102 ideas
23890 | For Plato true wisdom is supernatural [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: It is evident that Plato regards true wisdom as something supernatural. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.61 | |
A reaction: Taken literally, I assume this is wrong, but we can empathise with the thought. Wisdom has the feeling of rising above the level of mere knowledge, to achieve the overview I associate with philosophy. |
3060 | Plato never mentions Democritus, and wished to burn his books [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Plato, who mentions nearly all the ancient philosophers, nowhere speaks of Democritus; he wished to burn all of his books, but was persuaded that it was futile. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.7.8 |
23891 | Two contradictories force us to find a relation which will correlate them [Plato, by Weil] |
Full Idea: Where contradictions appear there is a correlation of contraries, which is relation. If a contradiction is imposed on the intelligence, it is forced to think of a relation to transform the contradiction into a correlation, which draws the soul higher. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Simone Weil - God in Plato p.70 | |
A reaction: A much better account of the dialectic than anything I have yet seen in Hegel. For the first time I see some sense in it. A contradiction is not a falsehood, and it must be addressed rather than side-stepped. A kink in the system, that needs ironing. |
9542 | The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell, with four axioms and two rules [Russell/Whitehead, by Hughes/Cresswell] |
Full Idea: The best known axiomatization of PL is Whitehead/Russell. There are four axioms: (p∨p)→p, q→(p∨q), (p→q)→(q∨p), and (q→r)→((p∨q)→(p∨r)), plus Substitution and Modus Ponens rules. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by GE Hughes/M Cresswell - An Introduction to Modal Logic Ch.1 |
21720 | Russell saw Reducibility as legitimate for reducing classes to logic [Linsky,B on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: The axiom of Reducibility ...is crucial in the reduction of classes to logic, ...and seems to be a quite legitimate logical notion for Russell. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 6.4 | |
A reaction: This is an unusual defence of the axiom, which is usually presumed to have been kicked into the long grass by Quine. If one could reduce classes to logic, that would destroy the opposition to logicism in a single neat coup. |
10044 | Russell denies extensional sets, because the null can't be a collection, and the singleton is just its element [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
Full Idea: Russell adduces two reasons against the extensional view of classes, namely the existence of the null class (which cannot very well be a collection), and the unit classes (which would have to be identical with their single elements). | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Structure and Ontology p.459 | |
A reaction: Gödel believes in the reality of classes. I have great sympathy with Russell, when people start to claim that sets are not just conveniences to help us think about things, but actual abstract entities. Is the singleton of my pencil is on this table? |
18208 | We regard classes as mere symbolic or linguistic conveniences [Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: Classes, so far as we introduce them, are merely symbolic or linguistic conveniences, not genuine objects. | |
From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.72), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics III.2 |
8204 | Lewis's 'strict implication' preserved Russell's confusion of 'if...then' with implication [Quine on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: Russell call 'if...then' implication, when the material conditional is a much better account; C.I.Lewis (in founding modern modal logic) preserved Russell's confusion by creating 'strict implication', and called that implication. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Willard Quine - Reply to Professor Marcus p.177 | |
A reaction: [A compession of Quine's paragraph]. All of this assumes that logicians can give an accurate account of what if...then means, when ordinary usage is broad and vague. Strict implication seems to drain all the normal meaning out of 'if...then'. |
9359 | Russell's implication means that random sentences imply one another [Lewis,CI on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: In Mr Russell's idea of implication, if twenty random sentences from a newspaper were put in a hat, and two of them drawn at random, one will certainly imply the other, and it is an even bet the implication will be mutual. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by C.I. Lewis - A Pragmatic Conception of the A Priori p.366 | |
A reaction: This sort of lament leads modern logicians to suggest 'relevance' as an important criterion. It certainly seems odd that so-called 'classical logic' should contain a principle so at variance with everyday reasoning. |
21707 | Russell unusually saw logic as 'interpreted' (though very general, and neutral) [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B] |
Full Idea: Russell did not view logic as an uninterpreted calculus awaiting interpretations [the modern view]. Rather, logic is a single 'interpreted' body of a priori truths, of propositions rather than sentence forms - but maximally general and topic neutral. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1 | |
A reaction: This is the view which Wittgenstein challenged, saying logic is just conventional. Linsky claims that Russell's logicism is much more plausible, once you understand his view of logic. |
10036 | In 'Principia' a new abstract theory of relations appeared, and was applied [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel] |
Full Idea: In 'Principia' a young science was enriched with a new abstract theory of relations, ..and not only Cantor's set theory but also ordinary arithmetic and the theory of measurement are treated from this abstract relational standpoint. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448 | |
A reaction: I presume this is accounting for relations in terms of ordered sets. |
18248 | A real number is the class of rationals less than the number [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
Full Idea: For Russell the real number 2 is the class of rationals less than 2 (i.e. 2/1). ...Notice that on this definition, real numbers are classes of rational numbers. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2 |
18152 | Russell takes numbers to be classes, but then reduces the classes to numerical quantifiers [Russell/Whitehead, by Bostock] |
Full Idea: Although Russell takes numbers to be certain classes, his 'no-class' theory then eliminates all mention of classes in favour of the 'propositional functions' that define them; and in the case of the numbers these just are the numerical quantifiers. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by David Bostock - Philosophy of Mathematics 9.B.4 |
10037 | 'Principia' lacks a precise statement of the syntax [Gödel on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: What is missing, above all, in 'Principia', is a precise statement of the syntax of the formalism. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.448 |
10025 | Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Hodes] |
Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead took arithmetic to be higher-order logic, ..and came close to identifying numbers with numerical quantifiers. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Harold Hodes - Logicism and Ontological Commits. of Arithmetic p.148 | |
A reaction: The point here is 'higher-order'. |
8683 | Russell and Whitehead were not realists, but embraced nearly all of maths in logic [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Unlike Frege, Russell and Whitehead were not realists about mathematical objects, and whereas Frege thought that only arithmetic and analysis are branches of logic, they think the vast majority of mathematics (including geometry) is essentially logical. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michčle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1 | |
A reaction: If, in essence, Descartes reduced geometry to algebra (by inventing co-ordinates), then geometry ought to be included. It is characteristic of Russell's hubris to want to embrace everything. |
10093 | The ramified theory of types used propositional functions, and covered bound variables [Russell/Whitehead, by George/Velleman] |
Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead's ramified theory of types worked not with sets, but with propositional functions (similar to Frege's concepts), with a more restrictive assignment of variables, insisting that bound, as well as free, variables be of lower type. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by A.George / D.J.Velleman - Philosophies of Mathematics Ch.3 | |
A reaction: I don't fully understand this (and no one seems much interested any more), but I think variables are a key notion, and there is something interesting going on here. I am intrigued by ordinary language which behaves like variables. |
8691 | The Russell/Whitehead type theory was limited, and was not really logic [Friend on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: The Russell/Whitehead type theory reduces mathematics to a consistent founding discipline, but is criticised for not really being logic. They could not prove the existence of infinite sets, and introduced a non-logical 'axiom of reducibility'. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michčle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.6 | |
A reaction: To have reduced most of mathematics to a founding discipline sounds like quite an achievement, and its failure to be based in pure logic doesn't sound too bad. However, it seems to reduce some maths to just other maths. |
10305 | In 'Principia Mathematica', logic is exceeded in the axioms of infinity and reducibility, and in the domains [Bernays on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: In the system of 'Principia Mathematica', it is not only the axioms of infinity and reducibility which go beyond pure logic, but also the initial conception of a universal domain of individuals and of a domain of predicates. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.267) by Paul Bernays - On Platonism in Mathematics p.267 | |
A reaction: This sort of criticism seems to be the real collapse of the logicist programme, rather than Russell's paradox, or Gödel's Incompleteness Theorems. It just became impossible to stick strictly to logic in the reduction of arithmetic. |
8684 | Russell and Whitehead consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality [Russell/Whitehead, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Russell and Whitehead are particularly careful to avoid paradox, and consider the paradoxes to indicate that we create mathematical reality. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Michčle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 3.1 | |
A reaction: This strikes me as quite a good argument. It is certainly counterintuitive that reality, and abstractions from reality, would contain contradictions. The realist view would be that we have paradoxes because we have misdescribed the facts. |
8746 | To avoid vicious circularity Russell produced ramified type theory, but Ramsey simplified it [Russell/Whitehead, by Shapiro] |
Full Idea: Russell insisted on the vicious circle principle, and thus rejected impredicative definitions, which resulted in an unwieldy ramified type theory, with the ad hoc axiom of reducibility. Ramsey's simpler theory was impredicative and avoided the axiom. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Stewart Shapiro - Thinking About Mathematics 5.2 | |
A reaction: Nowadays the theory of types seems to have been given up, possibly because it has no real attraction if it lacks the strict character which Russell aspired to. |
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. |
14502 | Plato's idea of 'structure' tends to be mathematically expressed [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: 'Structure' tends to be characterized by Plato as something that is mathematically expressed. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects V.3 iv | |
A reaction: [Koslicki is drawing on Verity Harte here] |
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). |
17948 | Plato's Forms meant that the sophists only taught the appearance of wisdom and virtue [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato's theory of Forms allowed him to claim that the sophists and other opponents were trapped in the world of appearance. What they therefore taught was only apparent wisdom and virtue. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.118 |
20906 | Platonists argue for the indivisible triangle-in-itself [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: The Platonists, on the basis of purely logical arguments, posit the existence of an indivisible 'triangle in itself'. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a15 | |
A reaction: A helpful confirmation that geometrical figures really are among the Forms (bearing in mind that numbers are not, because they contain one another). What shape is the Form of the triangle? |
3039 | When Diogenes said he could only see objects but not their forms, Plato said it was because he had eyes but no intellect [Plato, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: When Diogenes told Plato he saw tables and cups, but not 'tableness' and 'cupness', Plato replied that this was because Diogenes had eyes but no intellect. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 06.2.6 |
556 | If there is one Form for both the Form and its participants, they must have something in common [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: If there is the same Form for the Forms and for their participants, then they must have something in common. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
563 | If gods are like men, they are just eternal men; similarly, Forms must differ from particulars [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: We say there is the form of man, horse and health, but nothing else, making the same mistake as those who say that there are gods but that they are in the form of men. They just posit eternal men, and here we are not positing forms but eternal sensibles. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 997b |
565 | The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: The Forms could not be changeless if they were in changing things. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 998a |
557 | A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato] |
Full Idea: A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 991a |
9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
593 | Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b |
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. |
13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
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. |
12033 | An object is identical with itself, and no different indiscernible object can share that [Russell/Whitehead, by Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Trivially, the Identity of Indiscernibles says that two individuals, Castor and Pollux, cannot have all properties in common. For Castor must have the properties of being identical with Castor and not being identical with Pollux, which Pollux can't share. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], I p.57) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 2 | |
A reaction: I suspect that either the property of being identical with itself is quite vacuous, or it is parasytic on primitive identity, or it is the criterion which is actually used to define identity. Either way, I don't find this claim very illuminating. |
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. |
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... |
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. |
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. |
10040 | Russell showed, through the paradoxes, that our basic logical intuitions are self-contradictory [Russell/Whitehead, by Gödel] |
Full Idea: By analyzing the paradoxes to which Cantor's set theory had led, ..Russell brought to light the amazing fact that our logical intuitions (concerning such notions as truth, concept, being, class) are self-contradictory. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Kurt Gödel - Russell's Mathematical Logic p.452 | |
A reaction: The main intuition that failed was, I take it, that every concept has an extension, that is, there are always objects which will or could fall under the concept. |
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? |
17085 | A good explanation totally rules out the opposite explanation (so Forms are required) [Plato, by Ruben] |
Full Idea: For Plato, an acceptable explanation is one such that there is no possibility of there being the opposite explanation at all, and he thought that only explanations in terms of the Forms, but never physical explanations, could meet this requirement. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by David-Hillel Ruben - Explaining Explanation Ch 2 | |
A reaction: [Republic 436c is cited] |
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. |
1651 | Plato wanted to somehow control and purify the passions [Vlastos on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato put high on his agenda a project which did not figure in Socrates' programme at all: the hygienic conditioning of the passions. This cannot be an intellectual process, as argument cannot touch them. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - Socrates: Ironist and Moral Philosopher p.88 | |
A reaction: This is the standard traditional view of any thinker who exaggerates the importance and potential of reason in our lives. |
21725 | The multiple relations theory says assertions about propositions are about their ingredients [Russell/Whitehead, by Linsky,B] |
Full Idea: The multiple relations theory of judgement proposes that assertions about propositions are dependent upon genuine facts involving belief and other attitude relations, subjects of those attitudes, and the constituents of the belief. | |
From: report of B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 7.2 | |
A reaction: This seems to require a commitment to universals (especially relations) with which we can be directly acquainted. I prefer propositions, but as mental entities, not platonic entities. |
23474 | A judgement is a complex entity, of mind and various objects [Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: When a judgement occurs, there is a certain complex entity, composed of the mind and the various objects of the judgement. | |
From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44) | |
A reaction: This is Russell's multiple-relation theory of judgement, which replaced his earlier belief in unified propositions (now 'false abstractions'). He seems to have accepted Locke's view, that the act of judgement produces the unity. |
23455 | The meaning of 'Socrates is human' is completed by a judgement [Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging. | |
From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus | |
A reaction: Morris says this is Russell's multiple-relations theory of judgement. The theory accompanies the rejection of the concept of the unified proposition. When I hear 'Socrates had a mole on his shoulder' I get the meaning without judging. |
23480 | The multiple relation theory of judgement couldn't explain the unity of sentences [Morris,M on Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: When Russell moved to his multiple relation theory of judgement …he then faced difficulties making sense of the unity of sentences. | |
From: comment on B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44) by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 3A | |
A reaction: Roughly, he seems committed to saying that there is only unity if you think there is unity; there is no unity in a sentence prior to the act of judgement. |
18275 | Only the act of judging completes the meaning of a statement [Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: When I judge 'Socrates is human', the meaning is completed by the act of judging, and we no longer have an incomplete symbol. | |
From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap | |
A reaction: Personally I would have thought that you needed to know the meaning properly before you could make the judgement, but then he is Bertrand Russell and I'm not. |
23453 | Propositions as objects of judgement don't exist, because we judge several objects, not one [Russell/Whitehead] |
Full Idea: A 'proposition', in the sense in which a proposition is supposed to be the object of a judgement, is a false abstraction, because a judgement has several objects, not one. | |
From: B Russell/AN Whitehead (Principia Mathematica [1913], p.44), quoted by Michael Morris - Guidebook to Wittgenstein's Tractatus 2E | |
A reaction: This is the rejection of the 'Russellian' theory of propositions, in favour of his multiple-relations theory of judgement. But why don't the related objects add up to a proposition about a state of affairs? |
3324 | Plato's whole philosophy may be based on being duped by reification - a figure of speech [Benardete,JA on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is liable to the charge of having been duped by a figure of speech, albeit the most profound of all, the trope of reification. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.12 | |
A reaction: That might be a plausible account if his view was ridiculous, but given how many powerful friends Plato has, especially in the philosophy of mathematics, we should assume he was cleverer than that. |
7503 | Plato never refers to examining the conscience [Plato, by Foucault] |
Full Idea: Plato never speaks of the examination of conscience - never! | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Michel Foucault - On the Genealogy of Ethics p.276 | |
A reaction: Plato does imply some sort of self-evident direct knowledge about that nature of a healthy soul. Presumably the full-blown concept of conscience is something given from outside, from God. In 'Euthyphro', Plato asserts the primacy of morality (Idea 337). |
2173 | As religion and convention collapsed, Plato sought morals not just in knowledge, but in the soul [Williams,B on Plato] |
Full Idea: Once gods and fate and social expectation were no longer there, Plato felt it necessary to discover ethics inside human nature, not just as ethical knowledge (Socrates' view), but in the structure of the soul. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Bernard Williams - Shame and Necessity II - p.43 | |
A reaction: anti Charles Taylor |
9274 | Plato's legacy to European thought was the Good, the Beautiful and the True [Plato, by Gray] |
Full Idea: Plato's legacy to European thought was a trio of capital letters - the Good, the Beautiful and the True. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by John Gray - Straw Dogs 2.8 | |
A reaction: It seems to have been Baumgarten who turned this into a slogan (Idea 8117). Gray says these ideals are lethal, but I identify with them very strongly, and am quite happy to see the good life as an attempt to find the right balance between them. |
94 | Pleasure is better with the addition of intelligence, so pleasure is not the good [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Plato says the life of pleasure is more desirable with the addition of intelligence, and if the combination is better, pleasure is not the good. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Nicomachean Ethics 1172b27 | |
A reaction: It is obvious why we like pleasure, but not why intelligence makes it 'better'. Maybe it is just because we enjoy intelligence? |
17947 | Plato decided that the virtuous and happy life was the philosophical life [Plato, by Nehamas] |
Full Idea: Plato came to the conclusion that virtue and happiness consist in the life of philosophy itself. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Alexander Nehamas - Eristic,Antilogic,Sophistic,Dialectic p.117 | |
A reaction: This view is obviously ridiculous, because it largely excludes almost the entire human race, which sees philosophy as a cul-de-sac, even if it is good. But virtue and happiness need some serious thought. |
6015 | Plato, unusually, said that theoretical and practical wisdom are inseparable [Plato, by Kraut] |
Full Idea: Two virtues that are ordinarily kept distinct - theoretical and practical wisdom - are joined by Plato; he thinks that neither one can be fully possessed unless it is combined with the other. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Richard Kraut - Plato | |
A reaction: I get the impression that this doctrine comes from Socrates, whose position is widely reported as 'intellectualist'. Aristotle certainly held the opposite view. |
2912 | Plato is boring [Nietzsche on Plato] |
Full Idea: Plato is boring. | |
From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Friedrich Nietzsche - Twilight of the Idols 9.2 |
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. |
1526 | Almost everyone except Plato thinks that time could not have been generated [Plato, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: With a single exception (Plato) everyone agrees about time - that it is not generated. Democritus says time is an obvious example of something not generated. | |
From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 251b14 |