22 ideas
| 9331 | How do we determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: How are we to determine which of the sentences containing a term comprise its definition? | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §2) | |
| A reaction: Nice question. If I say 'philosophy is the love of wisdom' and 'philosophy bores me', why should one be part of its definition and the other not? What if I stipulated that the second one is part of my definition, and the first one isn't? |
| 14508 | A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
| A reaction: These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'. |
| 14511 | There are cases where mere qualities would not ensure an intrinsic identity [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: I have argued that there are possible cases in which no purely qualitative conditions would be both necessary and sufficient for possessing a given thisness. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
| A reaction: Are we perhaps confusing our epistemology with our ontology here? We can ensure that something has identity, or ensure that its identity is knowable. If it is 'something', then it has identity. Er, that's it? |
| 12031 | Essences are taken to be qualitative properties [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Essences have normally been understood to be constituted by qualitative properties. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
| A reaction: I add this simple point, because it might be challenged by the view that an essence is a substance, rather than the properties of anything. I prefer that, and would add that substances are individuated by distinctive causal powers. |
| 12034 | If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again. |
| 14510 | Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!). |
| 16455 | Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: [my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described. |
| 14507 | Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Is the world - and are all possible worlds - constituted by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality? | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], Intro) | |
| A reaction: 'Thisness' and 'suchness' aim to capture Aristotelian notions of the entity and its attributes. Aristotle talks of 'a this'. Adams is after adding 'haecceities' to the world. My intuitive answer is no, there are no 'pure' identities. We add those. |
| 11964 | Possible worlds are world-stories, maximal descriptions of whole non-existent worlds [Adams,RM, by Molnar] |
| Full Idea: According to a theory proposed by Adams, possible worlds are world-stories, that is maximally complete consistent sets of propositions which between them describe non-existent whole worlds. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by George Molnar - Powers 12.2.2 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this places an additional constraint on the view that a world is just a maximal set of propositions. It seems to require coherence as well as consistency. Suppose an object destroys all others objects. Is that a world? |
| 16451 | Adams says anti-haecceitism reduces all thisness to suchness [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist thesis (according to Adams's version) is that all thisnesses are reducible to, or supervenient upon, suchnesses. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 3.5 |
| 11901 | Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been | |
| A reaction: I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality. |
| 14512 | Moderate Haecceitism says transworld identities are primitive, but connected to qualities [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: My position, according to which thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive but logically connected to suchnesses, we may call 'Moderate Haecceitism'. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
| A reaction: The rather tentative connection to qualities is to block the possibility of Aristotle being a poached egg, which he (quite reasonably!) holds to be counterintuitive. It all feels like a mess to me. |
| 9333 | A priori belief is not necessarily a priori justification, or a priori knowledge [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: It is one thing to believe something a priori and another for this belief to be epistemically justified. The latter is required for a priori knowledge. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: Personally I would agree with this, because I don't think anything should count as knowledge if it doesn't have supporting reasons, but fans of a priori knowledge presumably think that certain basic facts are just known. They are a priori justified. |
| 9342 | Understanding needs a priori commitment [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Understanding is itself based on a priori commitment. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: This sounds plausible, but needs more justification than Horwich offers. This is the sort of New Rationalist idea I associate with Bonjour. The crucial feature of the New lot is, I take it, their fallibilism. All understanding is provisional. |
| 9332 | Meaning is generated by a priori commitment to truth, not the other way around [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: Our a priori commitment to certain sentences is not really explained by our knowledge of a word's meaning. It is the other way around. We accept a priori that the sentences are true, and thereby provide it with meaning. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §8) | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a lovely trump card, but how on earth do you decide that a sentence is true if you don't know what it means? Personally I would take it that we are committed to the truth of a proposition, before we have a sentence for it. |
| 9341 | Meanings and concepts cannot give a priori knowledge, because they may be unacceptable [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: A priori knowledge of logic and mathematics cannot derive from meanings or concepts, because someone may possess such concepts, and yet disagree with us about them. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §12) | |
| A reaction: A good argument. The thing to focus on is not whether such ideas are a priori, but whether they are knowledge. I think we should employ the word 'intuition' for a priori candidates for knowledge, and demand further justification for actual knowledge. |
| 9334 | If we stipulate the meaning of 'number' to make Hume's Principle true, we first need Hume's Principle [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: If we stipulate the meaning of 'the number of x's' so that it makes Hume's Principle true, we must accept Hume's Principle. But a precondition for this stipulation is that Hume's Principle be accepted a priori. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §9) | |
| A reaction: Yet another modern Quinean argument that all attempts at defining things are circular. I am beginning to think that the only a priori knowledge we have is of when a group of ideas is coherent. Calling it 'intuition' might be more accurate. |
| 9339 | A priori knowledge (e.g. classical logic) may derive from the innate structure of our minds [Horwich] |
| Full Idea: One potential source of a priori knowledge is the innate structure of our minds. We might, for example, have an a priori commitment to classical logic. | |
| From: Paul Horwich (Stipulation, Meaning and Apriority [2000], §11) | |
| A reaction: Horwich points out that to be knowledge it must also say that we ought to believe it. I'm wondering whether if we divided the whole territory of the a priori up into intuitions and then coherent justifications, the whole problem would go away. |
| 15119 | Aristotelian explanation by essence may need to draw on knowledge of other essences [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: From Aristotle's biology we learn that a successful scientific explanation of the necessary (but non-essential) features of one type of phenomenon (e.g. camels) my require appeal to facts about the essences of other types of phenomena (stomachs). | |
| From: report of Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.4 |
| 12032 | Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2) | |
| A reaction: One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't. |
| 23302 | Plants have far less life than animals, but more life than other corporeal entities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The genus of plants, whilst it is devoid of life compared with an animal, is endowed with life as compared with other corporeal entities. In the sea there are certain objects which one would be at a loss to determine whether they be animal or vegetable. | |
| From: Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE], 588b09) | |
| A reaction: It seems that Aristotle takes life to come in degrees, assessed by the amount of physical vitality observed. This seems to make lambs more alive than sheep, which isn't very plausible. This is part of his 'gradualist' view of nature. |
| 23301 | There is a gradual proceeding from the inanimate to animals, with no clear borderlines [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nature proceeds little by little from things lifeless to animal life so that it is impossible to determine the exact line of demarcation, nor on which side an intermediate form should lie. ...In plants there is a continuous ascent towards the animal. | |
| From: Aristotle (The History of Animals [c.344 BCE], 588b04) | |
| A reaction: This in itself should have alerted medieval Christians to the problematic nature of the idea that animal species were divinely created. |