24 ideas
22496 | Wisdom only implies the knowledge achievable in any normal lifetime [Foot] |
Full Idea: Wisdom implies no more knowledge and understanding than anyone of normal capacity can and should acquire in the course of an ordinary life. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: Have philosophers stopped talking about wisdom precisely because you now need three university degrees to be considered even remotely good at phillosophy? Hence wisdom is an inferior attainment, because Foot is right. |
17311 | Real definitions don't just single out a thing; they must also explain its essence [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: A statement expressing a real definition must also accomplish more than simply to offer two different ways of singling out the same entity, since the definiens must also be explanatory of the essential nature of the definiendum. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
A reaction: This is why Aristotelian definitions are not just short lexicographical definitions, but may be quite length. Effectively, a definition IS an explanation. |
17312 | It is more explanatory if you show how a number is constructed from basic entities and relations [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Being the successor of the successor of 0 is more explanatory than being predecessor of 3 of the nature of 2, since it mirrors more closely the method by which 2 is constructed from a basic entity, 0, and a relation (successor) taken as primitive. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
A reaction: This assumes numbers are 'constructed', which they are in the axiomatised system of Peano Arithmetic, but presumably the numbers were given in ordinary experience before 'construction' occurred to anyone. Nevertheless, I really like this. |
17314 | The relata of grounding are propositions or facts, but for dependence it is objects and their features [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The relata of the grounding relation are typically taken to be facts or propositions, while the relata of ontological dependence ...are objects and their characteristics, activities, constituents and so on. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.5 n25) | |
A reaction: Interesting. Good riddance to propositions here, but this seems a bit unfair to facts, since I take facts to be in the world. Audi's concept of 'worldly facts' is what we need here. |
17313 | Modern views want essences just to individuate things across worlds and times [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: According to the approach of Plantinga, Forbes and Mackie, the primary job of essences is to individuate the entities whose essences they are across worlds and times at which these entities exist. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4 n13) | |
A reaction: A helpful simplification of what is going on. I wish those authors would just say this one their first pages. They all get in a right tangle, because individuation is either too easy, or hopeless. 'Tracking' is a good word for this game. |
17309 | For Fine, essences are propositions true because of identity, so they are just real definitions [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Fine assumes that essences can be identified with collections of propositions that are true in virtue of the identity of a particular object, or objects. ...There is not, on this approach, much of a distinction between essences and real definitions. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.4) | |
A reaction: This won't do, because the essence of a physical object is not a set of propositions, it is some aspects of the object itself, which are described in a definition. Koslicki notes that psuché is an essence, and the soul is hardly a set of propositions! |
17315 | We need a less propositional view of essence, and so must distinguish it clearly from real definitions [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: To make room for a less propositional conception of essence than that assumed by Fine, I urge that we distinguish more firmly between essences and real definitions (which state these essences in the form of propositions). | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
A reaction: Yes. The idea that essence is just a verbal or conceptual entity would be utterly abhorrent to Aristotle (a hero for Fine), and it is anathema to me too. We intend essences to be in the world (even if we are deceived about that). They explain! |
17317 | A good explanation captures the real-world dependence among the phenomena [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: It is plausible to think that an explanation, when successful, captures or represents (by argument, or a why? question) an underlying real-world relation of dependence which obtains among the phenomena cited. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
A reaction: She cites causal dependence as an example. I'm incline to think that 'grounding' is a better word for the target of good explanations than is 'dependence' (which can, surely, be mutual, where ground has the directionality needed for explanation). |
16236 | Maybe our persistence conditions concern bodies, rather than persons [Olson, by Hawley] |
Full Idea: Instead of attributing person-like persistence conditions to bodies, we could attribute body-like persistence conditions to persons, …so human persons are identical with human organisms. | |
From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.10 | |
A reaction: In the case of pre-birth and advanced senility, Olson thinks we could have the body without the person, so person is a 'phase sortal' of bodies. A good theory, which seems to answer a lot of questions. 'Person' may be an abstraction. |
6669 | For 'animalism', I exist before I became a person, and can continue after it, so I am not a person [Olson, by Lowe] |
Full Idea: According to 'animalism', I existed before I was a person and I may well go one existing for some time after I cease to be a person; hence, I am not essentially a person, but a human organism. | |
From: report of Eric T. Olson (The Human Animal [1997]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.10 | |
A reaction: There is a very real sense in which an extremely senile person has 'ceased to exist' (e.g. as the person I used to love). On the whole, though, I think that Olson is right, and yet 'person' is an important concept. Neither concept is all-or-nothing. |
17316 | We can abstract to a dependent entity by blocking out features of its bearer [Koslicki] |
Full Idea: In 'feature dependence', the ontologically dependent entity may be thought of as the result of a process of abstraction which takes the 'bearer' as its starting point and arrives at the abstracted entity by blocking out all the irrelevant features. | |
From: Kathrin Koslicki (Varieties of Ontological Dependence [2012], 7.6) | |
A reaction: She seems unaware that this is traditional abstraction, found in Aristotle, and a commonplace of thought until Frege got his evil hands on abstraction and stole it for other purposes. I'm a fan. |
23694 | All criterions of practical rationality derive from goodness of will [Foot] |
Full Idea: I want to say, baldly, that there is no criterion for practical rationality that is not derived from that of goodness of will. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Where does that put the successful and clever criminal? Presumably they are broadly irrational, but narrowly rational - but that is not very clear distinction. She says Kant's concept of the good will is too pure, and unrelated to human good. |
23686 | Moral reason is not just neutral, because morality is part of the standard of rationality [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her late period she again reverses her thoughts on moral rationalism; …rather than a neutral rationality which fulfils desires, she argues that morality ought to be thought of as part of the standard of rationality itself. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: This comes much closer to the Greek and Aristotelian concept of logos. They saw morality as inseparable from our judgements about how the world is. All 'sensible' thinking will involve what is good for humanity. |
23693 | Practical rationality must weigh both what is morally and what is non-morally required [Foot] |
Full Idea: Different considerations are on a par, in that judgement about what is required by practical rationality must take account of their interaction: of the weight of the ones we call non-moral as well as those we call moral. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: Her final settled view of rationalism in morality, it seems. The point is that moral considerations are not paramount, because she sees possible justifications for ignoring moral rules (like 'don't lie') in certain practical situations. |
23687 | Moral virtues arise from human nature, as part of what makes us good human beings [Foot, by Hacker-Wright] |
Full Idea: In her later work she offers a view of the relationship of morality to human nature, arguing that the moral virtues are part of what makes us good as human beings. | |
From: report of Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001]) by John Hacker-Wright - Philippa Foot's Moral Thought Intro | |
A reaction: In this phase she talks explicitly of the Aristotelian idea that successful function is the grounding of what is good for any living being, including humans. |
22492 | Virtues are as necessary to humans as stings are to bees [Foot] |
Full Idea: Virtues play a necessary part in the life of human beings as do stings in the life of a bee. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 2) | |
A reaction: This presumably rests on the Aristotelian idea that humans are essentially social (as opposed to solitary humans who choose to be social, perhaps in a contractual way, as Plato implies). |
22493 | Sterility is a human defect, but the choice to be childless is not [Foot] |
Full Idea: Lack of capacity to reproduce is a defect in a human being. But choice of childlessness and even celibacy is not thereby shown to be defective choice, because human good is not the same as plant or animal good. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 3) | |
A reaction: Is failure to reproduce a defect in an animal? If goodness and virtue derive from function, it is hard to see how deliberate childlessness could be a human good, even if it is not a defect. Choosing to terminate a hereditary defect seems good. |
22491 | Moral evaluations are not separate from facts, but concern particular facts about functioning [Foot] |
Full Idea: A moral evaluation does not stand over against the statement of a matter of fact, but rather has to do with facts about a particular subject matter, as do evaluations of such things as sight and hearing in animals. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: She avoids the word 'function', and only deals with living creatures, but she uses a 'good knife' as an example, and this Aristotelian view clearly applies to any machine which has a function. |
22497 | Deep happiness usually comes from the basic things in life [Foot] |
Full Idea: Possible objects of deep happiness seem to be things that are basic in human life, such as home, and family, and work, and friendship. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
A reaction: I've not encountered discussion of 'deep' happiness before. I heard of an old man in tears because he had just seen a Purple Emperor butterfly for the first time. She makes it sound very conservative. How about mountaineering achievements? |
22498 | Happiness is enjoying the pursuit and attainment of right ends [Foot] |
Full Idea: In my terminology 'happiness' is understood as the enjoyment of good things, meaning the enjoyment in attaining, and in pursuing, right ends. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 6) | |
A reaction: A modified version of Aristotle's view, which she contrasts with McDowell's identification of happiness with the life of virtue. They all seem to have an optimistic hope that the pleasure in being a bit wicked is false happiness. |
23695 | Good actions can never be justified by the good they brings to their agent [Foot] |
Full Idea: There is no good case for assessing the goodness of human action by reference only to good that each person brings to himself. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 1) | |
A reaction: She observes that even non-human animals often act for non-selfish reasons. The significance of this is its rejection of her much earlier view that virtues are justified by the good they bring their possessor. |
22499 | We all know that just pretending to be someone's friend is not the good life [Foot] |
Full Idea: We know perfectly well that it is not true that the best life would consist in successfully pretending friendship: having friends to serve one but without being a real friend oneself. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
A reaction: For some skallywags the achieving of something for nothing seems to be very much the good life, but not many of them want to exploit people who are seen to be their friends. |
22495 | Someone is a good person because of their rational will, not their body or memory [Foot] |
Full Idea: To speak of a good person is to speak of an individual not in respect of his body, or of faculties such as sight and memory, but as concerns his rational will (his 'will as controllable by reason'). | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 5) | |
A reaction: She more or less agrees with Kant that the only truly good moral thing is a good will, though she has plenty of other criticisms of his views. |
22502 | Refraining from murder is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment [Foot] |
Full Idea: If a stranger should come on us when we are sleeping he will not think it all right to kill us. …In human life as it is, this kind of action is not made good by authenticity or self-fulfilment in the one who does it. | |
From: Philippa Foot (Natural Goodness [2001], 7) | |
A reaction: A rare swipe from Foot at existentialism, which she hardly ever mentions. I find it hard to see these existential virtues as in any way moral. It means nothing to other citizens whether one of their number is 'authentic'. |