree with any of it, and it is crystal clear. Philosophical heaven. |
| 15050 | Reduction might be producing a sentence which gets closer to the logical form [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: One line of reduction is logical analysis. To say one sentence reduces to another is to say that they express the same proposition (or fact), but the grammatical form of the second is closer to the logical form than the grammatical form of the first. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: Fine objects that S-and-T reduces to S and T, which is two propositions. He also objects that this approach misses the de re ingredient in reduction (that it is about the things themselves, not the sentences). It also overemphasises logical form. |
| 15051 | Reduction might be semantic, where a reduced sentence is understood through its reduction [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A second line of reduction is semantic, and holds in virtue of the meaning of the sentences. It should then be possible to acquire an understanding of the reduced sentence on the basis of understanding the sentences to which it reduces. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: Fine says this avoids the first objection to the grammatical approach (see Reaction to Idea 15050), but still can't handle the de re aspect of reduction. Fine also doubts whether this understanding qualifies as 'reduction'. |
| 15052 | Reduction is modal, if the reductions necessarily entail the truth of the target sentence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The third, more recent, approach to reduction is a modal matter. A class of propositions will reduce to - or supervene upon - another if, necessarily, any truth from the one is entailed by truths from the other. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Armstrong, Chalmers and Jackson for this approach] Fine notes that some people reject supervenience as a sort of reduction. He objects that this reduction doesn't necessarily lead to something more basic. |
| 15056 | The notion of reduction (unlike that of 'ground') implies the unreality of what is reduced [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The notion of ground should be distinguished from the strict notion of reduction. A statement of reduction implies the unreality of what is reduced, but a statement of ground does not. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: That seems like a bit of a caricature of reduction. If you see a grey cloud and it reduces to a swarm of mosquitoes, you do not say that the cloud was 'unreal'. Fine is setting up a stall for 'ground' in the metaphysical market. We all seek structure. |
| 15047 | What is real can only be settled in terms of 'ground' [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Questions of what is real are to be settled upon the basis of considerations of ground. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This looks like being one of Fine's most important ideas, which is shifting the whole basis of contemporary metaphysics. Only Parmenides and Heidegger thought Being was the target. Aristotle aims at identity. What grounds what is a third alternative. |
| 15046 | Reality is a primitive metaphysical concept, which cannot be understood in other terms [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: I conclude that there is a primitive metaphysical concept of reality, one that cannot be understood in fundamentally different terms. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine offers arguments to support his claim, but it seems hard to disagree with. The only alternative I can see is to understand reality in terms of our experiences, and this is the road to metaphysical hell. |
| 15060 | Why should what is explanatorily basic be therefore more real? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We may grant that some things are explanatorily more basic than others, but why should that make them more real? | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 8) | |
| A reaction: This is the question asked by the 'quietist'. Fine's answer is that our whole conception of Reality, with its intrinsic structure, is what lies at the basis, and this is primitive. |
| 15048 | In metaphysics, reality is regarded as either 'factual', or as 'fundamental' [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The first main approach says metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'objective' or 'factual'. ...According to the second conception, metaphysical reality is to be identified with what is 'irreducible' or 'fundamental'. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 1) | |
| A reaction: Fine is defending the 'fundamental' approach, via the 'grounding' relation. The whole structure, though, seems to be reality. In particular, a complete story must include the relations which facilitate more than mere fundamentals. |
| 17293 | Worldly facts are obtaining states of affairs, with constituents; conceptual facts also depend on concepts [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: The 'worldly' view of facts says they are obtaining states of affairs, individuated by their constituents and their combination. On the 'conceptual' view, facts will differ if they pick out an object or property via different concepts. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: Might it be that conceptual differences between facts are supervenient on worldly differences (with the worldly facts in charge)? |
| 15061 | Although colour depends on us, we can describe the world that way if it picks out fundamentals [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: As long as colour terms pick out fundamental physical properties, I would be willing to countenance their use in the description of Reality in itself, ..even if they are based on a peculiar form of sensory awareness. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 8) | |
| A reaction: This seems to explain why metaphysicians are so fond of using colour as their example of a property, when it seems rather subjective. There seem to be good reasons for rejecting Fine's view. |
| 17298 | Two things being identical (like water and H2O) is not an explanation [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: If there is identity between water and H2O, we have neither the asymmetry nor the irreflexivity that explanations require. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Once you realise it is H2O, you understand its deeper features, which will open up new explanations. He's right, though. |
| 17299 | There are plenty of examples of non-causal explanation [Audi,P] |
| Full Idea: There are a number of explanations where it seems clear that causation is not involved at all: normative grounded in non-normative, disposition grounded in categorical, aesthetic grounded in non-aesthetic, semantic in social and psychological. | |
| From: Paul Audi (Clarification and Defense of Grounding [2012], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Apart from dispositions, perhaps, these all seem to be experienced phenomena grounded in the physical world. 'Determination' is the preferred term for non-causal grounding. |
| 15059 | Grounding is an explanation of truth, and needs all the virtues of good explanations [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The main sources of evidence for judgments of ground are intuitive and explanatory. The relationship of ground is a form of explanation, ..explaining what makes a proposition true, which needs simplicity, breadth, coherence, non-circularity and strength. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 7) | |
| A reaction: My thought is that not only must grounding explain, and therefore be a good explanation, but that the needs of explanation drive our decisions about what are the grounds. It is a bit indeterminate which is tail and which is dog. |
| 15057 | Ultimate explanations are in 'grounds', which account for other truths, which hold in virtue of the grounding [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We take ground to be an explanatory relation: if the truth that P is grounded in other truths, then they account for its truth; P's being the case holds in virtue of the other truths' being the case. ...It is the ultimate form of explanation. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 5) | |
| A reaction: To be 'ultimate' that which grounds would have to be something which thwarted all further explanation. Popper, for example, got quite angry at the suggestion that we should put a block on further investigation in this way. |
| 15058 | A proposition ingredient is 'essential' if changing it would change the truth-value [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A proposition essentially contains a given constituent if its replacement by some other constituent induces a shift in truth value. Thus Socrates is essential to the proposition that Socrates is a philosopher, but not to Socrates is self-identical. | |
| From: Kit Fine (The Question of Realism [2001], 6) | |
| A reaction: In this view the replacement of 'is' by 'isn't' would make 'is' (or affirmation) part of the essence of most propositions. This is about linguistic essence, rather than real essence. It has the potential to be trivial. Replace 'slightly' by 'fairly'? |
| 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'). |