7 ideas
| 19494 | Fictionalism allows that simulated beliefs may be tracking real facts [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: The fictionalist offers the option that your simulated beliefs and assertions may be tracking a realm of genuine facts, or a realm of what you take to be facts. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Go Figure: a Path through Fictionalism [2001], 13) | |
| A reaction: This means that fictionalism does not have to be an error theory. That is, we aren't mistakenly believing something that we actually made up. Instead we are sensibly believing something we know to be not literally true. Love it. |
| 8967 | Not all predicates can be properties - 'is non-self-exemplifying', for example [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: We cannot assume that every meaningful predicate necessarily expresses a property that some entity could possess. The predicate 'is non-self-exemplifying' is meaningful, yet it would be contradictory for there to be any such property. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003]) | |
| A reaction: This clinches what I would take to be a foregone conclusion - that you can't know what the world contains just by examining the predicates of the English language. However, I suppose predicates are needed to know properties. |
| 8965 | Neither mere matter nor pure form can individuate a sphere, so it must be a combination [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: A sphere's matter could not be what makes it one sphere, since matter lacks intrinsic unity, ..and the form cannot make it that very sphere, since an identical sphere may exemplify that universal. So it is a combination of form and matter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 5) | |
| A reaction: But how do two aspects of the sphere, neither of which has the power to individuate, achieve individuation when they are combined? Like parents, I suppose. Two totally identical spheres can only be individuated by location. |
| 19493 | Governing possible worlds theory is the fiction that if something is possible, it happens in a world [Yablo] |
| Full Idea: The governing fiction of possible worlds theory says that whenever something is possible, there is a world where it happens. | |
| From: Stephen Yablo (Go Figure: a Path through Fictionalism [2001], 05) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like the only sensible attitude to possible worlds I can think of. |
| 8968 | If the flagpole causally explains the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Two distinct entities cannot explain each other, in the same sense of 'explain'. If the height of the flagpole causally explains the length of the shadow, the shadow cannot explain the flagpole, though it may predict the latter. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 12) | |
| A reaction: This seems related to the question of the direction of time/causation. Some explanations can be benignly circular, as when a married couple have a passion for chinese food. [S.Bromberger 1966 invented the flagpole case]. |
| 8966 | Properties are facets of objects, only discussable separately by an act of abstraction [Lowe] |
| Full Idea: In no sense is a property a 'constituent' of an object: it is merely a 'facet' or 'aspect' of an object - something which we can talk about or think of separately from that object only by an act of abstraction. | |
| From: E.J. Lowe (Individuation [2003], 8) | |
| A reaction: This appears to be in tune with traditional abstractionism, even though Lowe is committed to the reality of universals. To what do I refer when I say 'I like your car, apart from its colour'? |
| 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'). |