11 ideas
| 21339 | We want the ontology of relations, not just a formal way of specifying them [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A satisfying account of relations must be ontologically serious. This means refusing to rest content with abstract specifications of relations as sets of ordered n-tuples. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A set of ordered entities would give the extension of a relation, which wouldn't, among other things, explain co-extensive relations (if all the people to my left were also taller than me). Heil's is a general cry from the heart about formal philosophy. |
| 21349 | Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil] |
| Full Idea: If Simmias is taller than Socrates, they are indirectly related; they are related via their possession of properties that are themselves directly - and internally - related. Hence relational truths are made true by non-relational features of the world. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Founding') | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a strategy for reducing external relations to internal relations, which are intrinsic to objects, which thus reduces the ontology. Heil is not endorsing it, but cites Kit Fine 2000. The germ of this idea is in Plato. |
| 21340 | Maybe all the other features of the world can be reduced to relations [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A striking idea is that relations are ontologically primary: monadic, non-relational features of the world are constituted by relations. A view of this kind is defended by Peirce, and contemporary 'structural realists' like Ladyman. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Relational') | |
| A reaction: I can't make sense of this proposal, which seems to offer relations with no relata. What is a relation? What is it made of? How do you individuate two instances of a relations, without reference to the relata? |
| 21348 | In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil] |
| Full Idea: We might say that the truthmakers for 'six is greater than five' are six and five themselves. On this view, truthmakers for one class of relational truths are non-relational features of the world. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Founding') | |
| A reaction: That seems to be a good way of expressing the existence of an internal relation. |
| 21351 | Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Truthmaking is a paradigmatic internal relation: if you have a truthbearer, a representation, and you have the world as the truthbearer represents it as being, you have truthmaking, you have the truthbearer's being true. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Causal') | |
| A reaction: It is nice to have an example of an internal relation other than numbers, and closer to the concrete world. Is the relation between the world and facts about the world the same thing, or another example? |
| 21344 | If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A simple way to think about internal relations is: if R internally relates a and b, then, if you have a and b, you thereby have R. If you have six and you have five, you thereby have six's being greater than five. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'External') | |
| A reaction: This seems to work a lot better for abstracta than for physical objects, where I am struggling to think of a parallel example. Parenthood? Temporal relations between things? Acorn and oak? |
| 21350 | If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil] |
| Full Idea: On the conception that properties are powers, it is no longer obvious that causal relations are external relations. Given the powers - all the powers in play - you have the manifestations. | |
| From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Causal') | |
| A reaction: This also delivers on a plate the necessity felt to be in causal relations, because the relation is inevitable once you are given the relata. But can you have an accidental (rather than essential) internal relation? Not in the case of numbers. |
| 6383 | Cause unites our picture of the universe; without it, mental and physical will separate [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: The concept of cause is what holds together our picture of the universe, a picture that would otherwise disintegrate into a diptych of the mental and the physical. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: Davidson seems to be the one who put mental causation at the centre of philosophy. By then denying that there are any 'psycho-physical' laws, he seems to me to have re-opened the metaphysical gap he says he was trying to close. |
| 6385 | The causally strongest reason may not be the reason the actor judges to be best [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: I defend my causal view of action by arguing that a reason that is causally strongest need not be a reason deemed by the actor to provide the strongest (best) grounds for acting. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xii) | |
| A reaction: If I smoke a cigarette against my better judgement, it is not clear to me how the desire to smoke it, which overcomes my judgement not to smoke it, counts as the causally strongest 'reason'. We seem to have two different senses of 'reason' here. |
| 6384 | The notion of cause is essential to acting for reasons, intentions, agency, akrasia, and free will [Davidson] |
| Full Idea: My thesis is that the ordinary notion of cause is essential to understanding what it is to act with a reason, to have an intention to act, to be an agent, to act counter to one's own best judgement, or to act freely. | |
| From: Donald Davidson (Intro to 'Essays on Actions and Events' [1980], p.xi) | |
| A reaction: I cautiously agree, particularly with idea that causation is essential to acting as an agent. Since I believe 'free will' to be a complete delusion, that part of his thesis doesn't interest me. The hard part is understanding acting for a reason. |
| 1590 | The just man does not harm his enemies, but benefits everyone [Plato] |
| Full Idea: First, Socrates, you told me justice is harming your enemies and helping your friends. But later it seemed that the just man, since everything he does is for someone's benefit, never harms anyone. | |
| From: Plato (Clitophon [c.372 BCE], 410b) | |
| A reaction: Socrates certainly didn't subscribe to the first view, which is the traditional consensus in Greek culture. In general Socrates agreed with the views later promoted by Jesus. |