99 ideas
| 224 | When questions are doubtful we should concentrate not on objects but on ideas of the intellect [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Doubtful questions should not be discussed in terms of visible objects or in relation to them, but only with reference to ideas conceived by the intellect. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135e) |
| 5750 | Consistency is modal, saying propositions are consistent if they could be true together [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Consistency is a modal notion: a set of propositions is consistent iff all the members of the set could be true together. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This shows why Kantian ethics, for example, needs a metaphysical underpinning. Maybe Kant should have believed in the reality of Leibnizian possible worlds? An account of reason requires an account of necessity and possibility. |
| 232 | Opposites are as unlike as possible [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Opposites are as unlike as possible. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159a) |
| 8937 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic [Hegel on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is the greatest artistic achievement of the ancient dialectic. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Georg W.F.Hegel - Phenomenology of Spirit Pref 71 | |
| A reaction: It is a long way from the analytic tradition of philosophy to be singling out a classic text for its 'artistic' achievement. Eventually we may even look back on, say, Kripke's 'Naming and Necessity' and see it in that light. |
| 5737 | Predicate logic has connectives, quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names and brackets [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate language has four connectives, two quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names, and brackets. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Look up the reference for the details! The spirit of logic is seen in this basic framework, and the main interest is in the ontological commitment of the items on the list. The list is either known a priori, or it is merely conventional. |
| 5744 | First-order predicate calculus is extensional logic, but quantified modal logic is intensional (hence dubious) [Melia] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate calculus is an extensional logic, while quantified modal logic is intensional (which has grave problems of interpretation, according to Quine). | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: The battle is over ontology. Quine wants the ontology to stick with the values of the variables (i.e. the items in the real world that are quantified over in the extension). The rival view arises from attempts to explain necessity and counterfactuals. |
| 5740 | Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Permitting quantification into predicate position and adding second-order variables leads to second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: Often expressed by saying that we now quantify over predicates and relations, rather than just objects. Depends on your metaphysical commitments. |
| 5741 | If every model that makes premises true also makes conclusion true, the argument is valid [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In first-order predicate calculus validity is defined thus: an argument is valid iff every model that makes the premises of the argument true also makes the conclusion of the argument true. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: See Melia Ch. 2 for an explanation of a 'model'. Traditional views of validity tend to say that if the premises are true the conclusion has to be true (necessarily), but this introduces the modal term 'necessarily', which is controversial. |
| 13986 | Plato found antinomies in ideas, Kant in space and time, and Bradley in relations [Plato, by Ryle] |
| Full Idea: Plato (in 'Parmenides') shows that the theory that 'Eide' are substances, and Kant that space and time are substances, and Bradley that relations are substances, all lead to aninomies. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Gilbert Ryle - Are there propositions? 'Objections' |
| 14150 | Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made [Russell on Plato] |
| Full Idea: Plato's 'Parmenides' is perhaps the best collection of antinomies ever made. | |
| From: comment on Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Bertrand Russell - The Principles of Mathematics §337 |
| 16150 | One is, so numbers exist, so endless numbers exist, and each one must partake of being [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If one is, there must also necessarily be number - Necessarily - But if there is number, there would be many, and an unlimited multitude of beings. ..So if all partakes of being, each part of number would also partake of it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 144a) | |
| A reaction: This seems to commit to numbers having being, then to too many numbers, and hence to too much being - but without backing down and wondering whether numbers had being after all. Aristotle disagreed. |
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) |
| 21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
| 14562 | A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A process has a unity to it that comes from being the expression of a collection of causal powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 1) | |
| A reaction: I would be happier with this if I had a clear notion of what counts as a 'collection' of causal powers. We are back with the Leibnizian anguish over what constitutes a 'unity'. Processes need more attention, I'm thinking. |
| 14541 | Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Events are to be understood essentially as changes, rather than as property exemplifications. A particular exemplifying a property (as in Kim 1973 and Lewis 1986) would be better understood as a state of affairs. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely with this. I've never been able to make sense of events as such static relations. It resembles the dubious Russellian view of motion as just being at one place and then at another. |
| 221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) |
| 5736 | No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers say that modal facts cannot be expressed either by name/predicate language, or by first-order predicate calculus, or even by second-order logic. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: If 'possible' were a predicate, none of this paraphernalia would be needed. If possible worlds are accepted, then the quantifiers of first-order predicate calculus will do the job. If neither of these will do, there seems to be a problem. |
| 5735 | Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers think that any fact can be captured in a language containing only names and predicates. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: The problem case Melia is discussing is modal facts, such as 'x is possible'. It is hard to see how 'possible' could be an ordinary predicate, but then McGinn claims that 'existence' is, and that there are some predicates with unusual characters. |
| 14553 | Weak emergence is just unexpected, and strong emergence is beyond all deduction [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We can say that a phenomenon is 'weakly emergent' when it is unexpected, and 'strongly emergent' when it is not deducible even in principle. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: [compression of Chalmers 2006:244] I don't find emergence very interesting, since weak emergence surrounds us all day long, and is the glory of the world, and strong emergence is (I believe) nonsense. |
| 14538 | Powers explain properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Properties, causes, modality, events, and perhaps even particulars, can all be explained in terms of powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I love powers, but this may be optimistic. I take the concept of causation to be 'more' primitive than powers; how else could you even say what a power is? I presume something must exist to have the power, which gives you particulars. |
| 14555 | Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: In respect of explanation the powers view does little better than the laws view. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3c) | |
| A reaction: Quite so. Powers are primitive, so they offer no elucidation of nature, but constitute the building blocks for explanations. Essences are, I think, clusters of powers, and the way in which they cluster is where we find the explanations. |
| 14557 | Powers are not just basic forces, since they combine to make new powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Powers are not necessarily reducible to forces. ...That new powers can be found when others combine is a regular part of common sense. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: [first bit p.102] Hm. I've always thought of powers as basic components of ontology. This idea implies that a herd of buffalo has a single power to flatten a tented village. An extra buffalo creates a completely new power. An awful lot of vague powers. |
| 14583 | Dispositionality is a natural selection function, picking outcomes from the range of possibilities [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Dispositionality can be understood as a sort of selection function - a natural one in this case - and picks out a limited number of outcomes from all the ones that the disposition is for. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.9) | |
| A reaction: Functions should strictly have one output. This sounds wrong. The disposition pushes its powers into the environment, but it is the surrounding contextual powers which do the selecting, in concert. No disposition does any selecting |
| 14536 | We say 'power' and 'disposition' are equivalent, but some say dispositions are manifestable [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We use the terms 'power' and 'disposition' as equivalent, but some reserve the term 'disposition' for powers that tend to be manifested. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [For the latter they cite Fara 2005] There is some point to the latter distinction, as separating those powers that relate to the actual world from those powers that could never be triggered in actuality. I would say a power produces a disposition. |
| 14584 | The simple conditional analysis of dispositions doesn't allow for possible prevention [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The most obvious inadequacy of the simple conditional account of dispositions is that it fails to accommodate the possibility of prevention. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.10) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Ryle 1949 for the original idea] The point is obviously correct, since the simple analysis assumes that the outcome occurred [∀x(Dx → (Sx → Mx)]. If the outcome was blocked (by finks or antidotes) the disposition would remain. |
| 14582 | Might dispositions be reduced to normativity, or to intentionality? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There have been attempts to reduce dispositionality to normativity (by Lowe 1989) and to intentionality (by Molnar 1998). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.8) | |
| A reaction: I don't really believe in something called 'normativity', and I think it is better to explain intentionality in terms of dispositions, rather than Molnar's way round (though intentionality of mind reveals the nature of powers rather well). |
| 227 | You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name [Plato] |
| Full Idea: You must always mean the same thing when you utter the same name. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 147d) |
| 223 | If you deny that each thing always stays the same, you destroy the possibility of discussion [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If a person denies that the idea of each thing is always the same, he will utterly destroy the power of carrying on discussion. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135c) |
| 210 | It would be absurd to think there were abstract Forms for vile things like hair, mud and dirt [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Are there abstract ideas for such things as hair, mud and dirt, which are particularly vile and worthless? That would be quite absurd. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 220 | The concept of a master includes the concept of a slave [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Mastership in the abstract is mastership of slavery in the abstract. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133e) |
| 211 | If admirable things have Forms, maybe everything else does as well [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is troubling that if admirable things have abstract ideas, then perhaps everything else must have ideas as well. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 130d) |
| 219 | If absolute ideas existed in us, they would cease to be absolute [Plato] |
| Full Idea: None of the absolute ideas exists in us, because then it would no longer be absolute. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133c) |
| 228 | Greatness and smallness must exist, to be opposed to one another, and come into being in things [Plato] |
| Full Idea: These two ideas, greatness and smallness, exist, do they not? For if they did not exist, they could not be opposites of one another, and could not come into being in things. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 149e) |
| 16151 | Plato moves from Forms to a theory of genera and principles in his later work [Plato, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: It seems to me that Plato in the later dialogues, beginning with the second half of 'Parmenides', wants to substitute a theory of genera and theory of principles that constitute these genera for the earlier theory of forms. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Title, Unity, Authenticity of the 'Categories' V | |
| A reaction: My theory is that the later Plato came under the influence of the brilliant young Aristotle, and this idea is a symptom of it. The theory of 'principles' sounds like hylomorphism to me. |
| 212 | The whole idea of each Form must be found in each thing which participates in it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole idea of each form (of beauty, justice etc) must be found in each thing which participates in it. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131a) |
| 218 | Participation is not by means of similarity, so we are looking for some other method of participation [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Participation is not by means of likeness, so we must seek some other method of participation. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 213 | Each idea is in all its participants at once, just as daytime is a unity but in many separate places at once [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Just as day is in many places at once, but not separated from itself, so each idea might be in all its participants at once. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 131b) |
| 216 | If things are made alike by participating in something, that thing will be the absolute idea [Plato] |
| Full Idea: That by participation in which like things are made like, will be the absolute idea, will it not? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132e) |
| 215 | If things partake of ideas, this implies either that everything thinks, or that everything actually is thought [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If all things partake of ideas, must either everything be made of thoughts and everything thinks, or everything is thought, and so can't think? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132c) |
| 217 | Nothing can be like an absolute idea, because a third idea intervenes to make them alike (leading to a regress) [Plato] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for anything to be like an absolute idea, because a third idea will appear to make them alike, and if that is like anything, it will lead to another idea, and so on. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 133a) |
| 214 | If absolute greatness and great things are seen as the same, another thing appears which makes them seem great [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If you regard the absolute great and the many great things in the same way, will not another appear beyond, by which all these must appear to be great? | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 132a) |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 14542 | If statue and clay fall and crush someone, the event is not overdetermined [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If both the statue and the clay fall on someone and crush them to death, we would not say that the death is overdetermined. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 2.7) | |
| A reaction: I don't need many reasons to give up the idea that the statue and the clay are two objects, but this will do nicely as one of them. |
| 14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A pandispositionalist has to defend the view that even a property such as sphericity is in reality a cluster of causal powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Is sphericity even a 'property'? I think 'feature' might be the best word for it. 'Quality' is quite good, but is too suggestive of qualia and secondary qualities. 'Mode' is not bad. Things have 'modes of existence' and 'powers'? Powers create modes. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 14561 | Perdurantism imposes no order on temporal parts, so sequences of events are contingent [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Perdurantism tends to go with the view that it is essentially contingent what follows what, because it is no part of the essence of temporal parts that they be arranged in any particular order. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 1) | |
| A reaction: Nice. There is nothing illogical, then, in elderly me intervening between childish me and middle-aged me. Essentialists like me must clearly oppose this view. Elderly me must be preceded and caused by middle-aged me. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |
| 5746 | The Identity of Indiscernibles is contentious for qualities, and trivial for non-qualities [Melia] |
| Full Idea: If the Identity of Indiscernibles is referring to qualitative properties, such as 'being red' or 'having mass', it is contentious; if it is referring to non-qualitative properties, such as 'member of set s' or 'brother of a', it is true but trivial. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3 n 11) | |
| A reaction: I would say 'false' rather than 'contentious'. No one has ever offered a way of distinguishing two electrons, but that doesn't mean there is just one (very busy) electron. The problem is that 'indiscernible' is only an epistemological concept. |
| 14579 | Dispositionality is the core modality, with possibility and necessity as its extreme cases [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We think dispositionality is the core modality from which the other two standard modal operators draw their sense as being limiting cases on a spectrum. ...This gives a very this-worldly account of possibility and necessity. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm strongly in favour of this-worldly accounts of modal truths, so I like this. They take dispositions to hover somewhere between what is barely possible and what is absolutely necessary. But is modality actually part of the physical world? |
| 14580 | Dispositions may suggest modality to us - as what might not have been, and what could have been [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Dispositionality could be what gives us the idea of there being modality in the first place: that what is might not be, and what is not could be. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: Compare Williamson's suggestion that counterfactual thinking is the source of such things, which is a similar thought. I take it to be exactly correct. |
| 5738 | We may be sure that P is necessary, but is it necessarily necessary? [Melia] |
| Full Idea: We may have fairly firm beliefs as to whether or not P is necessary, but many of us find ourselves at a complete loss when wondering whether or not P is necessarily necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: I think it is questions like this which are pushing philosophy back towards some sort of rationalism. See Idea 3651, for example. A regress of necessities would be mad, so necessity must be taken as self-evident (in itself, though maybe not to us). |
| 5732 | 'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In cases of 'de re' modality, it is a particular thing that has the property essentially or accidentally; where the modality attaches to the proposition, it is 'de dicto' - it is the whole truth that all bachelors are unmarried that is necessary. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics (as practised by analytical philosophers, who like distinctions). The first type leads off into the ontology, the second type veers towards epistemology. |
| 14552 | Relations are naturally necessary when they are generated by the essential mechanisms of the world [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The relationship between co-existing properties or successive events or states is naturally necessary when they are understood by scientists to be related in fact by generative mechanisms, whose structures constitute the essential nature of things. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: This is the view I espouse. It doesn't follow that those mechanisms have necessary existence. Given those mechanisms, they can only behave in that way, because behaving in some way is precisely what they are. |
| 14578 | Possibility might be non-contradiction, or recombinations of the actual, or truth in possible worlds [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Possibility could be just logical possibility (as involving no formal contradictions), or recombinations of all the existing elements (Armstrong), or truth in other concrete worlds (Lewis). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: All wrong, I would say. Well, avoiding contradiction is obviously a sense of 'possible'. Armstrong is wrong. It rules out new 'elements' being possible, and implies impossible combinations of the current ones. As for Lewis... |
| 5739 | Sometimes we want to specify in what ways a thing is possible [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Sometimes we want to count the ways in which something is possible, or say that there are many ways in which a certain thing is possible. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a basic fact about talk of 'possibility'. It is not an all-or-nothing property of a situation. There can be 'faint' possibilities of things. The proximity of some possible worlds, especially those sharing our natural laws, is one answer. |
| 14549 | Maybe truths are necessitated by the facts which are their truthmakers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Some truthmaker theorists are truthmaker necessitarians, believing that the way facts in the world make certain propositions true is by necessitating them. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.10) | |
| A reaction: [The cite Armstrong 2007:5-6] I don't believe in this sort of proposition (which turns out, on close inspection, to be just another way of referring to 'the facts'). Propositions are our attempts to express facts, so they can't be necessitated. |
| 5734 | Possible worlds make it possible to define necessity and counterfactuals without new primitives [Melia] |
| Full Idea: In modal logic the concepts of necessity and counterfactuals are not interdefinable, so the language needs two primitives to represent them, but with the machinery of possible worlds they are defined by what is the case in all worlds, or close worlds. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: If your motivation is to reduce ontology to the barest of minimums (which it was for David Lewis) then it is paradoxical that the existence of possible worlds may be the way to achieve it. I doubt, though, whether a commitment to their reality is needed. |
| 5742 | In possible worlds semantics the modal operators are treated as quantifiers [Melia] |
| Full Idea: The central idea in possible worlds semantics is that the modal operators are treated as quantifiers. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems an essential requirement of metaphysics that an account be given of possibility and necessity, and it is also a good dream to keep the ontology simple. Commitment to possible worlds is the bizarre outcome of this dream. |
| 5743 | If possible worlds semantics is not realist about possible worlds, logic becomes merely formal [Melia] |
| Full Idea: It has proved difficult to justify possible worlds semantics without accepting possible worlds. Without a secure metaphysical underpinning, the results in logic are in danger of having nothing more than a formal significance. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2) | |
| A reaction: This makes nicely clear why Lewis's controversial modal realism has to be taken seriously. It appears that the key problem is truth, because that is needed to define validity, but you can't have truth without some sort of metaphysics. |
| 5749 | Possible worlds could be real as mathematics, propositions, properties, or like books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: One can be a realist about possible worlds without adopting Lewis's extreme views; they might be abstract or mathematical entities; they might be sets of propositions or maximal uninstantiated properties; they might be like books or pictures. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: My intuition is that once you go down the road of realism about possible worlds, Lewis's full concrete realism looks at least as attractive as any of these options. You can discuss the 'average man' in an economic theory without realism. |
| 5751 | The truth of propositions at possible worlds are implied by the world, just as in books [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Propositions are true at possible worlds in much the same way as they are true at books: by being implied by the book. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: An intriguing way to introduce the view that possible worlds should be seen as like books. The truth-makers of propositions about the actual world are items in it, but the truth-makers in novels (say) are the conditions of the whole work as united. |
| 14585 | We have more than five senses; balance and proprioception, for example [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The myth of the fivefold division of the sense needs to be overturned. In the experience of causation the senses of balance and proprioception are more important. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 9.1) | |
| A reaction: Thinking is a sensual experience too, especially in its emotional dimension. David Hume always based his empiricism on 'experience', not on the mere five external senses. |
| 14576 | Smoking disposes towards cancer; smokers without cancer do not falsify this claim [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Smoking disposes towards cancer, and has its way in many instances. The existence of some smokers without cancer, however, does nothing to falsify this dispositional claim. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.5) | |
| A reaction: Indeed, falsification by one instance will only work against absolute and universal claims, and nature contains hardly any of those. |
| 14551 | If causation were necessary, the past would fix the future, and induction would be simple [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If there were necessity to be found in causation, then the problem of induction would seem to be dissolved. The future would indeed proceed like the past if it were for all time necessitated what caused what. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.14) | |
| A reaction: My working hypothesis is that the essences of nature necessitate their interactions, and that the problem of induction is solved in that way. We can allow causation to be a process in this action, the transmitter of necessities. Or it could drop out. |
| 14571 | The only full uniformities in nature occur from the essences of fundamental things [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There is indeed natural uniformity in the negative charge of electrons, but the reason for this is that it is an essential property of being an electron that something be negatively charged. It would not be an electron otherwise. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 14570 for the first part of this thought. This doesn't feel right. The behaviour of gravity according to the inverse square law, or General Relativity, seems to be a uniformity that extends beyond the essences of the ingredients. |
| 14570 | Nature is not completely uniform, and some regular causes sometimes fail to produce their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The uniformity of nature principle, if it means absolute regularity, is simply false; not everyone who smokes gets cancer, not all bread nourishes. Nature is not strictly uniform, even if some things tend to be the case. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.6) | |
| A reaction: Something wrong here. The examples are high-level and complex. When someone survives smoking, or bread fails to nourish, we don't infer a disruption of uniform nature, we infer some other uniformity that has intervened. Are there natural kinds? |
| 14569 | It is tempting to think that only entailment provides a full explanation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: It is tempting to think that entailment is the only adequate kind of explanation because of the idea that if A does not entail B, it must have fallen short of (fully) explaining it. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: Yes. One might dream of saying 'this, and only this, necessitates what happened', but it is doubtful whether causes necessitate effects. It is a quirky view to think that every car accident is necessitated. Nuclear explosions block most events. |
| 14568 | A structure won't give a causal explanation unless we know the powers of the structure [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Knowing the structure that something has does not in itself causally explain that thing's behaviour unless we also know what sorts of behaviour a thing of that structure can cause. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this. If you focus on the lowest possible levels of causal explanation, I can see only powers. Whatever you come up with, it had better be something active. Geometry never started any bonfires. |
| 14556 | Strong emergence seems to imply top-down causation, originating in consciousness [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A problem for strong emergence is that it opens the way for top-down causation if, for instance, our consciousness is causally productive of physical events. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3d) | |
| A reaction: This is what most fans of 'emergent' consciousness would love, presumably because it makes humans really important (nay, godlike!) in the scheme of things. It take it to be based on a hopelessly simplistic view of what is going on around here. |
| 5748 | We accept unverifiable propositions because of simplicity, utility, explanation and plausibility [Melia] |
| Full Idea: Many philosophers now concede that it is rational to accept a proposition not because we can directly verify it but because it is supported by considerations of simplicity, theoretical utility, explanatory power and/or intuitive plausibility. | |
| From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This suggests how the weakness of logical positivism may have led us to the concept of epistemic virtues (such as those listed), which are, of course, largely a matter of community consensus, just as the moral virtues are. |
| 222 | Only a great person can understand the essence of things, and an even greater person can teach it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Only a man of very great natural gifts will be able to understand that everything has a class and absolute essence, and an even more wonderful man can teach this. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 135a) |
| 225 | The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e) |
| 233 | Some things do not partake of the One [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 231 |
| 2062 | The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato] |
| Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b) |
| 231 | Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 233. |
| 14566 | Causation by absence is not real causation, but part of our explanatory practices [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation by absence should be understood in terms of our explanatory practices rather than as a case of genuine causation. There are indeed no powers at work. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: This seems right, even if from a human point of view some evil person has deliberately desisted from some life-saving action. It is just allowing other causation to happen. A tricky forensic issue, but not an ontological one. |
| 14577 | Causation may not be transitive. Does a fire cause itself to be extinguished by the sprinklers? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is not always transitive. ...The fire started the sprinkler system and the sprinkler system put the fire out; would we want to say that, by transitivity, the fire caused the fire to be extinguished? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: There wouldn't have been an extinguishing of the fire if there had been no fire. But this is a very nice example, against the Millian view that causation consists of every event prior to the effect. The fire is, though, a precondition. |
| 14563 | Causation is the passing around of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is the passing around of powers. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. This doesn't feel right. Compare 'causation is the passing around of tennis balls'. Can you explain what a power is without mentioning causation? |
| 14587 | We take causation to be primitive, as it is hard to see how it could be further reduced [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We accept primitivism about causation, for how could there be something even more basic in the world than causation, which might allow us to bring forth a reductive analysis? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], Concl) | |
| A reaction: I think I agree with this view, and for the same reason. I can't imagine how one could cite any 'categorical' or 'structural' properties, or anything else, without invoking causal phenomena in their characterisation. |
| 14533 | Causation doesn't have two distinct relata; it is a single unfolding process [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Rather than depicting causation as between two wholly distinct relata, we argue that it should be seen as a single unfolding process that occurs when a number of mutual manifestation partners meet. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], Pref) | |
| A reaction: I am in sympathy with this view, and like the notion of 'process' in metaphysics, but I worry about what a 'process' consists of. Does it have ingredients? It can last a long time, so presumably it can have parts. Mere time slices? |
| 14558 | A collision is a process, which involves simultaneous happenings, but not instantaneous ones [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: When billiard balls collide they deform, and we have a process rather than a momentary collision. Causation is a matter of simultaneity, and simultaneous does not entail instantaneous. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: This is why they reject the idea that causal relata are abutting events meeting at timeless joints. I think they have got this bit right. It's amazing what a muddle philosophers have got into in just describing what happens in front of their eyes. |
| 14559 | Does causation need a third tying ingredient, or just two that meet, or might there be a single process? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If causation connects two events, do we need some invisible third element to tie them together? Might there be just two elements so close together that they come as a package deal? Or a single event or process in which one thing turns into another? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Hence you find yourself drawn to 'process' philosophy, but preferably without the mystical crust laid over it by A.N. Whitehead. If we could individuate processes, we could dump all sorts of other stuff from our ontology. |
| 14565 | Sugar dissolving is a process taking time, not one event and then another [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: It would be counterintuitive to say that we have the cause only when the sugar cube first comes into contact with the water, and the effect only once the whole sugar cube has dissolved. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.6) | |
| A reaction: The way we end up thinking about causation is largely dictated by the language we use to describe it. The whole point of philosophy is to scrape away the language and see what is really going on. |
| 14567 | Privileging one cause is just an epistemic or pragmatic matter, not an ontological one [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: To speak of 'the' causal explanation privileges some causal powers, but it is implausible that this has a special metaphysical status. Instead, that status should be understood in epistemic or pragmatic terms. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: I suppose so, but I see a distinction between actions of powers which only explain that one event (striking the match), and actions of powers which explain a whole family of surrounding events (presence of oxygen). |
| 14537 | Coincidence is conjunction without causation; smoking causing cancer is the reverse [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There can be constant conjunction without causation (coincidences) and causation without constant conjunction (smoking causes cancer). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be presented as a knock-down argument, but I think Humeans can reply to both of them. If you look at the wider pattern of coincidence, or the deeper pattern of coincidence, both of these counterexamples seem to fail. |
| 14573 | Occasionally a cause makes no difference (pre-emption, perhaps) so the counterfactual is false [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causes can - perhaps they usually do - make a difference but not always. In cases where they don't (such as overdetermination, or late pre-emption), the corresponding counterfactual will be false. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: The whole idea that we might be able to give a full account of causation in terms of some sort of logical relationship between possible worlds etc. appals me. We need to label something as 'Scientific Logicism', so that we can attack it. |
| 14572 | Is a cause because of counterfactual dependence, or is the dependence because there is a cause? [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: There is an obvious Euthyphro question to be asked: is it true that c caused e because e counterfactually depended on c; or did e counterfactually depend on c precisely because c caused e? | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: The idea that causes could depend on a logical relationship of counterfactual dependence strikes me as so bizarre that only a philosopher could think of it. |
| 14574 | Cases of preventing a prevention may give counterfactual dependence without causation [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We could argue that there can be counterfactual dependence between events without causation, namely, cases of double prevention (an event preventing what would have prevented the second). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: Since the whole idea of causation as counterfactual dependence strikes me as utterly counterintuitive, I don't really need these arguments, but it is nice to know that they can be found. Lewis devoted reams of discussion to such problems. |
| 14539 | Nature can be interfered with, so a cause never necessitates its effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: A natural process can be interfered with, and thus a cause never necessitates its effects. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: There is the simple point that the world could cease to exist at the instant between cause and effect. But Mumford and Anjum say these two coexist. Finks and antidotes are not conclusive here. Depends what you mean by 'cause' and 'effect'. |
| 14550 | We assert causes without asserting that they necessitate their effects [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: We can assert the general claim that smoking causes cancer without endorsing the claim that smoking necessitates cancer. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the simplest demolition of the idea that effects necessarily follow causes. Necessitarians might wriggle out of it by focusing on the word 'causes' more closely here. Maybe this example isn't a 'strict' usage. |
| 14546 | Necessary causation should survive antecedent strengthening, but no cause can always survive that [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: If causation involves any kind of necessity, it should survive the test of antecedent strengthening. ...It is plausible that for any type of causal process, that some new cause can be added which typically results in the effect no longer being caused. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.5) | |
| A reaction: [Idea expanded p.57] This is their key argument against the idea that causation involves necessity. In simple terms, show me a cause which necessarily leads to some result, and I will show you how you could prevent that result. Sounds good. |
| 14575 | A 'ceteris paribus' clause implies that a conditional only has dispositional force [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: The most persuasive view of a 'ceteris paribus' clause is that the best non-trivially true account that we can give of their meaning is that they indicate that the conditional has dispositional force only. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 6.8) | |
| A reaction: [They cite Lipton 1999] As a general fan of dispositions (as are Mumford and Lill Anjum), this sounds right. If you then add that virtually every event in nature needs a ceteris paribus clause (see N. Cartwright), the whole thing becomes dispositional. |
| 14548 | There may be necessitation in the world, but causation does not supply it [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Causation is consistent with there being necessitation in the world, but we claim that causation does not itself provide that necessitation. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 3.8) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. One might distinguish between causation being necessary, and causation supplying the necessity. The obvious alternative is that essences supply the necessity. |
| 14554 | Laws are nothing more than descriptions of the behaviour of powers [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: What we take to be laws are just descriptions of how the powers behave and affect each other. | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 4.3c) | |
| A reaction: This is precisely my view, which I first gleaned in its boldest from from Mumford 2004. I idea that ontology does not contain any 'laws of nature' I find wonderfully liberating. Weak emergence is just epistemic. |
| 14564 | If laws are equations, cause and effect must be simultaneous (or the law would be falsified)! [Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Physical laws are typically understood as equations, ...but then factors must vary simultaneously, since if one factor varied before the others, there would be a time when the two sides of the equation didn't equate (so Newton's 2nd Law would be false). | |
| From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Presumably this thought seems to require action-at-a-distance, which no one could understand. Science oversimplifes the world. See Nancy Cartwright. |
| 234 | We couldn't discuss the non-existence of the One without knowledge of it [Plato] |
| Full Idea: There must be knowledge of the one, or else not even the meaning of the words 'if the one does not exist' would be known. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 160d) |