63 ideas
14001 | People who use science to make philosophical points don't realise how philosophical science is [Markosian] |
Full Idea: When people give arguments from scientific theories to philosophical conclusions, there is usually a good deal of philosophy built into the relevant scientific theories. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.9) | |
A reaction: I love this remark, being thoroughly fed up with knowledgeable scientists who are naïve about philosophy, and think their current theory demolishes long-lasting aporiai. They are up to their necks in philosophy. |
11178 | The essence or definition of an essence involves either a class of properties or a class of propositions [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If each object has a unique essence or definition, this may be identified with either the class of properties that it essentially has, or with the class of propositions that are true in virtue of what it is. | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §8) | |
A reaction: Elsewhere Fine says that it is easier to work with the propositions view, but that the properties (or predicates) view is probably more fundamental. He goes on here to raise the question of whether either view makes the essence unique. |
14227 | We could refer to tables as 'xs that are arranged tablewise' [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: We could paraphrase 'some chairs are heavier than some tables' as 'there are xs that are arranged chairwise and there are ys that are arranged tablewise and the xs are heavier than the ys'. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 11) | |
A reaction: Liggins notes that this involves plural quantification. Being 'arranged tablewise' has become a rather notorious locution in modern ontology. We still have to retain identity, to pick out the xs. |
13991 | Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Presentism has a problem with singular propositions about non-present objects. ...When Socrates popped out of existence, according to Presentism, all those singular propositions about him also popped out of existence. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.1) | |
A reaction: He seems to treat propositions in a Russellian way, as things which exist independently of thinkers, which I struggle to grasp. Markosian offers various strategies for this [§3.5]. |
10662 | Mereology is 'nihilistic' (just atoms) or 'universal' (no restrictions on what is 'whole') [Inwagen, by Varzi] |
Full Idea: Van Ingwagen writes of 'mereological nihilism' (that only mereological atoms exist) and of 'mereological universalism' (adhering to the principle of Unrestricted Composition). | |
From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], p.72-) by Achille Varzi - Mereology 4.3 | |
A reaction: They both look mereologically nihilistic to me, in comparison with an account that builds on 'natural' wholes and their parts. You can only be 'unrestricted' if you view the 'wholes' in your vast ontology as pretty meaningless (as Lewis does, Idea 10660). |
17587 | The 'Law' of Excluded Middle needs all propositions to be definitely true or definitely false [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: I think the validity of the 'Law' of Excluded Middle depends on the assumption that every proposition is definitely true or definitely false. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: I think this is confused. He cites vagueness as the problem, but that is a problem for Bivalence. If excluded middle is read as 'true or not-true', that leaves the meaning of 'not-true' open, and never mentions the bivalent 'false'. |
11175 | Logical concepts rest on certain inferences, not on facts about implications [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The nature of the logical concepts is given, not by certain logical truths, but by certain logical inferences. What properly belongs to disjunction is the inference from p to (p or q), rather than the fact that p implies (p or q). | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §3) | |
A reaction: Does this mean that Fine is wickedly starting with the psychology, rather than with the pure truth of the connection? Frege is shuddering. This view seems to imply that the truth table for 'or' is secondary. |
17558 | Variables are just like pronouns; syntactic explanations get muddled over dummy letters [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Explanations in terms of syntax do not satisfactorily distinguish true variables from dummy or schematic letters. Identifying variables with pronouns, however, provides a genuine explanation of what variables are. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02) | |
A reaction: I like this because it shows that our ordinary thought and speech use variables all the time ('I've forgotten something - what was it?'). He says syntax is fine for maths, but not for ordinary understanding. |
11176 | The property of Property Abstraction says any suitable condition must imply a property [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: According to the principle of Property Abstraction, there is, for any suitable condition, a property that is possessed by an object just in case it conforms to the condition. This is usually taken to be a second-order logical truth. | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §4) | |
A reaction: Fine objects that it is implied that if Socrates is essentially a man, then he essentially has the property of being a man. Like Fine, I think this conclusion is distasteful. A classification is not a property, at least the way most people use 'property'. |
11174 | A logical truth is true in virtue of the nature of the logical concepts [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: One wants to define a logical truth as one that is true in virtue of the nature of the logical concepts. | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §3) | |
A reaction: This is part of Fine's project to give a revised account of essence, which includes the essence of concepts as well as the essence of objects. Everyone should pay close attention to this project. |
17583 | There are no heaps [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Fortunately ....there are no heaps. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: This is the nihilist view of (inorganic) physical objects. If a wild view solves all sorts of problems, one should take it serious. It is why I take reductive physicalism about the mind seriously. (Well, it's true, actually) |
17578 | I reject talk of 'stuff', and treat it in terms of particles [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: I have a great deal of difficulty with an ontology that includes 'stuffs' in addition to things. ...I prefer to replace talk of sameness of matter with talk of sameness of particles. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) | |
A reaction: Van Inwagen is wedded to the idea that reality is composed of 'simples' - even if physicists seem now to talk of 'fields' as much as they do about objects in the fields. Has philosophy yet caught up with Maxwell? |
17582 | Singular terms can be vague, because they can contain predicates, which can be vague [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Since singular terms can contain predicates, and since vague predicates are common, vague singular terms are common. For 'the tallest man that Sally knows' there are lots of men for whom it is unclear whether Sally knows them. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17) |
17556 | Material objects are in space and time, move, have a surface and mass, and are made of some stuff [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A thing is a material object if it occupies space and endures through time and can move about in space (literally move, unlike a shadow or wave or reflection) and has a surface and has a mass and is made of a certain stuff or stuffs. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01) | |
A reaction: It is not at all clear what electrons (which must count for him as 'simples') are made of. |
8264 | Maybe table-shaped particles exist, but not tables [Inwagen, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: Van Ingwagen holds that although table-shaped collections of particles exist, tables do not. | |
From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Ch.13) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 2.3 | |
A reaction: I find this idea appealing. See the ideas of Trenton Merricks. When you get down to micro-level, it is hard to individuate a table among the force fields, and hard to distinguish a table from a smashed or burnt table. An ontology without objects? |
17565 | Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Nihilism about objects says there is a Y such that the Xs compose it if and only if there is only one of the Xs. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 08) | |
A reaction: He says that Unger, the best known 'nihilist' about objects, believes a different version - claiming there are composites, but they never make up the ordinary objects we talk about. |
14228 | If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction [Liggins on Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Van Inwagen says 'there are no tables', and 'there are tables' means 'there are some things arranged tablewise'. Presumably 'there are no tables' negates the latter claim, saying no things are arranged tablewise. But he should think that is false. | |
From: comment on Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction 3 | |
A reaction: Liggins's nice paper shows that Van Inwagen is in a potential state of contradiction when he starts saying that there are no tables, but that there are things arranged tablewise, and that they amount to tables. Liggins offers him an escape. |
14468 | Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: All the activities apparently carried out by shelves and stars and other artefacts and natural bodies can be understood as disguised cooperative activities. And, therefore, we are not forced to grant existence to any artefacts or natural bodies. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
A reaction: In 'the crowd tore her to pieces' are we forced to accept the existence of a crowd? We can't say 'Jack tore her to pieces' and 'Jill tore her to pieces'. If a plural quantification is unavoidable, we have to accept the plurality. Perhaps. |
17571 | Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: The thesis about composition and parthood that I am advocating has far-reaching ontological consequences: that every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 10) | |
A reaction: A 'simple' is a placeholder for anything considered to be a fundamental unit of existence (such as an electron or a quark). This amazingly sharp distinction strikes me as utterly implausible. There is too much in the middle ground. |
17562 | The statue and lump seem to share parts, but the statue is not part of the lump [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Those who believe that the statue is distinct from the lump should concede that whatever shares a part with the statue shares a part with the lump but deny that the statue is a part of the lump. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 05) | |
A reaction: Standard mereology says if they share all their parts then they are the same thing, so it is hard to explain how they are 'distinct'. The distinction is only modal - that they could be separated (by squashing, or by part substitution). |
17574 | If you knead clay you make an infinite series of objects, but they are rearrangements, not creations [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: If you can make a (random) gollyswoggle by accident by kneading clay, then you must be causing the generation and corruption of a series of objects of infinitesimal duration. ...We have not augmented the furniture of the world but only rearranged it. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
A reaction: Van Inwagen's final conclusion is a bit crazy, but I am in sympathy with his general scepticism about what sorts of things definitively constitute 'objects'. He overrates simples, and he overrates lives. |
17531 | I assume matter is particulate, made up of 'simples' [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: I assume in this book that matter is ultimately particulate. Every material being is composed of things that have no proper parts: 'elementary particles' or 'mereological atoms' or 'metaphysical simples'. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], Pref) | |
A reaction: It may be that modern physics doesn't support this, if 'fields' is the best term for what is fundamental. Best to treat his book as hypothetical - IF there are just simples, proceed as follows. |
17560 | If contact causes composition, do two colliding balls briefly make one object? [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, if I cause the cue ball to rebound from the eight ball, do I thereby create a short-lived object shaped like two slightly flattened spheres in contact? | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 03) | |
A reaction: [compressed] |
17561 | If bricks compose a house, that is at least one thing, but it might be many things [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: If composition just requires contact, that tells us that the bricks of a house compose at least one thing; it does not tell us that they also compose at most one thing. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 04) |
17566 | I think parthood involves causation, and not just a reasonably stable spatial relationship [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: I propose that parthood essentially involves causation. Too many philosophers have supposed that objects compose something when and only when they stand in some (more or less stable) spatial relationship to one another. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) | |
A reaction: I have to say that I like this, even though it comes from a thinker who is close to nihilism about ordinary non-living objects. He goes on to say that only a 'life' provides the right sort of causal relationship. |
14230 | We can deny whole objects but accept parts, by referring to them as plurals within things [Inwagen, by Liggins] |
Full Idea: Van Inwagen's claim that nothing has parts causes incredulity. ..But the problem is not with endorsing the sentence 'Some things have parts'; it is with interpreting this sentence by means of singular resources rather than plural ones. | |
From: report of Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 7) by David Liggins - Nihilism without Self-Contradiction | |
A reaction: Van Inwagen notoriously denies the existence of normal physical objects. Liggins shows that modern formal plural quantification gives a better way of presenting his theory, by accepting tables and parts of tables as plurals of basic entities. |
17557 | Special Composition Question: when is a thing part of something? [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: The Special Composition Question asks, In what circumstances is a thing a (proper) part of something? | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 02) | |
A reaction: [He qualifies this formulation as 'misleading'] It's a really nice basic question for the metaphysics of objects. |
11177 | Can the essence of an object circularly involve itself, or involve another object? [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Can the essence of an object (ineliminably) involve that object itself (perhaps through self-identity, giving a direct circularity), or have an indirect circularity involving two or more objects (such as admiration between Watson and Holmes). | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §7) | |
A reaction: [compressed] This looks like one of the basic questions which any theory of essentialism must address. |
11173 | Being a man is a consequence of his essence, not constitutive of it [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If we distinguish 'constitutive' from 'consequential' essence, ..then the essence of Socrates will, in part, be constituted by his being a man. But being a man (or a mountain) will merely be consequential upon, and not constitutive of, his essence. | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §3) | |
A reaction: Yes yes yes. I think it is absurd to say that the class to which something belongs is part of its essential nature, given that it presumably can only belong to the class if it already has a certain essential nature. What did Frankenstein construct? |
11179 | If there are alternative definitions, then we have three possibilities for essence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If there are alternative definitions for an essence, we must distinguish three notions. There is the essence as the manifold (the combined definitions), or as the range of alternative definitions (with component essences), or there is the common essence. | |
From: Kit Fine (Senses of Essence [1995], §8) | |
A reaction: Fine opts for the third alternative (what the definitions all have in common) as the best account. He says (p.68) 'definitive' properties come from one definition, and 'essential' properties from every possible definition. |
17564 | The essence of a star includes the released binding energy which keeps it from collapse [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: I think it is part of the essence of a star that the radiation pressures that oppose the star's tendency to gravitational collapse has its source in the release of no-longer-needed nuclear binding energy when colliding nuclei fuse in the star's hot core. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07) | |
A reaction: A perfect example of giving the essence of something as the bottom level of its explanation. This even comes from someone who doesn't really believe in stars! |
17575 | The persistence of artifacts always covertly involves intelligent beings [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Statements that are apparently about the persistence of artifacts make covert reference to the dispositions of intelligent beings to maintain certain arrangements of matter. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
A reaction: If you build a self-sustaining windmill that pumps water, that seems to have an identity of its own, apart from the intentions of whoever makes it and repairs it. The function of an artefact is not just the function we want it to have. |
17577 | When an electron 'leaps' to another orbit, is the new one the same electron? [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Is the 'new' electron in the lower orbit the one that was in the higher orbit? Physics, as far as I can tell, has nothing to say about this. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) | |
A reaction: I suspect that physicists would say that philosophers are worrying about such questions because they haven't grasped the new conceptual scheme that emerged in 1926. The poor mutts insist on hanging on to 'objects'. |
17589 | If you reject transitivity of vague identity, there is no Ship of Theseus problem [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: If you have rejected the Principle of the Transitivity of (vague) Identity, it is hard to see how the problem of the Ship of Theseus could arise. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: I think this may well be the best solution to the whole problem |
17588 | We should talk of the transitivity of 'identity', and of 'definite identity' [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: In some contexts, the principle of 'the transitivity of identity' should be called 'the transitivity of definite identity'. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: He is making room for a person to retain identity despite having changed. Applause from me. |
17572 | Actuality proves possibility, but that doesn't explain how it is possible [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A proof of actuality is a proof of possibility, but that does not invariably explain the possibility whose existence it demonstrates, for we may know that a certain thing is actual (and hence possible) but have no explanation of how it could be possible. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
A reaction: I like this, because my project is to see all of philosophy in terms of explanation rather than of description. |
14002 | Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Possible worlds are just abstract objects that play a certain role in philosophers' talk about modality. They are ways things could be. That's why there are no two abstract possible worlds which are qualitatively identical. They count as one world. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.10) | |
A reaction: Brilliant! This looks like the best distinction between concrete and abstract. If two concreta are identical they remain two; if two abstracta are identical they are one (like numbers, or logical connectives with the same truth table). |
17579 | Counterparts reduce counterfactual identity to problems about similarity relations [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Counterpart Theory essentially reduces all problems about counterfactual identity to problems about choosing appropriate similarity relations. That is, Counterpart Theory essentially eliminates problems of counterfactual identity as such. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 14) |
17590 | A merely possible object clearly isn't there, so that is a defective notion [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: The notion of a merely possible object is an even more defective notion than the notion of a borderline object; after all, a merely possible object is an object that definitely isn't there. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19) |
17591 | Merely possible objects must be consistent properties, or haecceities [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Talk of merely possible objects may be redeemed in either maximally consistent sets of properties or in haecceities. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 19) |
14000 | 'Grabby' truth conditions first select their object, unlike 'searchy' truth conditions [Markosian] |
Full Idea: We can talk of 'grabby' truth conditions (where an object is grabbed before predication) and 'searchy' truth conditions (where the object is included in what is being asserted). | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.8) | |
A reaction: [He credits Tom Ryckman with the terminology] I am inclined to think that the whole of language is 'searchy', even when it appears to be blatantly 'grabby'. Even ostensive reference is an act of hope rather than certainty. |
17563 | The strong force pulls, but also pushes apart if nucleons get too close together [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: The strong force doesn't always pull nucleons together, but pushes them apart if they get too close. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 07) | |
A reaction: Philosophers tend to learn their physics from other philosophers. But that's because philosophers are brilliant at picking out the interesting parts of physics, and skipping the boring stuff. |
13990 | Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian] |
Full Idea: According to Presentism, if we were to make an accurate list of all the things that exist (within the range of our most unrestricted quantifiers) there would not be a single non-present object on the list. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 1) | |
A reaction: An immediate problem that needs examing is what constitutes an 'object'. It had better not range over time (like an journey). It would be hard to fit a description like 'the oldest man in England'. |
13992 | Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian] |
Full Idea: If there are no non-present objects (according to Presentism), then no one can now stand in any relation to any non-present object. You cannot now 'admire' Socrates, and no present event has a causal relation to Washington crossing the Delaware. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.2) | |
A reaction: You can have an overlapping causal chain that gets you back to Washington, and a causal chain can connect Socrates to our thoughts about him (as in baptismal reference). A simple reply needs an 'overlap' though. |
13994 | Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian] |
Full Idea: It is very natural to talk about times, ...but Presentism seems to entail that we never say anything about any such times. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 2.4) | |
A reaction: I'm beginning to think that Markosian is in the grips of a false notion of proposition, as something that exists independently of thinkers, and is entailed by the facts and objects of reality. This is not what language does. |
13995 | Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Mark Hinchliff distinguishes between 'Serious' Presentism (objects only have relations and properties when they exist) and 'Unrestricted' Presentism (objects can have relations and properties even when they don't exist). | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.1) | |
A reaction: [Hinchliff 1996:124-6] Markosian votes for the Serious version, as being the only true Presentism. I think he is muddling language and reality, predicates and properties. |
13996 | Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Some Presentists (such as Adams) believe that a haecceity (a property unique to some entity) continues to exist even after its object ceases to exist. A sentence about Socrates still expresses a proposition, about 'Socraticity'. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.4) | |
A reaction: [Adams 1986] This is rather puzzling. In what sense could a haecceity 'exist' to be referred to? Existence, but not as we know it, Jim. This smacks of medieval theology. |
13997 | Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past, into purely general past- and future-tensed sentences. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.5) | |
A reaction: I'm not clear why Markosian worries about singular propositions, but is happy with general ones. Surely the latter refer as much as the former to what doesn't exist? Markosian objects that the paraphrase has a different meaning. |
13993 | Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian] |
Full Idea: The objection to Presentism from Special Relativity is this: 1) Relativity is true, 2) so there is no absolute simultaneity, 3) so there is no absolute presentness, but 4) Presentism entails absolute presentness, so 5) Presentism is false. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.9) | |
A reaction: I don't accept this objection. There may be accounts that can give Relativity one present (Idea 12689-90). Maybe Einstein was too instrumentalist in his account. Maybe we can have Presentism with multiple present moments. |
13998 | Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian] |
Full Idea: Maybe putative non-present objects like Socrates have more in common with putative non-actual objects like Santa Claus than they have in common with objects located elsewhere in space, like Alpha Centauri. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.7) | |
A reaction: We can see Alpha Centauri, so we need an example beyond some 'event horizon'. He credits Arthur Prior with this line of thought. He seems to me to drift towards a Descriptive Theory of Reference (shock!). Does the nature of reference change with death? |
13999 | People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian] |
Full Idea: People sometimes think that 'Socrates was a philosopher' expresses something like a true, singular proposition about Socrates. They're making a mistake, but still, this explains why they think it is true. | |
From: Ned Markosian (A Defense of Presentism [2004], 3.8) | |
A reaction: A classic error theory, about our talk of the past. Personally I would say that the sentence really is true, and that needing a tangible object to refer to is a totally bogus requirement. 'I wonder if there are any scissors in the house?' |
17559 | Is one atom a piece of gold, or is a sizable group of atoms required? [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A physicist once told me that of course a gold atom was a piece of gold, and a physical chemist has assured me that the smallest possible piece of gold would have to be composed of sixteen or seventeen atoms. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 01) | |
A reaction: The issue is at what point all the properties that we normally begin to associate with gold begin to appear. One water molecule can hardly have a degree of viscosity or liquidity. |
17570 | The chemical reactions in a human life involve about sixteen elements [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: There are sixteen or so chemical elements involved in those chemical reactions that collectively constitute the life of a human being. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
17567 | A flame is like a life, but not nearly so well individuated [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A flame, though it is a self-maintaining event, does not seem to be nearly so well individuated as a life. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) | |
A reaction: This is to counter the standard problem that if you attempt to define 'life', fire turns out to tick nearly all the same boxes. The concept of 'individuated' often strikes me as unsatisfactory. How does a bonfire fail to be individuated? |
17580 | One's mental and other life is centred on the brain, unlike any other part of the body [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: One's life - not simply one's mental life - is centered in the activity of the simples that virtually compose one's brain in a way in which it is not centered in the activity of any of the other simples that compose one. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 15) | |
A reaction: This justifies the common view that 'one follows one's brain'. I take that to mean that my brain embodies my essence. I would read 'centered on' as 'explains'. |
17581 | Being part of an organism's life is a matter of degree, and vague [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Being caught up in the life of an organism is, like being rich or being tall, a matter of degree, and is in that sense a vague condition. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 17) | |
A reaction: Van Inwagen is trying to cover himself, given that he makes a sharp distinction between living organisms, which are unified objects, and everything else, which isn't. There may be a vague centre to a 'life', as well as vague boundaries. |
17584 | Some events are only borderline cases of lives [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: There are events of which it is neither definitely true nor definitely false that those events are lives. I do not see how we can deny this. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: Very frustrating, since this is my main objection to Van Inwagen's distinction between unified lives and mere collections of simples. Some boundaries are real enough, despite their vagueness, and others indicate that there is no real distinction. |
17585 | Life is vague at both ends, but could it be totally vague? [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: Individual human lives are infected with vagueness at both ends. ...But could there be a 'borderline life'? | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: Van Inwagen says (p.239) that there may be wholly vague lives, though it would suit his case better if there were not. |
17586 | At the lower level, life trails off into mere molecular interaction [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: The lives of the lower links of the Great Chain of Being trail off into vague, temporary episodes of molecular interaction. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 18) | |
A reaction: His case involves conceding all sorts of vagueness to life, but asserting the utter distinctness of the full blown cases of more elaborate life. I don't really concede the distinction. |
17569 | Unlike waves, lives are 'jealous'; it is almost impossible for them to overlap [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A wave is not a 'jealous' event. Lives, however, are jealous. It cannot be that the activities of the Xs constitute at one and the same time two lives. Only in certain special cases can two lives overlap. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
17576 | If God were to 'reassemble' my atoms of ten years ago, the result would certainly not be me [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: If God were to 'reassemble' the atoms that composed me ten years ago, the resulting organism would certainly not be me. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 13) | |
A reaction: What is obvious to Van Inwagen is not obvious to me. He thinks lives are special. Such examples just leave us bewildered about what counts as 'the same', because our concept of sameness wasn't designed to deal with such cases. |
17568 | A tumour may spread a sort of life, but it is not a life, or an organism [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: A tumour is not an organism (or a parasite) and there is no self-regulating event that is its life. It does not fill one space, but is a locus within which a certain sort of thing is happening: the spreading of a certain sort of (mass-term) life. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 09) |
17573 | There is no reason to think that mere existence is a valuable thing [Inwagen] |
Full Idea: There is no reason to suppose - whatever Saint Anselm and Descartes may have thought - that mere existence is a valuable thing. | |
From: Peter van Inwagen (Material Beings [1990], 12) | |
A reaction: This is one of the simplest and most powerful objections to the Ontological Argument. God's existence may be of great value, but the existence of Hitler wasn't. |