19 ideas
| 7396 | Hobbes created English-language philosophy [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes created English-language philosophy. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Pref | |
| A reaction: Tuck mentions Hooker as a predecessor in jurisprudence. Otherwise, an impressive label. |
| 16014 | It is controversial whether only 'numerical identity' allows two things to be counted as one [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: 'Numerical identity' implies the controversial view that it is the only identity relation in accordance with which we can properly count (or number) things: x and y are to be properly counted as one just in case they are numerically identical. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §1) | |
| A reaction: Noonan cites Geach, presumably to remind us of relative identity, where two things may be one or two, depending on what they are relative to. The one 'guard on the gate' may actually be two men. |
| 16024 | I could have died at five, but the summation of my adult stages could not [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Persons have different modal properties from the summations of person-stages. …I might have died when I was five. But the maximal summation of person-stages which perdurantists say is me could not have had a temporal extent of a mere five years. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: Thus the summation of stages seems to fail Leibniz's Law, since truths about a part are not true of the whole. But my foot might be amputated without me being amputated. The objection is the fallacy of composition? |
| 16023 | Stage theorists accept four-dimensionalism, but call each stage a whole object [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Stage theorists, accepting the ontology of perdurance, modify the semantics to secure the result that fatness is a property of a cat. Every temporal part of a cat (such as Tabby-on-Monday) is a cat. …(but they pay a price over the counting of cats). | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §5) | |
| A reaction: [Noonan cites Hawley and Sider for this view. The final parenthesis compresses Noonan] I would take the difficulty over counting cats to be fatal to the view. It produces too many cats, or too few, or denies counting altogether. |
| 16015 | Problems about identity can't even be formulated without the concept of identity [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: If identity is problematic, it is difficult to see how the problem could be resolved, since it is difficult to see how a thinker could have the conceptual resources with which to explain the concept of identity whilst lacking that concept itself. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §1) | |
| A reaction: I don't think I accept this. We can comprehend the idea of a mind that didn't think in terms of identities (at least for objects). I suppose any relation of a mind to the world has to distinguish things in some way. Does the Parmenidean One have identity? |
| 16017 | Identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation satisfying Leibniz's Law [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Numerical identity is usually defined as the equivalence relation (or: the reflexive relation) satisfying Leibniz's Law, the indiscernibility of identicals, where everything true of x is true of y. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §2) | |
| A reaction: Noonan says this must include 'is identical to x' among the truths, and so is circular |
| 16016 | Identity definitions (such as self-identity, or the smallest equivalence relation) are usually circular [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Identity can be circularly defined, as 'the relation everything has to itself and to nothing else', …or as 'the smallest equivalence relation'. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §2) | |
| A reaction: The first one is circular because 'nothing else' implies identity. The second is circular because it has to quantify over all equivalence relations. (So says Noonan). |
| 16020 | Identity can only be characterised in a second-order language [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: There is no condition in a first-order language for a predicate to express identity, rather than indiscernibility within the resources of the language. Leibniz's Law is statable in a second-order language, so identity can be uniquely characterised. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §2) | |
| A reaction: The point is that first-order languages only refer to all objects, but you need to refer to all properties to include Leibniz's Law. Quine's 'Identity, Ostension and Hypostasis' is the source of this idea. |
| 16018 | Indiscernibility is basic to our understanding of identity and distinctness [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law (the indiscernibility of identicals) appears to be crucial to our understanding of identity, and, more particularly, to our understanding of distinctness. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §2) | |
| A reaction: True, but indiscernibility concerns the epistemology, and identity concerns the ontology. |
| 16019 | Leibniz's Law must be kept separate from the substitutivity principle [Noonan] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz's Law must be clearly distinguished from the substitutivity principle, that if 'a' and 'b' are codesignators they are substitutable salva veritate. | |
| From: Harold Noonan (Identity [2009], §2) | |
| A reaction: He gives a bunch of well-known problem cases for substitutivity. The Morning Star, Giorgione, and the number of planets won't work. Belief contexts, or facts about spelling, may not be substitutable. |
| 16638 | The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us are those motions by which these seemings are caused. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.2.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to count as a sense-datum theory, rather than a representative theory of perception, since it makes no commitment to the qualities containing any accurate information at all. We just start from the qualities and try to work it out. |
| 16688 | Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: All evidence is conception, as it is said, and all conception is imagination and proceeds from sense. And spirits we suppose to be those substances which work not upon the sense, and therefore not conceptible. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.11.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 16.2 | |
| A reaction: This is exactly the same as Hume's claim that all ideas are the result of impressions, and is the very essence of empiricism. We see here that such an epistemology can have huge consequences. |
| 7405 | Experience can't prove universal truths [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Experience concludeth nothing universally. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.4.10), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Empiricists seem proud to claim this limitation on human understanding, where rationalists like Leibniz use it as an argument against empiricism. Kripke says (e.g. Idea 4966) they are both wrong! I sympathise with Kripke. |
| 7408 | It is an error that reason should control the passions, which give right guidance on their own [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes (and Descartes, and many contemporaries) argued that the traditional idea that reason should control the passions was an error, and that (properly understood) our emotions would guide us in the right direction. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm an intellectualist on this one. It strikes me as rather naïve and romantic to think that unthinking emotion could ever consistently approach what is right. A recipe for disaster. |
| 7407 | Good and evil are what please us; goodness and badness the powers causing them [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: We call good and evil the things that please and displease us; and so we call goodness and badness, the qualities of powers whereby they do it. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.7.3), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: It is pointed out by Tuck that this is just like his treatment of colour terms (values as secondary qualities). I would have thought it was obvious that I could say 'x pleases me, although I disapprove of it' (e.g. black humour). |
| 7410 | Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: If men are their own judges of what conduces to their preservation, ..all men make different decisions about what counts as a danger, so (for Hobbes) the grimmest version of ethical relativism seems to be the only possible ethical vision. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This might depend on self-preservation being the only fundamental value. But if self-preservation is not a pressing issue, presumably other values might come into play, some of them less concerned with the individual's own interests. |
| 7409 | Hobbes shifted from talk of 'the good' to talk of 'rights' [Hobbes, by Tuck] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes (like Grotius) shifted from talking about 'the good', which had been the traditional subject for both ancient and Renaissance moralists, to talking instead about 'rights'. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This is part of the crucial shift away from the Greek interest in excellence of character, towards the Enlightenment legalistic interest in right actions, as well as social rights. Bad move, well analysed by MacIntyre. |
| 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'). |
| 7411 | The attributes of God just show our inability to conceive his nature [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: All the attributes of God signify our inability and defect of power to conceive any thing concerning his nature. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.10.2), quoted by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Presumably he means that 'omnipotence' should just be translated as 'mind-boggling power'. St Anselm's concept of God (Idea 1405) is helpful here, placing it at the upper limit of what can actually be conceived. |