Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Folk Psychology', 'Empiricist View of Religion' and 'Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution'

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12 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind

16235	Persistence conditions cannot contradict, so there must be a 'dominant sortal' [Burke,M, by Hawley]
	Full Idea: Burke says a single object cannot have incompatible persistence conditions, for this would entail that there are events in which the object would both survive and perish. He says one sortal 'dominates' the other (sweater dominates thread).
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3
	A reaction: This I take to be the most extreme version of sortal essentialism, and strikes me as incredibly gerrymandered and unacceptable. It is just too anthropocentric to count as genuine metaphysics. I may care more about the thread.

14753	The 'dominant' of two coinciding sortals is the one that entails the widest range of properties [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Burke claims that the 'dominant' sortal is the one whose satisfaction entails possession of the widest range of properties. For example, the statue (unlike the lump of clay) also possesses aesthetic properties, and hence is dominant.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: [there are three papers by Burke on this; see all the quotations from Burke] Presumably one sortal could entail a single very important property, and the other sortal entail a huge range of trivial properties. What does being a 'thing' entail?

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates

16072	'The rock' either refers to an object, or to a collection of parts, or to some stuff [Burke,M, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: Burke distinguishes three different readings of 'the rock'. It can be a singular description denoting an object, or a plural description denoting all the little pieces of rock, or a mass description the relevant rocky stuff.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5
	A reaction: Idea 16068 is an objection to the second reading. Only the first reading seems plausible, so we must just get over all the difficulties philosophers have unearthed about knowing exactly what an 'object' is. I offer you essentialism. Rocks have unity.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail

14751	Tib goes out of existence when the tail is lost, because Tib was never the 'cat' [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Burke argues that Tib (the whole cat apart from its tail) goes out of existence when the tail is lost. His essentialist principle is that if something is ever of a particular sort (such as 'cat') then it is always of that sort. Tib is not initially a cat.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: This I take to be a souped up version of Wiggins, and I just don't buy that identity conditions are decided by sortals, when it seems obvious that sortals are parasitic on identities.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay

16071	Sculpting a lump of clay destroys one object, and replaces it with another one [Burke,M, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: On Burke's view, the process of sculpting a lump of clay into a statue destroys one object (a mere lump of clay) and replaces it with another (a statue).
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5
	A reaction: There is something right about this, but how many intermediate objects are created during the transition. It seems to make the notion of an object very conventional.

16234	Burke says when two object coincide, one of them is destroyed in the process [Burke,M, by Hawley]
	Full Idea: Michael Burke argues that a sweater is identical with the thread that consitutes it, that both were created at the moment when they began to coincide, and that the original thread was destroyed in the process.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3
	A reaction: [Burke's ideas are spread over three articles] It is the thread which is destroyed, because the sweater is the 'dominant sortal' (which strikes me as a particularlyd desperate concept).

13278	Maybe the clay becomes a different lump when it becomes a statue [Burke,M, by Koslicki]
	Full Idea: Burke has argued in a series of papers that the lump of clay which constitutes the statue is numerically distinct from the lump of clay which exists before or after the statue exists. The first is a statue, while the second is merely a lump of clay.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects
	A reaction: Koslicki objects that this introduces radically different persistence conditions from normal. It would mean that a pile of sugar was a different pile of sugar every time a grain moved (even slightly). You couldn't step into the same sugar twice.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects

14750	Two entities can coincide as one, but only one of them (the dominant sortal) fixes persistence conditions [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Michael Burke has given an account that avoids distinguishing coinciding entities. ...The statue/lump satisfies both 'lump' and 'statue', but only the latter determines that object's persistence conditions, and so is that object's 'dominant sortal'.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: Presumably a lump on its own can have its own persistance conditions (as a 'lump'), but those would presumably be lost if you shaped it into a statue. Burke concedes that. Can of worms. Using a book as a doorstop...

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 4. Folk Psychology

7518	If folk psychology gives a network of causal laws, that fits neatly with functionalism [Churchland,PM]
	Full Idea: The portrait of folk psychology as a network of causal laws dovetailed neatly with the emerging philosophy of mind called functionalism.
	From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], II)
	A reaction: And from the lower levels functionalism is supported by the notion that the brain is modular. Note the word 'laws'; this implies an underlying precision in folk psychology, which is then easily attacked. Maybe the network is too complex for simple laws.

7519	Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM]
	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.
	From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
	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.

7520	Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM]
	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.
	From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III)
	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.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 1. Religious Commitment / b. Religious Meaning

1468	If meaning is use, then religious sentences have meaning because they are used to assert an intention about how to live [Braithwaite, by PG]
	Full Idea: If the meaning of statements is their use (as Wittgenstein claims), then religious people use religious claims to assert an intention to follow a religious life and morality, and this intention gives their sentences meaning.
	From: report of R.B. Braithwaite (Empiricist View of Religion [1955]) by PG - Db (ideas)