35 ideas
192 | Only one thing can be contrary to something [Plato] |
Full Idea: To everything that admits of a contrary there is one contrary and no more. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 332c) | |
A reaction: The sort of thing for which a modern philosopher would demand a proof (and then reject when the proof couldn't be found), where a Greek is happy to assert it as self-evident. I can't think of a counterexample. |
17377 | All descriptive language is classificatory [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Classification pervades any descriptive use of language whatever. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: This is because, as Aristotle well knew, language consists almost entirely of universals (apart from the proper names). Language just is classification. |
17376 | We should aim for a classification which tells us as much as possible about the object [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The most important desideratum of a classificatory scheme is that assigning an object to a particular classification tell us as much as possible about that object. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Ch 1) | |
A reaction: We should probably say that the aim is a successful explanation, rather than a heap of information. If we are totally baffled by a particular type of object, it is presumably important to group the instances together, to focus the bafflement. |
190 | If asked whether justice itself is just or unjust, you would have to say that it is just [Plato] |
Full Idea: If someone asked me 'Is justice itself just or unjust?' I should answer that it was just, wouldn't you? I agree. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 330c) |
17390 | Natural kinds don't need essentialism to be explanatory [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The importance of natural kinds for explanation does not depend on a doctrine of essences. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 3) | |
A reaction: He suggest as the alternative that laws do the explaining, employing natural kinds. He allows that individual essences might be explanatory. |
17388 | It seems that species lack essential properties, so they can't be natural kinds [Dupré] |
Full Idea: It is widely agreed among biologists that no essential property can be found to demarcate species, so that if an essential property is necessary for a natural kind, species are not natural kinds. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: This uses 'essential' to mean 'necessary', but I would use 'essential' to mean 'deeply explanatory'. Biological species are, nevertheless, dubious members of an ontological system. Vegetables are the problem. |
17389 | A species might have its essential genetic mechanism replaced by a new one [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Contradicting one of the main points of essentialism, there is no reason in principle why a species should not survive the demise of its current genetic mechanisms (some other species coherence gradually taking over). | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: I would say that this meant that the species had a new essence, because I don't take what is essential to be the same as what is necessary. The new genetics would replace the old as the basic explanation of the species. |
20184 | The only real evil is loss of knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: The only real kind of faring ill is the loss of knowledge. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 345b) | |
A reaction: This must crucially involve the intellectualist view (of Socrates) that virtuos behaviour results from knowledge, and moral wickedness is the result of ignorance. It is hard to see how forgetting a phone number is evil. |
20185 | The most important things in life are wisdom and knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: It would be shameful indeed to say that wisdom and knowledge are anything but the most powerful forces in human activity. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 352d) | |
A reaction: He lumps wisdom and knowledge together, and I think we can take 'knowledge' to mean something like understanding, because obviously mere atomistic propositional knowledge can be utterly trivial. |
19558 | Our own intuitions about whether we know tend to vacillate [Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: One robust feature of our intuitions about whether we know things is that they tend to vacillate. | |
From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended (and reply) [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as important. If we were tacit invariantists (Idea 19557) we should be able to ask ourselves whether we 'really and truly' know various things, but we can't decide. I know lots about Nietzsche in a pub, and very little in a university. |
19561 | We shouldn't jump too quickly to a contextualist account of claims to know [Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: Maybe contextualists are too quick to appeal to our conflicting intuitions regarding knowledge. | |
From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended (and reply) [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: An important point (from Earl Conee). I thoroughly approve of contextualism, but the whole status of whether a witness or a teacher knows what they are talking about is in danger of collapsing into relativism. This is what peer review is all about. |
19563 | The context sensitivity of knowledge derives from its justification [Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: On my own view, the context sensivity of knowledge is inherited from one of its components, i.e. justification. | |
From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended (and reply) [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: That sounds right, and it reinforces the idea that 'justification' is a more important epistemological concept than 'knowledge'. 'Am I justified in believing p?' Answer: 'it depends how well you have researched it'. |
19560 | Contextualism is good because it allows knowledge, but bad because 'knowing' is less valued [Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: Contextualism is a 'good news, bad news' theory. The good news is that we have lots of knowledge and many surfaces are 'flat'; the bad news is that knowledge and flatness are not all they were cracked up to be. | |
From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended (and reply) [2005], 3) | |
A reaction: That is exactly my position. I lost all interest in whether someone precisely 'knows' or 'does not know' something a long time ago (even in scientific or forensic contexts). In the case of flatness the case is even more obvious. |
19559 | Contextualists slightly concede scepticism, but only in extremely strict contexts [Cohen,S] |
Full Idea: Contextualism concedes that there is some truth to skepticism, but contains the damage by holding that skeptical claims are true only relative to atypically strict contexts. | |
From: Stewart Cohen (Contextualism Defended (and reply) [2005], 1) | |
A reaction: My attitude to scepticism is that everything we ever affirm should have a footnote saying '...but you never know...', and it should then be ignored. In the strictest context everything is doubted simultaneously (including language), and that is paralysis. |
17374 | The possibility of prediction rests on determinism [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Determinism is the metaphysical underlay of the possibility of prediction. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro) | |
A reaction: Not convinced. There might be micro-indeterminacies which iron out into macro-regularities. |
191 | Everything resembles everything else up to a point [Plato] |
Full Idea: Everything resembles everything else up to a point. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 331d) |
17378 | Presumably molecular structure seems important because we never have the Twin Earth experience [Dupré] |
Full Idea: It is surely the absence of experiences like the one Putnam describes that makes it reasonable to attach to molecular structure at least most of the importance that Putnam ascribes to it. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: That is, whenever we experience water-like stuff, it always turns out to have the same molecular structure. Twin Earth is a nice thought experiment, except that XZY is virtually inconceivable. |
203 | Courage is knowing what should or shouldn't be feared [Plato] |
Full Idea: Knowledge of what is and is not to be feared is courage. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 360d) |
202 | No one willingly and knowingly embraces evil [Plato] |
Full Idea: No one willingly goes to meet evil, or what he thinks is evil. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 358d) | |
A reaction: Presumably people who actively choose satanism can override this deep-seated attitude. But their adherence to evil usually seems to be rather restrained. A danger of tautology with ideas like this. |
193 | Some things are good even though they are not beneficial to men [Plato] |
Full Idea: 'Do you mean by good those things that are beneficial to men?' 'Not only those. I call some things which are not beneficial good as well'. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 333e) | |
A reaction: Examples needed, but this would be bad news for utilitarians. Good health is not seen as beneficial if it is taken for granted. Not being deaf. |
197 | Some pleasures are not good, and some pains are not evil [Plato] |
Full Idea: There are some pleasures which are not good, and some pains which are not evil. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 351d) | |
A reaction: Sadism and child birth. Though Bentham (I think) says that there is nothing good about the pain, since the event would obviously be better without it. |
200 | People tend only to disapprove of pleasure if it leads to pain, or prevents future pleasure [Plato] |
Full Idea: The only reason the common man disapproves of pleasures is if they lead to pain and deprive us of future pleasures. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 354a) | |
A reaction: Plato has a strong sense that some pleasures are just innately depraved and wicked. If those pleasure don't hurt anyone, it is very hard to pinpoint what is wrong with them. |
189 | If we punish wrong-doers, it shows that we believe virtue can be taught [Plato] |
Full Idea: Athenians inflict punishment on wrong-doers, which shows that they too think it possible to impart and teach goodness. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 324c) |
188 | Socrates did not believe that virtue could be taught [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates: I do not believe that virtue can be taught. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 320b) |
204 | Socrates is contradicting himself in claiming virtue can't be taught, but that it is knowledge [Plato] |
Full Idea: Socrates is contradicting himself by saying virtue is not teachable, and yet trying to demonstrate that every virtue is knowledge. | |
From: Plato (Protagoras [c.380 BCE], 361b) |
17385 | Kinds don't do anything (including evolve) because they are abstract [Dupré] |
Full Idea: A kind, being an abstract object, cannot do anything, including evolve. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: Maybe. We might have an extensional view of the kind, so that 'gold' is the set of extant gold atoms. But possible gold atoms are also gold, and defunct ones too. Virtually every word in English is abtract if you think about it long enough. |
17381 | Phylogenetics involves history, and cladism rests species on splits in lineage [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The phylogenetic conception of classification reflects the facts of evolutionary history. Cladism insists that every taxonomic distinction should reflect an evolutionary event of lineage bifurcation. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: Devitt attacks cladism nicely. It rules out species change without bifurcation, and it insists on species change even in a line which remains unchanged after a split. |
17375 | Natural kinds are decided entirely by the intentions of our classification [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The question of which natural kind a thing belongs to ....can be answered only in relation to some specification of the goal underlying the intent to classify the object. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], Intro) | |
A reaction: I don't think I believe this. The situation is complex, and our intents are relevant, but to find an intent which no longer classifies tigers into the same category is wilful silliness. |
17379 | Borders between species are much less clear in vegetables than among animals [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The richest source of illustrations is the vegetable kingdom, where specific differences tend to be much less clear than among animals, and considerable developmental plasticity is the rule. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: Nice. Just as the idea that laws of nature are mathematical suits physics, but founders on biology, so natural kinds founder in an area of biology to which we pay less attention. He cites prickly pears and lilies. I'm thinking oranges, satsumas etc. |
17382 | Cooks, unlike scientists, distinguish garlic from onions [Dupré] |
Full Idea: It would be a severe culinary misfortune if no distinction were drawn between garlic and onions, a distinction that is not reflected in scientific taxonomy. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: Not every persuasive. We distinguish some cows from others because they taste better, but no one thinks that is a serious way in which to classify cows. |
17384 | Even atoms of an element differ, in the energy levels of their electrons [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Even if we claim that it is really isotopes not atoms that are the natural kinds (thus divorcing chemistry from ordinary language), atoms are said to differ with respect to such features as energy levels of the electrons. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: So we can't just pick out the features of one atom, and say that is the essence. Essence always involves some selection. I say the essence arises from the explanation of the atom's behaviour. |
17387 | Ecologists favour classifying by niche, even though that can clash with genealogy [Dupré] |
Full Idea: To the extent that the occupants of a particular niche do not coincide with the members of a particular genealogical line, a possibility widely acknowledged to occur, ecologists must favour a method of classification lacking genealogical grounding. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: Zoo keepers probably classify by cages, or which zoo owns what, but that doesn't mean that they reject genealogy. Don't assume ecologists are rejecting any underlying classification that differs from theirs. Compare classification by economists. |
17380 | Wales may count as fish [Dupré] |
Full Idea: The claim that whales are not fish is a debatable one | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 1) | |
A reaction: A very nice challenge to an almost unquestioned orthodoxy. |
17386 | The theory of evolution is mainly about species [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Species are what the theory of evolution is centrally about. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) |
17383 | Species are the lowest-level classification in biology [Dupré] |
Full Idea: Species are, by definition, the lowest-level classificatory unit, or basal taxonomic unit, for biological organisms. | |
From: John Dupré (The Disorder of Things [1993], 2) | |
A reaction: I think this is the 'infima species' for Aristotelians. What about 'male' and 'female' in each species? |