20 ideas
14330 | To be realists about dispositions, we can only discuss them through their categorical basis [Armstrong] |
Full Idea: It is only to the extent that we relate disposition to 'categorical basis', and difference of disposition to difference of 'categorical basis', that we can speak of dispositions. We must be Realists, not Phenomenalists, about dispositions. | |
From: David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968], 6.VI) | |
A reaction: It is Armstrong's realism which motivates this claim, because he thinks only categorical properties are real. But categorical properties seem to be passive, and the world is active. |
17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Maybe strict identity only applies to the particulars (the molecules) in a case of vague identity. …It seems, however, utopian to suppose that we will ever reach a level of ultimate, basic particulars for which identity relations are never vague. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
A reaction: I agree with this. Ladyman and Ross laugh at the unscientific picture found in dreams of 'simples'. |
11868 | A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke] |
Full Idea: Could the artificer not, when he made the table, have taken other pieces? Surely he could. [n37: I venture to think that Kripke's argument in note 56 for the necessity of constitution depends on treating constitution as if it were identity]. | |
From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 56) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.11 | |
A reaction: Suppose the craftsman completed the table, then changed a piece of wood in it for some reason. Has he now made a second table and destroyed the first one? Wiggins seems to be right. |
17044 | A relation can clearly be reflexive, and identity is the smallest reflexive relation [Kripke] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers have thought that a relation, being essentially two-termed, cannot hold between a thing and itself. This position is plainly absurd ('he is his own worst enemy'). Identity is nothing but the smallest reflexive relation. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 50) | |
A reaction: I have no idea what 'smallest' means here. I can't be 'to the left of myself', so not all of my relations can be reflexive. I just don't understand what it means to say something is 'identical with itself'. You've got the thing - what have you added? |
16999 | A vague identity may seem intransitive, and we might want to talk of 'counterparts' [Kripke] |
Full Idea: When the identity relation is vague, it may seem intransitive; a claim of apparent identity may yield an apparent non-identity. Some sort of 'counterpart' notion may have some utility here. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 18) | |
A reaction: He firmly rejects the full Lewis apparatus of counterparts. The idea would be that a river at different times had counterpart relations, not strict identity. I like the word 'same' for this situation. Most worldly 'identity' is intransitive. |
17058 | What many people consider merely physically necessary I consider completely necessary [Kripke] |
Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary tout court. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
A reaction: He avoids the term 'metaphysically necessary', which most people would not use for this point. |
4970 | What is often held to be mere physical necessity is actually metaphysical necessity [Kripke] |
Full Idea: My third lecture suggests that a good deal of what contemporary philosophy regards as mere physical necessity is actually necessary 'tout court'. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (g)) | |
A reaction: This huge claim rides in on the back of Kripke's very useful clarifications. It is the 'new essentialism', and seems to me untenable in this form. There is no answer to Hume's request for evidence of necessity. Why can't essences (and laws) change? |
17059 | Unicorns are vague, so no actual or possible creature could count as a unicorn [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If the unicorn myth is supposed to be a particular species, with insufficient internal structure to determine it uniquely, then there is no actual or possible species of which we can say that it would have been the species of unicorns. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], Add (a)) | |
A reaction: Dummett and Rumfitt discuss this proposal elsewhere. |
4950 | Possible worlds are useful in set theory, but can be very misleading elsewhere [Kripke] |
Full Idea: The apparatus of possible worlds has (I hope) been very useful as far as the set-theoretic model-theory of quantified modal logic is concerned, but has encouraged philosophical pseudo-problems and misleading pictures. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 15) | |
A reaction: This is presumably a swipe at David Lewis, who claims possible worlds are real. The fact that the originator of possible worlds sees them as unproblematic doesn't mean they are. Fine if they are a game, but if they assert truth, they need a metaphysics. |
17003 | Kaplan's 'Dthat' is a useful operator for transforming a description into a rigid designation [Kripke] |
Full Idea: It is useful to have an operator which transforms each description into a term which rigidly designates the object actually satisfying the description. David Kaplan has proposed such an operator and calls it 'Dthat'. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 22) |
9221 | The best known objection to counterparts is Kripke's, that Humphrey doesn't care if his counterpart wins [Kripke, by Sider] |
Full Idea: The most famous objection to counterparts is Kripke's objection that Hubert Humphrey wouldn't care if he thought that his counterpart might have won the 1972 election. He wishes that he had won it. | |
From: report of Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 12) by Theodore Sider - Reductive Theories of Modality 3.10 | |
A reaction: Like Sider, I find this unconvincing. If there is a world in which I don't exist, but my very close counterpart does (say exactly me, but with a finger missing), I am likely to care more about such a person than about complete strangers. |
17052 | The a priori analytic truths involving fixing of reference are contingent [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If statements whose a priori truth is known via the fixing of a reference are counted as analytic, then some analytic truths are contingent. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 63) |
6498 | Armstrong suggests secondary qualities are blurred primary qualities [Armstrong, by Robinson,H] |
Full Idea: According to D.M. Armstrong and others, when we perceive secondary qualities we are in fact perceiving primary qualities in a confused, indistinct or blurred way. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968], 270-90) by Howard Robinson - Perception III.1 | |
A reaction: This is obviously an attempt to fit secondary qualities into a reductive physicalist account of the mind. Personally I favour Armstrong's project, but doubt whether this strategy is necessary. I just don't think there is anything 'primary' about redness. |
4969 | I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing [Kripke] |
Full Idea: I regard the mind-body problem as wide open, and extremely confusing. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 77) | |
A reaction: Kripke opposes reductive physicalism, but is NOT committed to dualism. He seems to be drawn to Davidson or Nagel (see his note 73). I think his discussion of contingent mind-brain identity is confused. |
5690 | A mental state without belief refutes self-intimation; a belief with no state refutes infallibility [Armstrong, by Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: For Armstrong, introspection involves a belief, and mental states and their accompanying beliefs are 'distinct existences', so a state without belief shows states are not self-intimating, and the belief without the state shows beliefs aren't infallible. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection | |
A reaction: I agree with Armstrong. Introspection is a two-level activity, which animals probably can't do, and there is always the possibility of a mismatch between the two levels, so introspection is neither self-intimating nor infallibe (though incorrigible). |
5493 | If pains are defined causally, and research shows that the causal role is physical, then pains are physical [Armstrong, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Armstrong and Lewis said that mental items were defined in terms of typical causes and effects; if, as seems likely, research reveals that a particular causal niche is occupied by a physical state, it follows that pain is a physical state. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.5 | |
A reaction: I am not fully convinced of the first step in the argument. It sounds like the epistemology and the ontology have got muddled (as usual). We define mental states as we define electrons, in terms of observed behaviour, but what are they? |
4600 | Armstrong and Lewis see functionalism as an identity of the function and its realiser [Armstrong, by Heil] |
Full Idea: The Armstrong/Lewis version of functionalism takes mental properties to be functional properties, but identifies these with what other functionalists would regard as their realisers. | |
From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Materialist Theory of Mind (Rev) [1968]) by John Heil - Philosophy of Mind Ch.4 | |
A reaction: Heil rejects this, but I am beginning to think that this is the answer. If functions do not have an ontological life of their own (the 'ringing' of the bell), then functionalist mental states can't either. Function is not an ontological category. |
4956 | A description may fix a reference even when it is not true of its object [Kripke] |
Full Idea: In some cases an object may be identified, and the reference of a name fixed, using a description which may turn out to be false of its object. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 34) | |
A reaction: This is clearly possible. Someone could be identified as 'the criminal' when they were actually innocent. Nevertheless, how do you remember which person was baptised 'Aristotle' if you don't hang on to a description, even a false one? |
17032 | Even if Gödel didn't produce his theorems, he's still called 'Gödel' [Kripke] |
Full Idea: If a Gödelian fraud were exposed, Gödel would no longer be called 'the author of the incompleteness theorem', but he would still be called 'Gödel'. The description, therefore, does not abbreviate the name. | |
From: Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 37) | |
A reaction: Clearly we can't make the description a necessary fact about Gödel, but that doesn't invalidate the idea that successful reference needs some description. E.g. Gödel is a person. |
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'). |