45 ideas
15105 | F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said.. [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: F(x) walked into a bar. The barman said, 'Sorry, we don't cater for functions'. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12408 | Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Sartre to Waitress: Coffee with no cream, please. Waitress: Sorry, we're out of cream; would no milk do? | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12397 | Said Plato: 'The things that we feel... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Said Plato: 'The things that we feel/ Are not ontologically real,/ But just the excrescence/ Of numinous essence/ Our senses can never reveal.' [Basil Ransome-Davis] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
11897 | A principle of individuation may pinpoint identity and distinctness, now and over time [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: One view of a principle of individuation is what is called a 'criterion of identity', determining answers to questions about identity and distinctness at a time and over time - a principle of distinction and persistence. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.2) | |
A reaction: Since the term 'Prime Minister' might do this job, presumably there could be a de dicto as well as a de re version of individuation. The distinctness consists of chairing cabinet meetings, rather than being of a particular sex. |
11898 | Individuation may include counterfactual possibilities, as well as identity and persistence [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: A second view of the principle of individuation includes criteria of distinction and persistence, but also determines the counterfactual possibilities for a thing. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.5) | |
A reaction: It would be a pretty comprehensive individuation which defined all the counterfactual truths about a thing, as well as its actual truths. This is where powers come in. We need to know a thing's powers, but not how they cash out counterfactually. |
11883 | A haecceity is the essential, simple, unanalysable property of being-this-thing [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Socrates can be assigned a haecceity: an essential property of 'being Socrates' which (unlike the property of 'being identical with Socrates') may be regarded as what 'makes' its possessor Socrates in a non-trivial sense, but is simple and unanalysable. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2) | |
A reaction: I don't accept that there is any such property as 'being Socrates' (or even 'being identical with Socrates'), except as empty locutions or logical devices. A haecceity seems to be the 'ultimate subject of predication', with no predicates of its own. |
11889 | Essentialism must avoid both reduplication of essences, and multiple occupancy by essences [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: The argument for unshareable properties (the Reduplication Argument) suggests the danger of reduplication of Berkeley; the argument for incompatible properties (Multiple Occupancy) says Berkeley and Hume could be in the same possible object. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.8) | |
A reaction: These are her arguments in favour of essential properties being necessarily incompatible between objects. Whatever the answer, it must allow essences for indistinguishables like electrons. 'Incompatible' points towards a haecceity. |
11877 | An individual essence is the properties the object could not exist without [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: By essentialism about individuals I simply mean the view that individual things have essential properties, where an essential property of an object is a property that the object could not have existed without. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This presumably means I could exist without a large part of my reason and consciousness, but could not exist without one of my heart valves. This seems to miss the real point of essence. I couldn't exist without oxygen - not one of my properties. |
11882 | No other object can possibly have the same individual essence as some object [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Individual essences are essential properties that are unique to them alone. ...If a set of properties is an individual essence of A, then A has the properties essentially, and no other actual or possible object actually or possibly has them. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.1/2) | |
A reaction: I'm unconvinced about this. Tigers have an essence, but individual tigers have individual essences over and above their tigerish qualities, yet the perfect identity of two tigers still seems to be possible. |
11886 | There are problems both with individual essences and without them [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: If all objects had individual essences, there would be no numerical difference without an essential difference. But if there aren't individual essences, there could be two things sharing all essential properties, differing only in accidental properties. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.5) | |
A reaction: Depends how you define individual essence. Why can't two electrons have the same individual essence. To postulate a 'kind essence' which bestows the properties on each electron is to get things the wrong way round. |
11909 | Unlike Hesperus=Phosophorus, water=H2O needs further premisses before it is necessary [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: There is a disanalogy between 'necessarily water=H2O' and 'necessarily Hesperus=Phosphorus'. The second just needs the necessity of identity, but the first needs 'x is a water sample' and 'x is an H2O' sample to coincide in all possible worlds. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1.) | |
A reaction: This comment is mainly aimed at Kripke, who bases his essentialism on identities, rather than at Putnam. |
11899 | Why are any sortals essential, and why are only some of them essential? [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Accounts of sortal essentialism do not give a satisfactory explanation of why any sortals should be essential sortals, or a satisfactory account of why some sortals should be essential while others are not. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 8.6) | |
A reaction: A theory is not wrong, just because it cannot give a 'satisfactory explanation' of every aspect of the subject. We might, though, ask why the theory isn't doing well in this area. |
11906 | The Kripke and Putnam view of kinds makes them explanatorily basic, but has modal implications [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam chose for their typical essence of kinds, sets of properties that could be thought of as explanatorily basic. ..But the modal implications of their views go well beyond this. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
A reaction: Cf. Idea 11905. The modal implications are that the explanatory essence is also necessary to the identity of the thing under discussion, such as H2O. So do basic explanations carry across into all possible worlds? |
11894 | Origin is not a necessity, it is just 'tenacious'; we keep it fixed in counterfactual discussions [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: I suggest 'tenacity of origin' rather than 'necessity of origin'. ..The most that we need is that Caesar's having something similar to his actual origin in certain respects (e.g. his actual parents) is normally kept fixed in counterfactual speculation. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.9) | |
A reaction: I find necessity or essentially of origin very unconvincing, so I rather like this. Origin is just a particularly stable way to establish our reference to something. An elusive spy may have little more than date and place of birth to fix them. |
11887 | Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities' [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Transworld identity without individual essences leads to 'bare identities'. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.7) | |
A reaction: [She gives an argument for this, based on Forbes] I certainly favour the notion of individual essences over the notion of bare identities. We must distinguish identity in reality from identity in concept. Identities are points in conceptual space. |
11890 | De re modality without bare identities or individual essence needs counterparts [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: Anyone who wishes to avoid both bare identities and individual essences, without abandoning de re modality entirely, must adopt counterpart theory. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 4.1) | |
A reaction: This at least means that Lewis's proposal has an important place in the discussion, forcing us to think more clearly about the identities involved when we talk of possibilities. Mackie herself votes for bare indentities. |
11892 | Things may only be counterparts under some particular relation [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: A may be a counterpart of B according to one counterpart relation (similarity of origin, say), but not according to another (similarity of later history). | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Hm. Would two very diverse things have to be counterparts because they were kept in the same cupboard in different worlds? Can the counterpart relationship diverge or converge over time? Yes, I presume. |
11893 | Possibilities for Caesar must be based on some phase of the real Caesar [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: I take the 'overlap requirement' for Julius Caesar to be that, when considering how he might have been different, you have to take him as he actually was at some time in his existence, and consider possibilities consistent with that. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 6.5) | |
A reaction: This is quite a large claim (larger than Mackie thinks?), as it seems equally applicable to properties, states of affairs and propositions, as well as to individuals. Possibility that has no contact at all with actuality is beyond our comprehension. |
11884 | The theory of 'haecceitism' does not need commitment to individual haecceities [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: The theory that things have 'haecceities' must be sharply distinguished from the theory referred to as 'haecceitism', which says there may be differences in transworld identities that do not supervene on qualitative differences. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 2.2 n7) | |
A reaction: She says later [p,43 n] that it is possible to be a haecceitist without believing in individual haecceities, if (say) the transworld identities had no basis at all. Note that if 'thisness' is 'haecceity', then 'whatness' is 'quiddity'. |
12407 | Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink?... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Barman to Descartes: Would you like another drink? Descartes: I think not (...and promptly vanishes) | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12399 | There was a young student called Fred... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: There was a young student called Fred,/ Who was questioned on Descartes and said:/ 'It's perfectly clear/ That I'm not really here,/ For I haven't a thought in my head.' [V.R. Ormerod] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
20963 | A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: A philosopher and his wife are out for a drive in the country. 'Oh look!' she says, 'Those sheep have been shorn.' 'Yes', says the philosopher, 'on this side'. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12404 | Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd.... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: (reply to 12403) Dear Sir, Your astonishment's odd:/ I am always about in the Quad./ And that's why the tree/ Will continue to be,/ Since observed by Yours faithfully, God.' [anon] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12403 | There once was a man who said: 'God... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: There once was a man who said: 'God/ Must think it exceedingly odd/ If he finds that this tree/ Continues to be,/ When there's no-one about in the Quad.' [Ronald Knox] (reply in 12404) | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12402 | ..But if he's a student of Berkeley... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: (continued from 12401) ..But if he's a student of Berkeley,/ One thing will emerge, rather starkly,/ That he ought to believe/ What his senses perceive,/ No matter how dimly or darkly. [Leslie Johnson] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12409 | The philosopher Berkeley once said.. [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: The philosopher Berkeley once said/ In the dark to a maid in his bed:/ 'No perception, my dear,/ Means I'm not really here,/ But only a thought in your head.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
14694 | "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? ..... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: "My dog's got synaesthesia." How does he smell? "Purple." | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
5163 | Basic propositions refer to a single experience, are incorrigible, and conclusively verifiable [Ayer] |
Full Idea: There is a class of empirical propositions, which I call 'basic propositions', which can be verified conclusively, since they refer solely to the contents of a single experience, which are incorrigible. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.13) | |
A reaction: A classic statement of empirical foundationalism. I sort of agree that 'single experiences' are a 'given' for philosophy, but is questionable whether there is anything which could both be a single experience AND give rise to a proposition. |
12401 | A toper who spies in the distance... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: A toper who spies in the distance,/ Striped tigers, will get some assistance/ From reading Descartes,/ Who holds that it's part/ Of his duty to doubt their existence. ... [Leslie Johnson] - (continued in 12402) | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
11905 | Locke's kind essences are explanatory, without being necessary to the kind [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: One might speak of 'Lockean real essences' of a natural kind, a set of properties that is basic in the explanation of the other properties of the kind, without commitment to the essence belonging to the kind in all possible worlds. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.1) | |
A reaction: I think this may be the most promising account. The essence of a tiger explains what tigers are like, but tigers may evolve into domestic pets. Questions of individuation and of explaining seem to be quite separate. |
5167 | The argument from analogy fails, so the best account of other minds is behaviouristic [Ayer] |
Full Idea: There are too many objections to the argument from analogy, so I am inclined to revert to a 'behaviouristic' interpretation of propositions about other people's experiences. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.26) | |
A reaction: It seems odd to vote for behaviourism on one issue, if you aren't a general subscriber. It is one thing to say that behaviour is the best evidence for your explanation, quite another to equate the other mind with its behaviour. |
12410 | There once was a man who said 'Damn!... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: There once was a man who said 'Damn!/ It is borne in upon me I am/ An engine that moves/ In predestinate grooves:/ I'm not even a bus, I'm a tram.' [M.E. Hare] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
9392 | How do behaviourists greet each other? [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: How do behaviourists greet each other? Hi - you're fine, how am I? | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
5164 | A statement is meaningful if observation statements can be deduced from it [Ayer] |
Full Idea: In the improved version, a statement was verifiable, and consequently meaningful, if 'some observation-statement can be deduced from it in conjunction with certain other premises, without being deducible from those other premises alone'. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.15) | |
A reaction: I.Berlin showed that any statement S could pass this test, because if you assert 'S' and 'If S then O', these two statements entail O, which could be some random observation. Hence a 1946 revised version had to be produced. |
5165 | Directly verifiable statements must entail at least one new observation statement [Ayer] |
Full Idea: A statement is directly verifiable if it is either itself an observation-statement,or is such that in conjunction with one or more observation-statements it entails at least one observation-statement which is not deducible from these other premises alone. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.17) | |
A reaction: This is the 1946 revised version of the Verification Principle, which was then torpedoed by an elaborate counterexample from Alonzo Church. Ayer thereafter abandoned attempts to find a precise statement of it. |
5166 | The principle of verification is not an empirical hypothesis, but a definition [Ayer] |
Full Idea: I wish the principle of verification to be regarded, not as an empirical hypothesis, but as a definition. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.21) | |
A reaction: This is Ayer's attempt to meet the well known objection of 'turning the tables' on his theory (by asking whether it is tautological or empirically verifiable). However, if it is just a definition, then presumably it is completely arbitrary… |
5162 | Sentences only express propositions if they are meaningful; otherwise they are 'statements' [Ayer] |
Full Idea: I suggest that every grammatically significant indicative sentence expresses a 'statement', but the word 'proposition' will be reserved for what is expressed by sentences that are literally meaningful. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.10) | |
A reaction: We don't have to accept Ayer's over-fussy requirements for what is meaningful to accept that this is a good distinction. Every day we hear statements from people (e.g. politicians) in which we can fish in vain for the underlying proposition. |
5168 | Moral approval and disapproval concerns classes of actions, rather than particular actions [Ayer] |
Full Idea: The common objects of moral approval and disapproval are not particular actions so much as classes of actions. | |
From: A.J. Ayer (Introduction to 'Language Truth and Logic' [1946], p.27) | |
A reaction: This 1946 revision of his pure emotivism looks like a move towards Hare's prescriptivism, where classes, rules and principles are seen as the window-dressing of emotivism. It's still a bad theory. |
12405 | 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: 'If you're aristocratic,' said Nietzsche,/ 'It's thumbs up, you're OK. Pleased to mietzsche./ If you're working-class bores,/ It's thumbs down and up yours!/ If you don't know your place, then I'll tietzsche.' [Gerry Hamill] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
9391 | Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Why do anarchists drink herbal tea? Because proper tea is theft. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
11907 | Maybe the identity of kinds is necessary, but instances being of that kind is not [Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: One could be an essentialist about natural kinds (of tigers, or water) while holding that every actual instance or sample of a natural kind is only accidentally an instance or a sample of that kind. | |
From: Penelope Mackie (How Things Might Have Been [2006], 10.2) | |
A reaction: You wonder, then, in what the necessity of the kind consists, if it is not rooted in the instances, and presumably it could only result from a stipulative definition, and hence be conventional. |
16527 | Causation - we all thought we knew it/ Till Hume came along and saw through it/…. [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Causation - we all thought we knew it / Till Hume came along and saw through it / We notice that A / Follows B every day / And frankly that's all there is to it. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
12400 | Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: Cries the maid: 'You must marry me Hume!'/ A statement that made David fume./ He said: 'In cause and effect,/ There is a defect;/ That it's mine you can only assume.' [P.W.R. Foot] | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
17592 | The barman called 'Time!', and Augustine said..... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: The barman called 'Time!'. Augustine: 'I don't know what you mean, though I did before you said that'. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |
15208 | The past, present and future walked into a bar.... [Sommers,W] |
Full Idea: The past, present and future walked into a bar. It was tense. | |
From: Will Sommers (talk [2019]) |