16975
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Essences are used to explain natural kinds, modality, and causal powers [Tahko]
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Full Idea:
Essences are supposed to do a lot of explanatory work: natural kinds can be identified in terms of their essences, metaphysical modality can be reduced to essence, the causal power of objects can be explained with the help of essence.
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From:
Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 1)
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A reaction:
Natural kinds and modality are OK with me, but I'm dubious about the third one. If an essence explains something's causal powers, I have no idea what an essence might be. Essence are largely characterised in terms of causal powers.
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7519
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Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
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Full Idea:
Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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A reaction:
If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology.
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7520
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Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM]
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Full Idea:
Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future.
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From:
Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
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A reaction:
[compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177.
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16977
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If essence is modal and laws are necessary, essentialist knowledge is found by scientists [Tahko]
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Full Idea:
If essence is conceived in terms of modality and the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, it seems that the laws of nature constitute essentialist knowledge, so the discovery of essences is mostly due to scientists.
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From:
Tuomas E. Tahko (The Epistemology of Essence (draft) [2013], 2.1)
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A reaction:
This seems muddled to me. The idea that the laws themselves are essences is way off target. No one thinks all knowledge of necessities is essentialist. Mumford, for example, doesn't even believe in laws.
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