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23000
|
Vicious regresses force you to another level; non-vicious imply another level [Baron/Miller]
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Full Idea:
A regress is vicious if the problem at level n can only be solved at level n+1; it is non-vicious if it can be solved at n, but the solution forces another level n+1, where the problem can be reformulated.
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From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 2.3.2)
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|
A reaction:
So in a vicious regress you chase the apparent solution, but never attain it. In the non-vicious you solve it, but then find you have a new problem. I think.
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|
23024
|
A traveller takes a copy of a picture into the past, gives it the artist, who then creates the original! [Baron/Miller]
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Full Idea:
Suppose an art critic travels back in time with a copy of an artist's masterpiece, gives the artist the copy, and the artist copies it. The copy of the copy turns out to be the original mastepiece. The artwork seems to come from nowhere.
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From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.6)
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A reaction:
Lovely thought. Is the example possible (even with time travel)? How would the critic possess the copy before making the time journey? What if the critic decided not to travel back in time? Can a picture exist if no one has imagined it first?
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|
21011
|
We shouldn't focus on actual preferences, which may be distorted by injustices [Nussbaum]
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|
Full Idea:
When society puts things out of reach for people, they typically learn not to want those things. ..By defining the social goal in terms of satisfaction of actual preferences, utilitarian approaches often reinforce the status quo, which may be very unjust.
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|
From:
Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)
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|
A reaction:
Maximising happiness is potentially very paternalistic, whereas preference satisfaction is not, which aligns utilitarianism better with liberalism. It is notorious that slaves can be contented with their slavery, and battered wives can remain loyal.
|
|
21012
|
Women are often treated like children, and not respected for their choices [Nussbaum]
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|
Full Idea:
Women are often treated as passive dependents, creatures to be cared for (or not), rather than as independent human beings deserving respect for their choices. In other words they are often infantilized.
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|
From:
Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)
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|
A reaction:
Her prime example is from India, but you see the same thing in more subtle forms in the UK, especially among older people, and especially in art galleries.
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|
21009
|
Capabilities: Life, Health, Safety, Mental life, Love, Planning, Joining in, Nature, Play, Control [Nussbaum, by PG]
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|
Full Idea:
Ten Capabilities: Life (decent), Health (reproduction, shelter), Safety, Mental life (with education), Love (relationships), Planning (with free beliefs), Joining in (and non-discrimination), Nature (relations to), Play, Control (politics and property).
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|
From:
report of Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2) by PG - Db (ideas)
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|
A reaction:
She gives her crucial list in rather wordy form. To have impact it needs to be reduced to brief simple slogans.
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|
21010
|
Justice requires that the ten main capabilities of people are reasonably enabled [Nussbaum]
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|
Full Idea:
The basic claim of my account of social justice is this: respect for human dignity requires that citizens be placed above an ample (specified) threshold of capability in all ten of the areas.
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|
From:
Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 2)
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|
A reaction:
[The capabilities are given, briefly, in Idea 21009] The one word that bothers me here is 'dignity'. It is very vague, and can, I think, be reduced to much clearer and more obvious concepts. A person lacks dignity when they vomit, in ordinary usage.
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|
21014
|
Rights are not just barriers against state interference; governments must affirm capabilities of citizens [Nussbaum]
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|
Full Idea:
A prominent idea, common in the U.S., sees rights as barriers against interfering state action. ...The Capabilities Approach, by contrast, insists that all entitlements involve an affirmative task for government, to actively support capabilities.
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|
From:
Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 3)
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|
A reaction:
This makes her approach very left wing, by U.S. standards, because it needs higher taxation and a degree of government paternalism. Her approach strikes me as an excellent agenda for a fairly interventionist European liberal party.
|
|
21023
|
We should respect animals in the way that we respect the animal nature in humans [Nussbaum]
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|
Full Idea:
If we show respect to our own animal natures, it is simply inconsistent, and a kind of vicious self-promoting of a sort to which Kantians are especially opposed, to refuse the same respect to our fellow creatures.
|
|
From:
Martha Nussbaum (Creating Capabilities [2011], 8)
|
|
A reaction:
Nussbaum says Kant is hopeless on animals, but Christine Korsgaard offers this Kantian approach that demands genuine respect for animals, even though they are not considered rational. Nussbaum says animals are agents. Did Kant respect our animality?
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|
23011
|
Modern accounts of causation involve either processes or counterfactuals [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
The two major contemporary theories of causation are process theories and counterfactual theories. …Process theories treat it as something to be discovered. …Counterfactual theories ignore processes, and treat it in terms of truth and falsity.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.1)
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|
A reaction:
I take the counterfactual theory to be a specialised branch of the project of analytic metaphysics, which seeks the logical form of causation sentences, using possible worlds semantics. In the real word its processes or nothing.
|
|
23013
|
The main process theory of causation says it is transference of mass, energy, momentum or charge [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary process theories of causation it consists of the transference of a 'mark', which is always some conserved quantity. Candidates (from science) are mass, energy, momentum and electric charge.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Given my commitment to physicalism, this is my preferred theory of causation. It began with the suggestion of energy-transfer, but has broadened into the present idea. It is an updated version of the Newton view, as the meeting of objects.
|
|
23014
|
If causes are processes, what is causation by omission? (Distinguish legal from scientific causes?) [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
Process theories of causation face a serious problem, such as killing a plant by failing to water it - a cause by omission. …Defenders of the theory propose two concepts of causation: one for legal and one for scientific contexts.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 6.2.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Not much of a problem, I think. Clearly the scientific concept has priority. The plant died of dehydration, resulting from the consumption and evaporation of the available water. The human causes of that situation are legion.
|
|
23009
|
There is no second 'law' of thermodynamics; it just reflects probabilities of certain microstates [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
According to contemporary statistical mechanics the second law of thermodynamics is not really a law at all, but merely reflects to probabilities of certain microstates, conditional on local boundary conditions having certain properties.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.6.1)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice illustration of how metaphysicians have been seduced by the 'laws' of nature into falsely inferring all sorts of natural necessities. Entropy is normally assumed to be totally inevitable, because of some natural force. It's just a pattern.
|
|
23002
|
In relativity space and time depend on one's motion, but spacetime gives an invariant metric [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
While spatial and temporal distances in relativity depend on one's relative state of motion, spatiotemporal distances within Minkowski spacetime do not. It therefore provides an invariant metric for describing the distances between things.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 4.2)
|
|
A reaction:
I doubt whether this solves all the worries which philosophers have, about relativity giving an account of time which contradicts our concept of time in every other area of our understanding.
|
|
22991
|
How can we know this is the present moment, if other times are real? [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
According to the spotlight and growing block views, there is a single objectively present moment, and also other objectively existing moments. But then how do persons in those different moments know which one is present?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed example] This sceptical thought leads either towards Presentism (we know we are present because that's all there is), or Eternalism (there is no present moment, so no problem). A good objection to spotlight and growing block.
|
|
22992
|
If we are actually in the past then we shouldn't experience time passing [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If the past really exists, and we are in it, rather than in the present, then we should rationally conclude that we are not experiencing the passage of time. …But then we have no basis for arguing that time is dynamic.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.6)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] It is certainly difficult to conceive how past times and entities could be real in every way, except that the experience of time passing has been removed. But if past people experience passing, they must believe they are present…
|
|
22994
|
Erzatz Presentism allows the existence of other times, with only the present 'actualised' [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The 'erzatz presentism' view is that either the past and present exist, or all times exist, but only the present is 'actualised'. Standard Presentism says no times exist other than the present.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.7.2)
|
|
A reaction:
Ersatz presentism is obviously a close relative of the moving spotlight and growing block views. No account seems possible of the distinction between 'exists' and 'actualised' (other than the former being a mere abstract concept).
|
|
23017
|
Presentism needs endurantism, because other theories imply most of the object doesn't exist [Baron/Miller]
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|
Full Idea:
Presentism is more naturally paired with endurantism, since if we pair it with perdurantism or transdurantism we have to say that most of any persisting object does not exist, and while that is not incoherent it is not very attractive.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 7.2.2)
|
|
A reaction:
(I think perdurance is time slices, and transdurance is the complete time worm). My preferred combination is this one: all that exists is the complete objects at the present moment. It also needs strong commitment to the truth of tensed verbs.
|
|
23023
|
How can presentists move to the next future moment, if that doesn't exist? [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
If Presentism is true, how do we manage to travel from this moment to the next moment, a moment that is, at present, a future and hence non-existent moment?
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 8.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
The reply would have to be that the metaphor of 'travel' is inappropriate for the movement through time. Travel needs a succession of existing places. The advancement of time is nothing like that. Nice question, though.
|
|
22995
|
Most of the sciences depend on the concept of time [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
Without time it is hard to make sense of historical research, evolutionary biology, psychology, chemistry, biology, cosmology, social science, archaeology, practical reason, evidence, human agency and causation.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.8)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I do find it extraordinary that relativistic physicists cheerfully embrace an eternalist theory of time which seems to render nearly all of the other sciences meaningless.
|
|
23001
|
The error theory of time's passage says it is either a misdescription or a false inference [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to the cognitive error theory of the passage of time, …it is either our misdescription of our temporal phenomenology, or some mechanism of our brain infers that the phenomenology is caused by time actually passing.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 3.3.1)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] I think I have some sympathy with the misdescription view. If you imaginatively gradually remove all the changing events in your experience, that doesn't end with a raw experience of pure time, because there is no such thing.
|
|
22986
|
The C-series rejects A and B, and just sees times as order by betweenness, without direction [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The C-series sees times not as directed, but as unchanging, and ordered in terms of the betweenness relation. The C-theory also asserts that the A-series and B-series do not exist.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This is McTaggart's idea. Compare this with A-series ordering by past, present and future, and B-series ordering by earlier-than, later-than and simultaneous. The main point is that A and B have a direction, but C does not.
|
|
23003
|
Static theories cannot account for time's obvious asymmetry, so time must be dynamic [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
One argument for the dynamic theory of time is that time is, obviously, asymmetric, and as static theories can't account for this asymmetry, we ought to posit temporal passage to explain it.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5)
|
|
A reaction:
The B-series view (unlike the C-series) asserts that there is an order from past to future, but it offers no explanation of that fact. Physicists love to tell you the order could be in either direction, But why an 'order' at all?
|
|
23005
|
The kaon does not seem to be time-reversal invariant, unlike the rest of nature [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The laws of nature are time-reversal invariant, with the small exception of the kaon (a type of sub-atomic particle)
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 5.3.2)
|
|
A reaction:
If that fact about the kaon were very secure indeed, then that would mean the collapse of the claims about the time-invariance of the laws. Since time-invariance is still routinely asserted, I assume it is not secure.
|
|
22989
|
Static time theory presents change as one property at t1, and a different property at t2 [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The static theory of time appeals to an 'at-at' notion of change, which analyses change as objects or events having one property at time t1, and a different property at t2. (The worry about this is that it describes variation, but not real change).
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.4)
|
|
A reaction:
I suppose observing a different property at t2 is observing the result of a change, rather than the process. But then the process might be broken down into micro-gradations of properties. Maybe only results can be observed.
|
|
22987
|
The past (unlike the future) is fixed, along with truths about it, by the existence of past objects [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is the existence of past objects that explains why the past is fixed, and why there are truths about the past, and it is the non-existence of future objects that explains why the future is malleable.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.3)
|
|
A reaction:
The authors label this view 'EntityNowandThenism', and it comes in a section on the 'Temporal Ontology'.
|
|
22990
|
The moving spotlight says entities can have properties of being present, past or future [Baron/Miller]
|
|
Full Idea:
The moving spotlight theorist maintains that there are special temporal properties that entities possess, namely the properties of being present, being past and being future.
|
|
From:
Baron,S/Miller,K (Intro to the Philosophy of Time [2019], 1.5.3)
|
|
A reaction:
Are these thought to be intrinsic properties of the objects, or (more plausibly) relational properties, between objects and times? Either view is weird. Does some godlike part of time scurry along, illuminating things, like a mouse under a carpet?
|