15 ideas
| 8368 | A correct definition is what can be substituted without loss of meaning [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: A definition of a word is correct if the definition can be substituted for the word being defined in an assertion without in the least changing the meaning which the assertion is felt to have. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §1) | |
| A reaction: This sounds good, but a very bland and uninformative rephrasing would fit this account, without offering anything very helpful. The word 'this' could be substituted for a lot of object words. A 'blade' is 'a thing always attached to a knife handle'. |
| 13591 | Quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The whole of quantified modal logic collapses if essence is withdrawn. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Quine offers an interesting qualification to this crushing remark in Idea 13590. The point is that objects must retain their identity in modal contexts, as if I say 'John Kennedy might have been Richard Nixon'. What could that mean? |
| 13590 | Essences can make sense in a particular context or enquiry, as the most basic predicates [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The notion of essence makes sense in context. Relative to a particular enquiry, some predicates may play a more basic role than others, or may apply more fixedly; and these may be treated as essential. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Quine has got a bad press on essentialism, and on modal logic, but I take this point seriously. If you give something a fixed identity by means of essence in some context, you can then go ahead and apply possible world reasoning in that context. |
| 8483 | Necessity is relative to context; it is what is assumed in an inquiry [Quine] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of necessity makes sense to me only relative to context. Typically it is applied to what is assumed in an inquiry, as against what has yet to transpire. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.121) | |
| A reaction: Lots of things are assumed by an inquiry without an assumption that they must be true. Quine is the greatest opponent of necessity in all of philosophy. Asserting necessities, though, is too much fun to give up. It would ruin philosophy. |
| 13589 | Possible worlds are a way to dramatise essentialism, and yet they presuppose essentialism [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Talk of possible worlds is a graphic way of waging the essentialist philosophy, but it is only that; it is not an explication. Essence is needed to identify an object from one possible world to another. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.118) | |
| A reaction: He makes the proposal sound circular, but I take a commitment to essences to be prior to talk of possible worlds. Possible worlds are a tool for clarifying modalities, not for clarifying essential identities. |
| 13588 | A rigid designator (for all possible worlds) picks out an object by its essential traits [Quine] |
| Full Idea: A rigid designator differs from others in that it picks out its object by essential traits. It designates the object in all possible worlds in which it exists. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.118) | |
| A reaction: This states the point more clearly than Kripke ever does, and I presume it is right. Thus when we say that we wish 'our' Hubert Humphrey had won the election, we can allow that his victory elation would change him a bit. Kripke is right. |
| 13592 | Beliefs can be ascribed to machines [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Beliefs have been ascribed to machines, in support of a mechanistic philosophy, and I share this attitude. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Intensions Revisited [1977], p.123) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Raymond Nelson] One suspects that this is Quine's latent behaviourism speaking. It strikes me as a crass misuse of 'belief' to ascribe it to a simple machine like a thermostat. |
| 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'). |
| 8367 | Causation is defined in terms of a single sequence, and constant conjunction is no part of it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The correct definition of the causal relation is to be framed in terms of one single case of sequence, and constancy of conjunction is therefore no part of it. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the thesis of Ducasse's paper. I immediately warm to it. I take constant conjunction to be a consequence and symptom of causation, not its nature. There is a classic ontology/epistemology confusion to be avoided here. |
| 8372 | We see what is in common between causes to assign names to them, not to perceive them [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The part of a generalization concerning what is common to one individual concrete event and the causes of certain other events of the same kind is involved in the mere assigning of a name to the cause and its effect, but not in the perceiving them. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: A nice point, that we should keep distinct the recognition of a cause, and the assigning of a general name to it. Ducasse is claiming that we can directly perceive singular causation. |
| 8369 | Causes are either sufficient, or necessary, or necessitated, or contingent upon [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: There are four causal connections: an event is sufficient for another if it is its cause; an event is necessary for another if it is a condition for it; it is necessitated by another if it is an effect; it is contingent upon another if it is a resultant. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §2) | |
| A reaction: An event could be a condition for another without being necessary. He seems to have missed the indispensable aspect of a necessary condition. |
| 8373 | When a brick and a canary-song hit a window, we ignore the canary if we are interested in the breakage [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: If a brick and the song of a canary strike a window, which breaks....we can truly say that the song of the canary had nothing to do with it, that is, in so far as what occurred is viewed merely as a case of breakage of window. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §5) | |
| A reaction: This is the germ of Davidson's view, that causation is entirely dependent on the mode of description, rather than being an actual feature of reality. If one was interested in the sound of the breakage, the canary would become relevant. |
| 8370 | A cause is a change which occurs close to the effect and just before it [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The cause of the particular change K was such particular change C as alone occurred in the immediate environment of K immediately before. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §3) | |
| A reaction: The obvious immediately difficulty would be overdetermination, as when it rains while I am watering my garden. The other problem would coincidence, as when I clap my hands just before a bomb goes off. |
| 8371 | Recurrence is only relevant to the meaning of law, not to the meaning of cause [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: The supposition of recurrence is wholly irrelevant to the meaning of cause: that supposition is relevant only to the meaning of law. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §4) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, especially if our notion of laws of nature is built up from a series of caused events. But we could just have an ontology of 'similar events', out of which we build laws, and 'causation' could drop out (á la Russell). |
| 8374 | We are interested in generalising about causes and effects purely for practical purposes [Ducasse] |
| Full Idea: We are interested in causes and effects primarily for practical purposes, which needs generalizations; so the interest of concrete individual facts of causation is chiefly an indirect one, as raw material for generalizations. | |
| From: Curt Ducasse (Nature and Observability of Causal Relations [1926], §6) | |
| A reaction: A nice explanation of why, if causation is fundamentally about single instances, people seem so interested in generalisations and laws. We want to predict, and we want to explain, and we want to intervene. |