88 ideas
| 15010 | Your metaphysics is 'cheating' if your ontology won't support the beliefs you accept [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Ontological 'cheaters' are those ne'er-do-well metaphysicians (such as presentists, phenomenalists, or solipsists) who refuse to countenance a sufficiently robust conception of the fundamental to underwrite the truths they accept. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: Presentists are placed in rather insalubrious company here, The notion of 'cheaters' is nice, and I associate it with Australian philosophy, and the reason that was admired by David Lewis. |
| 14977 | Metaphysics is not about what exists or is true or essential; it is about the structure of reality [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics, at bottom, is about the fundamental structure of reality. Not about what's necessarily true. Not about what properties are essential. Not about conceptual analysis. Not about what there is. Structure. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01) | |
| A reaction: The opening words of his book. I take them to be absolutely correct, and to articulate the new orthodoxy about metaphysics which has emerged since about 1995. He expands this as being about patterns, categories and joints. |
| 14994 | Extreme doubts about metaphysics also threaten to undermine the science of unobservables [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The most extreme critics of metaphysics base their critique on sweeping views about language (logical positivism), or knowledge (empiricism), ...but this notoriously threatens the science of unobservables as much as it threatens metaphysics. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: These criticisms also threaten speculative physics (even about what is possibly observable). |
| 15003 | It seems unlikely that the way we speak will give insights into the universe [Sider] |
| Full Idea: It has always seemed odd that insight into the fundamental workings of the universe should be gained by reflection on how we think and speak. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.8) | |
| A reaction: A nice expression of what should by now be obvious to all philosophers - that analysis of language is not going to reveal very much. It is merely clearing the undergrowth so that we can go somewhere. |
| 14986 | Conceptual analysts trust particular intuitions much more than general ones [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Conceptual analysts generally regard intuitive judgements about particular cases as being far more diagnostic than intuitive judgements about general principles. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.4 n7) | |
| A reaction: Since I take the aim to be the building up an accurate picture about general truths, it would be daft to just leap to our intuitions about those general truths. Equally you can't cut intuition out of the picture (pace Ladyman). |
| 15015 | It seems possible for a correct definition to be factually incorrect, as in defining 'contact' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Arguably, 'there is absolutely no space between two objects in contact' is false, but definitional of 'contact'. ...We need a word for true definitional sentences. I propose: 'analytic'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.8) |
| 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? |
| 14981 | Philosophical concepts are rarely defined, and are not understood by means of definitions [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Philosophical concepts of interest are rarely reductively defined; still more rarely does our understanding of such concepts rest on definitions. ...(We generally understand concepts to the extent that we know what role they play in thinking). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that I agree with this. I suspect that Sider has the notion of definition in mind that is influenced by lexicography. Aristotle's concept of definition I take to be lengthy and expansive, and that is very relevant to philosophy. |
| 14992 | We don't care about plain truth, but truth in joint-carving terms [Sider] |
| Full Idea: What we care about is truth in joint-carving terms, not just truth. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: The thought is that it matters what conceptual scheme is used to express the truth (the 'ideology'). Truths can be true but uninformative or unexplanatory. |
| 15012 | Orthodox truthmaker theories make entities fundamental, but that is poor for explanation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: According to the entrenched truthmaker theorist, the fundamental facts consist just of facts citing the existence of entities. It's hard to see how all the complexity we experience could possibly be explained from that sparse basis. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: This may be the 'entrenched' truthmaker view, but it is not clear why there could not be more complicated fundamental truthmakers, with structure as well as entities. And powers. |
| 15023 | The Barcan schema implies if X might have fathered something, there is something X might have fathered [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If we accept the Barcan and converse Barcan schemas, this leads to surprising ontological consequences. Wittgenstein might have fathered something, so, by the Barcan schema, there is something that Wittgenstein might have fathered. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.9) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Tim Williamson for this line of thought] I was liking the Barcan picture, by now I am backing away fast. They cannot be serious! |
| 15004 | 'Gunk' is an object in which proper parts all endlessly have further proper parts [Sider] |
| Full Idea: An object is 'gunky' if each of its parts has further proper parts; thus gunk involves infinite descent in the part-whole relation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.11.2) |
| 14984 | Which should be primitive in mereology - part, or overlap? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Should our fundamental theory of part and whole take 'part' or 'overlap' as primitive? | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.3) |
| 14980 | There is a real issue over what is the 'correct' logic [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Certain debates over the 'correct' logic are genuine, and not linguistic or conceptual. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01.3) | |
| A reaction: It is rather hard to give arguments in favour of this view, but I am pleased to have the authority of Sider with me. |
| 15000 | 'It is raining' and 'it is not raining' can't be legislated, so we can't legislate 'p or ¬p' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: I cannot legislate-true 'It is raining' and I cannot legislate true 'It is not raining', so if I cannot legislate either true then I cannot legislate-true the disjunction 'it is raining or it is not raining'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a very simple and very persuasive argument against the idea that logic is a mere convention. I take disjunction to be an abstract summary of how the world works. Sider seems sympathetic. |
| 15020 | Classical logic is good for mathematics and science, but less good for natural language [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Despite its brilliant success in mathematics and fundamental science, classical logic applies uneasily to natural language. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 10.6) | |
| A reaction: He gives examples of the conditional, and debates over the meaning of 'and', 'or' and 'not', and also names and quantifiers. Many modern philosophical problems result from this conflict. |
| 15029 | Modal accounts of logical consequence are simple necessity, or essential use of logical words [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The simplest modal account is that logical consequence is just necessary consequence; another modal account says that logical consequences are modal consequences that involve only logical words essentially. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Quine's 'Carnap and Logical Truth' for the second idea] Sider is asserting that Humeans like him dislike modality, and hence need a nonmodal account of logical consequence. |
| 15019 | Define logical constants by role in proofs, or as fixed in meaning, or as topic-neutral [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Some say that logical constants are those expressions that are defined by their proof-theoretic roles, others that they are the expressions whose semantic values are permutation-invariant, and still others that they are the topic-neutral expressions. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites MacFarlane 2005 as giving a survey of this] |
| 15001 | 'Tonk' is supposed to follow the elimination and introduction rules, but it can't be so interpreted [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Tonk' is stipulated by Prior to stand for a meaning that obeys the elimination and introduction rules; but there simply is no such meaning; 'tonk' cannot be interpreted so as to obey the rules. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: 'Tonk' thus seems to present a problem for so-called 'natural' deduction, if the natural deduction consists of nothing more than obey elimination and introduction rules. |
| 15017 | Supervenience is a modal connection [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Supervenience is just a kind of modal connection. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.10) | |
| A reaction: It says what would happen, as well as what does. This is big for Sider because he rejects modality as a feature of actuality. I think the world is crammed full of modal facts, so supervenience should be a handy tool for me. |
| 15008 | Is fundamentality in whole propositions (and holistic), or in concepts (and atomic)? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The locus of fundamentality for a Finean is the whole proposition, whereas for me it is the proposition-part. Fundamentality is holistic for the Finean, atomistic for me. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.3) | |
| A reaction: This is because Kit Fine has pushed fundamentality into a relation (grounding), rather than into the particular entities involved (if I understand Sider's reading of him aright). My first intuition is to side with Sider. I'm on Sider's side... |
| 15013 | Tables and chairs have fundamental existence, but not fundamental natures [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The existence of tables and chairs is just as fundamental as the existence of electrons (in contrast, perhaps, with smirks and shadows, which do not exist fundamentally). However, tables and chairs have nonfundamental natures. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a good clarification, and to me the 'nature' of something points towards its essence. However, I suppose he refers here to the place of something in a dependence hierarchy. But then, why does it have that place? What power? |
| 15014 | Unlike things, stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Stuff obeys unrestricted composition and mereological essentialism, whereas things do not. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.6.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Markosian 2004] |
| 15009 | We must distinguish 'concrete' from 'abstract' and necessary states of affairs. [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The truthmaker theorist's 'concrete' states of affairs must be distinguished from necessarily existing 'abstract' states of affairs. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.4) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Plantinga's 'Nature of Necessity' for the second one; I presume the first one is Armstrong] |
| 14983 | Accept the ontology of your best theory - and also that it carves nature at the joints [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We can add to the Quinean advice to believe the ontology of your best theory that you should also regard the ideology of your best theory as carving at the joints. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: I've never liked the original Quinean formulation, but this is much better. I just take my ontological commitments to reside in me, not in whatever theory I am currently employing. I may be dubious about my own theory. |
| 14978 | A property is intrinsic if an object alone in the world can instantiate it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Chisholm and Kim proposed a modal notion of an 'intrinsic' property - that a property is intrinsic if and only if it is possibly instantiated by an object that is alone in the world. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Chisholm 1976:127 and Kim 1982:59-60] Sider then gives a counterexample from David Lewis (Idea 14979). |
| 14995 | Predicates can be 'sparse' if there is a universal, or if there is a natural property or relation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: For Armstrong a predicate is sparse when there exists a corresponding universal; for Lewis, a predicate is sparse when there exists a corresponding natural property or relation. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06) | |
| A reaction: I like 'sparse' properties, but have no sympathy with Armstrong, and am cautious about Lewis. I like Shoemaker's account, which makes properties even sparser. 'Abundant' so-called properties are my pet hate. They are 'predicates'! |
| 15026 | Essence (even if nonmodal) is not fundamental in metaphysics [Sider] |
| Full Idea: We should not regard nonmodal essence as being metaphysically basic: fundamental theories need essence no more than they need modality. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: He is discussing Kit Fine, and notes that Fine offers a nonmodal view of essence, but still doesn't make it fundamental. I am a fan of essences, but making them fundamental in metaphysics seems unlikely. |
| 15030 | Humeans say that we decide what is necessary [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The spirit of Humeanism is that necessity is not a realm to be discovered. We draw the lines around what is necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.3) | |
| A reaction: I disagree, but it is hard to argue the point. My intuitions are that the obvious necessities of logic and mathematics reflect the way nature has to be. The deepest necessities are patterns (about which God has no choice). |
| 15031 | Modal terms in English are entirely contextual, with no modality outside the language [Sider] |
| Full Idea: English modals are context-dependent through and through; there is no stable 'outer modality'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.7) | |
| A reaction: Sider has been doing so well up to here. To me this is swallowing the bait of linguistic approaches to philosophy which he has fought so hard to avoid. |
| 15027 | If truths are necessary 'by convention', that seems to make them contingent [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If □φ says that φ is true by convention, then □φ would apparently turn out to be contingent, since statements about what conventions we adopt are not themselves true by convention. The main axioms of S4 and S5 would be false. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) |
| 15028 | Conventionalism doesn't seem to apply to examples of the necessary a posteriori [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Conventionalism is apparently inapplicable to Kripke's and Putnam's examples of the necessary a posteriori (and, relatedly, to de re modality). | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: [Sidelle 1989 discusses this] |
| 15033 | Humeans says mathematics and logic are necessary because that is how our concept of necessity works [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Why are logical (or mathematical, or analytic...) truths necessary? The Humean's answer is that this is just how our concept of necessity works. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12.11) | |
| A reaction: This is why I (unlike Sider) am not a Humean. If we agreed that 'necessary' meant 'whatever is decreed by the Pope', that would so obviously not be necessary that we would have to start searching nature for true necessities. |
| 15025 | The world does not contain necessity and possibility - merely how things are [Sider] |
| Full Idea: At bottom, the world is an amodal place. Necessity and possibility do not carve at the joints; ultimate reality is not 'full of threats and promises' (Goodman). The book of the world says how things are, not how they must or might be. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 12) | |
| A reaction: Nice to see this expressed so clearly. I find it much easier to disagree with as a result. At first blush I would say that if you haven't noticed that the world is full of threats and promises, you should wake up and smell the coffee. Actuality is active. |
| 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. |
| 14988 | A theory which doesn't fit nature is unexplanatory, even if it is true [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Theories' based on bizarre, non-joint-carving classifications are unexplanatory even when true. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: This nicely pinpoints why I take explanation to be central to whole metaphysical enterprise. |
| 14982 | If I used Ramsey sentences to eliminate fundamentality from my theory, that would be a real loss [Sider] |
| Full Idea: If the entire theory of this book were replaced by its Ramsey sentence, omitting all mention of fundamentality, something would seem to be lost. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.2 n2) | |
| A reaction: It is a moot point whether Ramsey sentences actually eliminate anything from the ontology, but trying to wriggle out of ontological commitment looks a rather sad route to follow. |
| 14989 | Problem predicates in induction don't reflect the structure of nature [Sider] |
| Full Idea: 'Is nonblack', 'is a nonraven', and 'grue' fail to carve at the joints. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: A lot more than this needs to said, but this remark encapsulates why I find most of these paradoxes of induction uninteresting. They are all the creations of logicians, rather than of scientists. |
| 14997 | Two applications of 'grue' do not guarantee a similarity between two things [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The applicability of 'grue' to each of a pair of particulars does not guarantee the similarity of those particulars. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Grue is not a colour but a behaviour. If two things are 'mercurial' or 'erratic', will that ensure a similarity at any given moment? |
| 14990 | Bayes produces weird results if the prior probabilities are bizarre [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In the Bayesian approach, bizarre prior probability distributions will result in bizarre responses to evidence. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: This is exactly what you find when people with weird beliefs encounter ridiculous evidence for things. It doesn't invalidate the formula, but just says rubbish in rubbish out. |
| 15005 | Explanations must cite generalisations [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Explanations must cite generalisations. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 07.13) | |
| A reaction: I'm uneasy about this. Presumably some events have a unique explanation - a unique mechanism, perhaps. Language is inescapably general in its nature - which I take to be Aristotle's reason for agreeing the Sider. [Sider adds mechanisms on p.159] |
| 15011 | If the ultimate explanation is a list of entities, no laws, patterns or mechanisms can be cited [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Ultimate explanations always terminate in the citation of entities; but since a mere list of entities is so unstructured, these 'explanations' cannot be systematized with detailed general laws, patterns, or mechanisms. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: We just need to distinguish between ultimate ontology and ultimate explanations. I think explanations peter out at the point where we descend below the mechanisms. Patterns or laws don't explain on their own. Causal mechanisms are the thing. |
| 15018 | Intentionality is too superficial to appear in the catalogue of ultimate physics [Sider] |
| Full Idea: One day the physicists will complete the catalogue of ultimate and irreducible properties of things. When they do, the like of spin, charm and charge will perhaps appear on the list. But aboutness sure won't; intentionality simply doesn't go that deep. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 4 Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fodor's project is to give a reductive, and perhaps eliminative, account of intentionality of mind, while leaving open what one might do with the phenomenological aspects. Personally I don't think they will appear on the list either. |
| 14999 | Prior to conventions, not all green things were green? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: It is absurd to say that 'before we introduced our conventions, not all green things were green'. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: Well… Different cultures label the colours of the rainbow differently, and many of them omit orange. I suspect the blue/green borderline has shifted. |
| 14998 | Conventions are contingent and analytic truths are necessary, so that isn't their explanation [Sider] |
| Full Idea: To suggest that analytic truths make statements about linguistic conventions is a nonstarter; statements about linguistic conventions are contingent, whereas the statements made by typical analytic sentences are necessary. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 06.5) | |
| A reaction: That 'anything yellow is extended' is not just a convention should be fairly obvious, and it is obviously necessary. But we can say that bachelors are necessarily unmarried men - given the current convention. |
| 15016 | Analyticity has lost its traditional role, which relied on truth by convention [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Nothing can fully play the role traditionally associated with analyticity, for much of that traditional role presupposed the doctrine of truth by convention. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 09.8) | |
| A reaction: Sider rejects Quine's attack on analyticity, but accepts his critique of truth by convention. |
| 20489 | Human beings can never really flourish in a long-term state of nature [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: We must agree with Hobbes, Locke and Rousseau that nothing genuinely worthy of being called a state of nature will, at least in the long term, be a condition in which human beings can flourish. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 1 'Conc') | |
| A reaction: Given our highly encultured concept of modern flourishing, that is obviously right. There may be another reality where hom sap flourishes in a quite different and much simpler way. Education as personal, not institutional? |
| 20483 | Collective rationality is individuals doing their best, assuming others all do the same [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: We need to distinguish between individual and collective rationality. Collective rationality is what is best for each individual, on the assumption that everyone else will act the same way. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 1 'Hobbes') | |
| A reaction: Wolff is surmising what lies behind Hobbes's Laws of Nature (which concern collective rationality). The Prisoner's Dilemma is the dramatisation of this distinction. I would making the teaching of the distinction compulsory in schools. |
| 20532 | Should love be the first virtue of a society, as it is of the family? [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Love, or at least affection, not justice, is the first virtue of the family. Should mutual affection also be the first virtue of social and political institutions? | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 6 'Transcending') | |
| A reaction: Surely this ideal should be at the heart of any society, no matter how far away from the ideal it is pushed by events and failures of character? I take 'respect' to be the form of love we feel for strangers. |
| 20490 | For utilitarians, consent to the state is irrelevant, if it produces more happiness [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: On the utilitarian account the state is justified if and only if it produces more happiness than any alternative. Whether we consent to the state is irrelevant. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 2 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: The paternalistic character of utilitarianism is a familiar problem. I quite like this approach, even though liberals will find it a bit naughty. We make children go to school, for their own good. Experts endorse society, even when citizens don't. |
| 20493 | Social contract theory has the attracton of including everyone, and being voluntary [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Social contract theory ...satisfies the twin demands of universalism - every person must be obligated - and voluntarism - political obligations can come into existence only through consent. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 2 'Voluntaristic') | |
| A reaction: I'm going off the idea that being a member of large society is voluntary. It can't possibly be so for most people, and it shouldn't be. I'm British, and society expects me to remain so (though they might release me, if convenient). |
| 20494 | Maybe voting in elections is a grant of legitimacy to the winners [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: One thought is that consent to government is communicated via the ballot-box. In voting for the government we give it our consent. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 2 'Voluntaristic') | |
| A reaction: Hm. This may be a strong positive reason why some people refuse to vote. We shouldn't load voting with such heavy commitments. It's just 'given the current situation, who will be temporarily in charge'. |
| 20500 | We can see the 'general will' as what is in the general interest [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The general will demands the policy which is equally in everyone's interests. Thus we can think of the general will as the general interest. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Rousseau') | |
| A reaction: That seems to assume that the people know what is in their interests. Rousseau's General Will mainly concerns who governs, and their mode of government, but not details of actual policy. |
| 20497 | How can dictators advance the interests of the people, if they don't consult them about interests? [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Even if a dictator wants to advance the interests of the people, how are those interests to be known? In a democracy people show their interests, it seems, by voting: they vote for what they want. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Knowledge') | |
| A reaction: I suppose a wise and kind despot could observe very carefully, and understand the interests of the people better than they do themselves. Indeed, I very much doubt, in 2017, whether the people know what is good for them. |
| 20506 | 'Separation of powers' allows legislative, executive and judicial functions to monitor one another [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The Federalists took the idea of 'separation of powers' from Locke and Montesquieu. This places the legislative, executive and judicial functions in independent hands, so that in theory any branch of government would be checked by the other two. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Representative') | |
| A reaction: [The American Federalist writers of 1787-8 were Madison, Hamilton and Jay] This is a brilliant idea. An interesting further element that has been added to it is the monitoring by a free press, presumably because the other three were negligent. |
| 20530 | Political choice can be by utility, or maximin, or maximax [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Political choices can be made by the utility principles (maximising total utility), or maximin (maximising for the worst off, a view for pessimists), or maximax (not serious, but one for optimists, being unequal, and aiming for a high maximum). | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Choosing') | |
| A reaction: [my summary of a page of Wolff] Rawls embodies the maximin view. Wolff implies that we must choose between utilitarianism and Rawls. Would Marxists endorse maximin? He also adds 'constrained maximisation', with a safety net. |
| 20487 | A realistic and less utopian anarchism looks increasingly like liberal democracy [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: As the anarchist picture of society becomes increasingly realistic and less utopian, it also becomes increasingly difficult to tell it apart from a liberal democratic state. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 1 'Anarchism') | |
| A reaction: Nice challenge to anarchism, which is clear in what it opposes, but isn't much of a political philosophy if it doesn't have positive aspirations. Anarchists may hope that people will beautifully co-operate, but what if they re-form the state to do it? |
| 20488 | It is hard for anarchists to deny that we need experts [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Many anarchists have accepted the need for the authority of experts within society | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 1 'Anarchism') | |
| A reaction: The status of experts may be the hottest topic in contemporary politics, given the contempt for experts shown by Trump, and by the Brexit campaign of 2016. It is a nice point that even anarchists can't duck the problem. |
| 20529 | Utilitarianism probably implies a free market plus welfare [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: A utilitarian political philosophy would probably be a free market with a welfare state. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Choosing') | |
| A reaction: This is roughly how Britain became, after the welfare state was added to Millian liberalism. What's missing from this formula is some degree of control of the free market, to permit welfare. |
| 20510 | A system of democracy which includes both freedom and equality is almost impossible [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: We are very unlikely to be able to find an instrumental defence of democracy which also builds the values of freedom and equality into a feasible system. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Conc') | |
| A reaction: I increasingly think that freedom is the most overrated political virtue (though it is certainly a virtue). Total freedom is ridiculous, but the aim of sacrificing many other social goods in order to maximise freedom also looks wrong. |
| 20511 | Democracy expresses equal respect (which explains why criminals forfeit the vote) [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Democracy is a way of expressing equal respect for all, which is perhaps why we withdraw the vote from criminals: by their behaviour they forfeit the right to equal respect. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Conc') | |
| A reaction: I disagree, and he has converted me to franchise for criminals. One-off criminals do not forfeit my respect for them as people, though their action may merit a controlling response on our part. Bad character, not a bad action, forfeits respect. |
| 20502 | Democracy has been seen as consistent with many types of inequality [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Greeks assumed democracy was consistent with slavery, Rousseau that it was consistent with sexual inequality, and Wollstonecraft that it was consistent with disenfranchisement of the poor. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Freedom') | |
| A reaction: If you are allowed to restrict the franchise in some way, then a narrow oligarchy can qualify as a democracy, with half a dozen voters. |
| 20496 | A true democracy could not tolerate slavery, exploitation or colonialism [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: A democratic state has power only over the people who make up the electorate. Ruling over a subservient class, or territory, is claimed to be antithetical to the true ideals of democracy. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Is making trade deals very favourable to yourself (i.e. good capitalism) antithetical to democracy? |
| 20498 | We should decide whether voting is for self-interests, or for the common good [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: To avoid mixed-motivation voting, we must choose between one model of people voting in accordance with their preferences, and another of voting for their estimate of the common good. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Voting') | |
| A reaction: Personally I always voted for the common good, and only slowly realised that most people were voting for their own interests. A rational society would at least bring this dichotomy into the open. Voting for self-interest isn't wicked. |
| 20499 | Condorcet proved that sensible voting leads to an emphatically right answer [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Condorcet proved that provided people have a better than even chance of getting the right answer, and that they vote for their idea of the common good, then majority decisions are an excellent way to get the right result. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Voting') | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The point is that collective voting magnifies the result. If they tend to be right, the collective view is super-right. But if they tend towards the wrong, the collective view goes very wrong indeed. History is full of the latter. |
| 20509 | Occasional defeat is acceptable, but a minority that is continually defeated is a problem [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Most of us can accept losing from time to time, but sometimes an entrenched majority will win vote after vote, leaving the minority group permanently outvoted and ignored. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Protecting') | |
| A reaction: This is the key problem of the treatment of minorities in a democracy. Personally I have only once been on the winning side in voting for my MP, and he changed party a couple of years later. |
| 20524 | Market prices indicate shortages and gluts, and where the profits are to be made [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The price system is a way of signalling and transmitting information. The fact that the price of a good rises shows that the good is in short supply. And if prices rise in a sector because of increasing demand, then new producers rush in for the profits. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Free') | |
| A reaction: [Woff is discussing Hayek] Why do we have a shortage of decent housing in the UK? Centralised economies lack this direct way of discovering where their efforts should be directed. |
| 20518 | Liberty principles can't justify laws against duelling, incest between siblings and euthanasia [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Many laws of contemporary society are very hard to defend in terms of Mill's Liberty Principle, such as laws against duelling, incest between siblings, and euthanasia. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 4 'Poison') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Chief Justice Lord Devlin for this] Being killed in a duel can cause widespread misery. Fear of inbreeding is behind the second one, and fear of murdering the old behind the third one. No man is an island. |
| 20531 | Either Difference allows unequal liberty, or Liberty makes implementing Difference impossible [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Critics say that the Difference Principle allows inequality of liberty ...and (more often) that liberty means we cannot impose any restriction on individual property holdings. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Nozick') | |
| A reaction: The second objection is associated with Robert Nozick. The point is that you can implement the Difference Principle without restricting liberty. The standard right-wing objection of social welfare. |
| 20526 | Utilitarians argue for equal distribution because of diminishing utility of repetition [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The utilitarian argument for equality assumes that people have 'diminishing marginal returns' for goods. If there are two people and two nice chocolate biscuits, then utilitarianism is likely to recommend one each. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Arguments') | |
| A reaction: The point is that the second biscuit provides slightly diminished pleasure. This is why you can buy boxes of assorted biscuits, which you are then not required to share. |
| 20528 | Difference Principle: all inequalities should be in favour of the disadvantaged [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Difference Principle: Social and economic inequalities are to be arranged so that they are to the greatest benefit of the least advantaged. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Choosing') | |
| A reaction: Rivals would say that inequalities should go to those who have earned them. |
| 20503 | Political equality is not much use without social equality [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: As Marx observed, and as women have learnt to their cost, equal political rights are worth fighting for, but they are of little value if one is still treated unequally in day-to-day life. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 3 'Participatory') | |
| A reaction: In fact social equality comes first, because that will imply political equality and financial justice. I think it is all covered under the virtue of 'respect', which should have pre-eminence in both public and private life. |
| 20512 | Standard rights: life, free speech, assembly, movement, vote, stand (plus shelter, food, health?) [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The normal liberal basic rights are right to life, free speech, free assembly and freedom of movement, plus the rights to vote and stand for office. Some theorists add the right to a decent living standard (shelter, food and health care). | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 4 'Liberty') | |
| A reaction: I think he has forgotten to add education. In Britain Beatrice Webb seems to have single-handedly added the living standard group to the list. |
| 20513 | If natural rights are axiomatic, there is then no way we can defend them [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: The theory of basic natural rights is problematic, because although the theory is rigorous and principled, the disadvantage is that we are left with nothing more fundamental to say in defence of these rights. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 4 'Liberty') | |
| A reaction: This is a nice point about anything which is treated as axiomatic - even Euclid's geometry. Presumably rights can only be justified by the needs of our shared human nature. |
| 20514 | If rights are natural, rather than inferred, how do we know which rights we have? [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: If natural rights have a fundamental status, and so are not arrived at on the basis of some other argument, how do we know what rights we have? | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 4 'Liberty') | |
| A reaction: He cites Bentham as using this point. Utilitarianism at least provides a grounding for the identification of possible basic rights. Start from what we want, or what we more objectively need? Human needs, or needs in our present culture? |
| 20522 | Utilitarians might say property ownership encourages the best use of the land [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: A utilitarian justification of property rights says allowing people to appropriate property, trade in it, and leave it to their descendants will encourage them to make the most productive use of their resources. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 5 'Locke') | |
| A reaction: This obviously has a point, but equally justifies confiscation of land from people who are not making best use of it. In Sicily many landowners refused to allow the peasants to make any use at all of the land. |
| 20534 | Rights and justice are only the last resorts of a society, something to fall back on [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Justice is the last virtue of society, or at least the last resort. Rights, or considerations of justice, are like an insurance policy: something offering security to fall back on. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 6 'Transcending') | |
| A reaction: I like this. He points out that a good family doesn't talk of rights and justice. We want a friendly harmonious society, with safety nets. |
| 20492 | Following some laws is not a moral matter; trivial traffic rules, for example [Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Some laws have little grounding in morality. You may believe you have a moral obligation to stop at a red light at a deserted crossroads, but only because that is what the law tells you to do. | |
| From: Jonathan Wolff (An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) [2006], 2 'Goal') | |
| A reaction: I would have thought such a law was wholly grounded in the morality of teamwork. It is the problem of rule utilitarianism, and also a problem about virtuous character. The puzzle is not the law, but the strict obedience to it. |
| 14985 | The notion of law doesn't seem to enhance physical theories [Sider] |
| Full Idea: Adding the notion of law to physical theory doesn't seem to enhance its explanatory power. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: I agree with his scepticism about laws, although Sider offers it as part of his scepticism about modal facts being included in explanations of actuality. Personally I like dispositions, but not laws. See the ideas of Stephen Mumford. |
| 14987 | Many of the key theories of modern physics do not appear to be 'laws' [Sider] |
| Full Idea: That spacetime is 4D Lorentzian manifold, that the universe began with a singularity, and in a state of low entropy, are all central to physics, but it is a stretch to call them 'laws'. ...It has been argued that there are no laws of biology. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.1) |
| 14991 | Space has real betweenness and congruence structure (though it is not the Euclidean concepts) [Sider] |
| Full Idea: In metaphysics, space is intrinsically structured; the genuine betweenness and congruence relations are privileged in a way that Euclidean-betweenness and Euclidean-congruence are not. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: I note that Einstein requires space to be 'curved', which implies that it is a substance with properties. |
| 15021 | The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The central question in the philosophy of time is: How alike are time and space? | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.1) |
| 15024 | The spotlight theorists accepts eternal time, but with a spotlight of the present moving across it [Sider] |
| Full Idea: The spotlight theorist accepts the block universe, but also something in addition: a joint-carving monadic property of presentness, which is possessed by just one moment of time, and which 'moves', to be possessed by later and later times. | |
| From: Theodore Sider (Writing the Book of the World [2011], 11.9) | |
| A reaction: This seems better than the merely detached eternalist view, which seems to ignore the key phenomenon. I just can't comprehend any theory which makes the future as real as the past. |