52 ideas
20186 | Unlike knowledge, wisdom cannot be misused [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: A distinctive mark of wisdom is that it cannot be misused, whereas knowledge surely can be misused. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
A reaction: She will argue, with Aristotle, that this is because wisdom (and maybe 'true' knowledge) must include 'phronesis' (practical wisdom), which is the key to all the virtues, intellectual and moral. This idea is striking, and obviously correct. |
19694 | Wisdom is the property of a person, not of their cognitive state [Zagzebski, by Whitcomb] |
Full Idea: Zagzebski takes wisdom as literally properties of persons, not persons' cognitive states. | |
From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], p.59-60) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom 'Twofold' | |
A reaction: Not sure about this. Zagzebski uses this idea to endorse epistemic virtue. But knowledge and ignorance are properties of persons too. There can be, though, a precise mental state involved in knowledge, but not in wisdom. |
20221 | Precision is only one of the virtues of a good definition [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Precision is but one virtue of a definition, one that must be balanced against simplicity, elegance, conciseness, theoretical illumination, and practical usefulness. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
A reaction: Illumination looks like the dream virtue for a good definition. Otherwise it is just ticked as accurate and stowed away. 'True justified belief' is a very illuminating definition of knowledge - if it is right. But it's not very precise. |
20220 | Objection by counterexample is weak, because it only reveals inaccuracies in one theory [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Objection by counterexample is the weakest sort of attack a theory can undergo. Even when the objection succeeds, it shows only that a theory fails to achieve complete accuracy. It does not distinguish among the various rival theories. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
A reaction: Typically counterexamples are used to refute universal generalisations (i.e. by 'falsification'), but canny theorists avoid those, or slip in a qualifying clause. Counterexamples are good for exploring a theory's coverage. |
17884 | Mathematical set theory has many plausible stopping points, such as finitism, and predicativism [Koellner] |
Full Idea: There are many coherent stopping points in the hierarchy of increasingly strong mathematical systems, starting with strict finitism, and moving up through predicativism to the higher reaches of set theory. | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], Intro) |
17893 | 'Reflection principles' say the whole truth about sets can't be captured [Koellner] |
Full Idea: Roughly speaking, 'reflection principles' assert that anything true in V [the set hierarchy] falls short of characterising V in that it is true within some earlier level. | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 2.1) |
17894 | We have no argument to show a statement is absolutely undecidable [Koellner] |
Full Idea: There is at present no solid argument to the effect that a given statement is absolutely undecidable. | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 5.3) |
17867 | If a concept is not compact, it will not be presentable to finite minds [Almog] |
Full Idea: If the notion of 'logically following' in your language is not compact, it will not be locally presentable to finite minds. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 02) |
17877 | The number series is primitive, not the result of some set theoretic axioms [Almog] |
Full Idea: On Skolem's account, to 'get' the natural numbers - that primal structure - do not 'look for it' as the satisfier of some abstract (set-theoretic) axiomatic essence; start with that primitive structure. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 12) | |
A reaction: [Skolem 1922 and 1923] Almog says the numbers are just 0,1,2,3,4..., and not some underlying axioms. That makes it sound as if they have nothing in common, and that the successor relation is a coincidence. |
17890 | There are at least eleven types of large cardinal, of increasing logical strength [Koellner] |
Full Idea: Some of the standard large cardinals (in order of increasing (logical) strength) are: inaccessible, Mahlo, weakly compact, indescribable, Erdös, measurable, strong, Wodin, supercompact, huge etc. (...and ineffable). | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4) | |
A reaction: [I don't understand how cardinals can have 'logical strength', but I pass it on anyway] |
17887 | PA is consistent as far as we can accept, and we expand axioms to overcome limitations [Koellner] |
Full Idea: To the extent that we are justified in accepting Peano Arithmetic we are justified in accepting its consistency, and so we know how to expand the axiom system so as to overcome the limitation [of Gödel's Second Theorem]. | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Each expansion brings a limitation, but then you can expand again. |
17891 | Arithmetical undecidability is always settled at the next stage up [Koellner] |
Full Idea: The arithmetical instances of undecidability that arise at one stage of the hierarchy are settled at the next. | |
From: Peter Koellner (On the Question of Absolute Undecidability [2006], 1.4) |
17872 | Definitionalists rely on snapshot-concepts, instead of on the real processes [Almog] |
Full Idea: The definitionalist errs by abstracting away from differences cosmic processes, freezing real, dynamic processes in snapshot-concepts. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 08) | |
A reaction: You could hardly do science at all if you didn't 'abstract away from the differences in cosmic processes'. We can't write about sea-waves, because they all differ slightly? 'Electron' is a snapshot concept. |
17871 | Fregean meanings are analogous to conceptual essence, defining a kind [Almog] |
Full Idea: Ever since Frege, semantic definitionalists have posited a meaning ('sinn') for a name; the meaning/sinn is their semantic analog to the conceptual essence, as ontologically defining of the kind. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 07) |
17866 | Essential definition aims at existence conditions and structural truths [Almog] |
Full Idea: The essentialist encapsulating formula is meant to be existence-exhaustive (an attribute the satisfaction of which is logically necessary and sufficient to be the thing) and truth-exhaustive (promising all the structural truths). | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 01) | |
A reaction: [compressed] If he thinks essentialism means that one short phrase can achieve all this, then it is not surprising that Almog renounces his former essentialism in this essay. He may, however, have misunderstood. He should reread Aristotle. |
17868 | Surface accounts aren't exhaustive as they always allow unintended twin cases [Almog] |
Full Idea: A surface-functional characterisation is not exhaustive. It allows unintended twins, alien intruders with different structures - water lookalikes that are not H2O and lookalike infinite structures that are not the natural numbers. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 03) | |
A reaction: He rests this on the claim in mathematical logic that fully expressive systems are always non-categorical (having unintended twins). Set theory is not fully categorical, but Peano Arithmetic is. Almog's main anti-essentialist argument. |
17870 | Alien 'tigers' can't be tigers if they are not related to our tigers [Almog] |
Full Idea: Animals roaming jungles on some planet at the other end of the galaxy with the tiger-look and the tiger genetic make-up but with a disjoint evolutionary history are not the same species as the earthly tigers. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 10) | |
A reaction: I disagree. If two independent cultures build boats, they are both boats. If we manufacture a tiger which can breed with other tigers, we've made a tiger. His 'tigers' would scream for explanation, precisely because they are tigers. If not, no puzzle. |
17869 | Kripke and Putnam offer an intermediary between real and nominal essences [Almog] |
Full Idea: Kripke and Putnam offer us enhanced essences, still formulable in one short sentence and locally graspable. They offer between Locke's mind-boggling definitive real essence and his mind-friendly but not definitive nominal essence. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 04) | |
A reaction: The solution is to add a 'deep structure' which serves both ends. |
17876 | Individual essences are just cobbled together classificatory predicates [Almog] |
Full Idea: The key for the essentialist is classificatory predication. It is only a subsequent extension of this prime idea that leads us to cobble together enough such essential predications to make an individuative essential property. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 11) | |
A reaction: So the essence is just a cross-reference of all the ways we can think of to classify it? I don't think so. Which are the essential classifications? |
20188 | Modern epistemology is too atomistic, and neglects understanding [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: There are complaints that contemporary epistemology is too atomistic, and that the value of understanding has been neglected. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 2) | |
A reaction: This is because of the excessive influence of logic in contemporary analytic philosophy, which has to reduce knowledge to K(Fa), rather than placing it in a human context. |
20223 | Epistemology is excessively atomic, by focusing on justification instead of understanding [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: The present obsession with justification and the neglect of understanding has resulted in a feature of epistemology already criticised by several epistemologists: its atomism. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.2) | |
A reaction: All analytic philosophy has become excessively atomic, because it relies too heavily on logic for its grounding and rigour. There are other sorts of rigour, such as AI, peer review, programming. Or rigour is an idle dream. |
20217 | Truth is valuable, but someone knowing the truth is more valuable [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Of course we value the truth, but the value we place on knowledge is more than the value of the truth we thereby acquire. …It also involves a valuabe relation between the knower and the truth. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
A reaction: Hard to assess this. I take truth to be a successful relationship between a mind and a fact. Knowledge needs something extra, to avoid lucky true beliefs. Does a truth acquire greater and greater value as more people come to know it? Doubtful. |
20191 | Some beliefs are fairly voluntary, and others are not at all so [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: My position is that beliefs, like acts, arrange themselves on a continuum of degrees of voluntariness, ranging from quite a bit to none at all. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
A reaction: I'm sure we have no idea how we came to hold many of our beliefs, and if we see a cat, nothing seems to intervene between the seeing and the believing. But if you adopt a religion, believing its full creed is a big subsequent effort. |
20222 | Knowledge either aims at a quantity of truths, or a quality of understanding of truths [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Getting knowledge can be a matter either of reaching more truths or of gaining understanding of truths already believed. So it may be a way of increasing either the quality of true belief (cognitive contact with reality) or the quantity. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 2.1) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure how one would increase understanding of currently believed truths if it didn't involve adding some new truths to the collection. There is only the discovery of connections or structures, but those are new facts. |
20225 | For internalists Gettier situations are where internally it is fine, but there is an external mishap [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: In internalist theories the grounds for justification are accessible to the believer, and Gettier problems arise when there is nothing wrong with the internally accessible aspects of the situation, but there is a mishap inaccessible to the believer. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
A reaction: I'm sure we could construct an internal mishap which the believer was unaware of, such as two confusions of the meanings of words cancelling one another out. |
20226 | Gettier problems are always possible if justification and truth are not closely linked [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: As long as the concept of knowledge closely connects the justification component and the truth component but permits some degree of independence between them, justified true belief will never be sufficient for knowledge. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
A reaction: Out of context this sounds like an advertisement for externalism. Or maybe it just says we have to live with Gettier threats. Zagzebski has other strategies. |
20228 | We avoid the Gettier problem if the support for the belief entails its truth [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: The way to avoid the Gettier problem is to define knowledge in such a way that truth is entailed by the other component(s) of the definition. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.1) | |
A reaction: Thus she defines virtuous justification as being successful, as virtues tend to be. This smacks of cheating. Surely we can be defeated in a virtuous way? If the truth is entailed then of course Gettier can be sent packing. |
20227 | Gettier cases arise when good luck cancels out bad luck [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: The procedure for generating Gettier cases involves 'double luck': an instance of good luck cancels out an instance of bad luck. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 3.2) | |
A reaction: You can end up with the right answer in arithmetic if you make two mistakes rather than one. I'm picturing a life of one blundering error after another, which to an outsider seems to be going serenely well. |
20194 | Intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: I argue that intellectual virtues are forms of moral virtue. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II Intro) | |
A reaction: This contrasts with Sosa, who seems to think intellectual virtues are just the most efficient ways of reaching the truth. I like Zabzebski's approach a lot, though we are in a very small minority. I love her book. We have epistemic and moral duties. |
20210 | A reliable process is no use without the virtues to make use of them [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: It is not enough that a process is reliable; a person will not reliably use such a process without certain virtues. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 4.1.2) | |
A reaction: This is a point against Sosa's reliabilist account of virtues. Of course, all theories of epistemic justification (or of morality) will fail if people can't be bothered to implement them. |
20206 | Intellectual and moral prejudice are the same vice (and there are other examples) [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Maybe the intellectual and the moral forms of prejudice are the same vice, and this may also be true of other traits with shared names, such as humility, autonomy, integrity, perseverance, courage and trustworthiness. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
A reaction: I find this claim very persuasive. The virtue of 'integrity' rather obviously embraces groups of both intellectually and morally desirable traits. |
20208 | We can name at least thirteen intellectual vices [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Some examples of intellectual vices: pride, negligence, idleness, cowardice, conformity, carelessness, rigidity, prejudice, wishful thinking, closed-mindedness, insensitivity to detail, obtuseness (in seeing relevance), and lack of thoroughness. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
A reaction: There are thousands of vices for which we don't have names, like thinking about football when you should be doing metaphysics. The other way round is also a vice too, because football needs concentration. Discontent with your chair is bad too. |
20215 | A justified belief emulates the understanding and beliefs of an intellectually virtuous person [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: A justified belief is what a person who is motivated by intellectual virtue, and who has the understanding of his cognitive situation a virtuous person would have, might believe in like circumstances. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
A reaction: This is a whole-hearted definition of justification in terms of a theory of intellectual virtues. Presumably this would allow robots to have justified beliefs, if they managed to behave the way intellectually virtuous persons would behave. |
20187 | Epistemic perfection for reliabilism is a truth-producing machine [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Just as a utility-calculating machine would be the ideal moral agent according to utilitarianism, a truth-producing machine would be the ideal epistemic agent according to reliabilism, | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 1.2) | |
A reaction: Love this one! For consequentialists a successful robot is morally superior to an average human being. The reliabilist dream is just something that churns out truths. But what is the role of these truths in subsequent life? |
20218 | The self is known as much by its knowledge as by its action [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: It seems to me that the concept of the self is constituted as much by what we know as by what we do. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], III 1) | |
A reaction: People take pride in what they know, which indicates that it is of central importance to a person's nature. Hard to evaluate ideas such as this. |
20205 | The feeling accompanying curiosity is neither pleasant nor painful [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Most feelings are experienced as pleasant or painful, but it is not evident that they all are; curiosity may be one that is not. [note: 'curiosity' may not be the name of a feeling, but a feeling typically accompanies it] | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
A reaction: If a machine generates a sliding scale from pain to pleasure, is there a neutral feeling at the midpoint, or does all feeling briefly vanish there? Not sure. |
17873 | Water must be related to water, just as tigers must be related to tigers [Almog] |
Full Idea: It is a blindspot to say that to be a tiger one must come from tigers, but to be water one needn't come from water. ...The error lies in not appreciating that to be water one still must come from somewhere in the cosmos, indeed, from hydrogen and oxygen. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], 09) | |
A reaction: A unified picture is indeed desirable, but a better solution is to say that the essence of a tiger is in its structure, not in its origins. There are many ways to produce an artefact. There could be many ways to produce a tiger. |
20202 | Motives involve desires, but also how the desires connect to our aims [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: A motive does have an aspect of desire, but it includes something about why a state of affairs is desired, and that includes something about the way my emotions are tied to my aim. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.6) | |
A reaction: It is standard usage that a 'motive' involves some movement towards achieving the desire, and not merely having the desire. I'd quite like to stand on top of Everest, but have absolutely no motivation to try to achieve it. |
20216 | Modern moral theory concerns settling conflicts, rather than human fulfilment [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Modern ethics generally considers morality much less a system for fulfilling human nature than a set of principles for dealing with individuals in conflict. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 7) | |
A reaction: Historically I associate this move with Hugo Grotius around 1620. He was a great legalist, and eudaimonist virtue ethics gradually turned into jurisprudence. The Enlightenment sought rules for resolving dilemmas. Liberalism makes fulfilment private. |
20193 | Moral luck means our praise and blame may exceed our control or awareness [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Because of moral luck, the realm of the morally praiseworthy / blameworthy is not indisputably within one's voluntary control or accessible to one's consciousness. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], I 4.2) | |
A reaction: [She particularly cites Thomas Nagel for this] It is a fact that we will be blamed (more strongly) when we have moral bad luck, but the question is whether we should be. It seems harsh, but you can't punish someone as if they had had bad luck. |
20199 | Nowadays we doubt the Greek view that the flourishing of individuals and communities are linked [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Modern moral philosophers have been considerably more skeptical than were the ancient Greeks about the close association between the flourishing of the individual and that of the community. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
A reaction: I presume this is not just a change in fashion, but a reflection of how different the two societies are. In a close community with almost no privacy, flourishing individuals are good citizens. In the isolations of modern liberalism they may be irrelevant. |
20196 | Virtue theory is hopeless if there is no core of agreed universal virtues [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: An analysis of virtue is hopeless unless we can assume that most of a selected list of traits count as virtues, in a way not strictly culture. ...These would include wisdom, courage, benevolence, justice, honesty, loyalty, integrity, and generosity. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.1) | |
A reaction: This requirement needs there to be a single core to human nature, right across the species. If we are infinitely flexible (as existentialists imply) then the virtues will have matching flexibility, and so will be parochial and excessively relative. |
20200 | A virtue must always have a corresponding vice [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: It is important for the nature of virtue that it have a corresponding vice (or two, in the doctrine of the mean). Claustrophobia is not a vice not only because it is involuntary, but also because there is no corresponding virtue. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably attaining a virtue is an achievement, so we would expect a label for failure in the same field of endeavour. The failure is not purely negative, because bad things ensue if the virtue is not present. |
20201 | Eight marks distingush skills from virtues [Zagzebski, by PG] |
Full Idea: The difference between skills and virtues is that virtues must be enacted, are always desirable, can't be forgotten, and can be simulated, whereas skills are very specific, involve a technique, lack contraries, and lack intrinsic value. | |
From: report of Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: [my summary of her II 2.4 discussion of the differences] She observes that Aristotle made insufficient effort to distinguish the two. It may be obscure to say that virtues go 'deeper' than skills, but we all know what is meant. 'Skills serve virtues'. |
20203 | Virtues are deep acquired excellences of persons, which successfully attain desire ends [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: A virtue can be defined as 'a deep and enduring acquired excellence of a person, involving a characteristic motivation to produce a certain desired end and reliable success in bringing about that end'. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.7) | |
A reaction: She puts this in bold, and it is the culminating definition of a long discussion. It rather obviously fails to say anything about the nature of the end that is desired. Learning the telephone book off by heart seems to fit the definition. |
20207 | Every moral virtue requires a degree of intelligence [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: Being reasonably intelligent within a certain area of life is part of having almost any moral virtue. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.1) | |
A reaction: The fact that this bars persons of very limited intelligence from acquiring the Aristotelian virtues is one of the attractions of the Christian enjoinder to merely achieve 'love'. Anyone can have a warm heart. So is virtue elitist? |
20214 | Virtue theory can have lots of rules, as long as they are grounded in virtues and in facts [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: A pure virtue theory can have as many rules as you like as long as they are understood as grounded in the virtuous motivations and understanding of the nonmoral facts that virtuous agents possess. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 6.1) | |
A reaction: It is important, I think, to see that a virtue theorist does not have to be a particularist. |
20213 | We need phronesis to coordinate our virtues [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: We need phronesis (practical wisdom) to coordinate the various virtues into a single line of action or line of thought leading up to an act or to a belief. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 5.2) | |
A reaction: If I have a conflicting virtue and vice in a single situation, something must make sure that the virtue dominates. That sounds more like Kant's 'good will' than like phronesis. |
20209 | For the virtue of honesty you must be careful with the truth, and not just speak truly [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: It is not sufficient for honesty that a person tells whatever she happens to believe is the truth. An honest person is careful with the truth. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 3.2) | |
A reaction: Not sure about that. It matches what Aristotle says about courage, which also needs practical reason [phronesis]. But being sensitive and careful with truth seems to need other virtues. If total honesty is not a virtue, then is honesty a virtue at all? |
20197 | The courage of an evil person is still a quality worth having [Zagzebski] |
Full Idea: In the case of a courageous Nazi soldier, my position is that a virtue is worth having even in those cases in which it makes a person worse overall. | |
From: Linda Trinkaus Zagzebski (Virtues of the Mind [1996], II 2.2) | |
A reaction: A brave claim, which seems right. If a nasty Nazi reforms, they will at least have one good quality which can be put to constructive use. |
17864 | Defining an essence comes no where near giving a thing's nature [Almog] |
Full Idea: The natures of things are neither exhausted nor even partially given by 'defining essences'. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], Intro) | |
A reaction: A better criticism of essentialism. 'Natures' is a much vaguer word than 'essences', however, because the latter refers to what is stable and important, whereas natures could include any aspect. Being ticklish is in my nature, but not in my essence. |
17863 | Essences promise to reveal reality, but actually drive us away from it [Almog] |
Full Idea: The essentialist line (one I trace to Aristotle, Descartes and Kripke) is driving us away from, not closer to, the real nature of things. It promised a sort of Hubble telescope - essences - able to reveal the deep structure of reality. | |
From: Joseph Almog (Nature Without Essence [2010], Intro) | |
A reaction: I suspect this is tilting at a straw man. No one thinks we should hunt for essences instead of doing normal science. 'Essence' just labels what you've got when you succeed. |