19 ideas
| 13931 | By using aporiai as his start, Aristotle can defer to the wise, as well as to the many [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: The Aristotelian method of working form aporia allows one to use as starting points not only what is said by 'the many', but also what is said by 'the wise', including philosophers. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 1 n2) | |
| A reaction: [She mentions Nussbaum 1986:ch 7 for the opposing view] I like this thought a lot. Aristotle's democratic respect for widespread views can be a bit puzzling sometimes. |
| 13925 | Ontology disputes rest on more basic explanation disputes [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: Disputes over ontology derive from more fundamental disputes over forms of explanation. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 1) | |
| A reaction: It immediately strikes me that Haslanger has stolen my master idea, but unfortunately the dating suggests that she has priority. The tricky part is to combine this view with realism. |
| 13930 | Persistence makes change and its products intelligible [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: Persistence offers intelligibility: the possibility of understanding a change, and of understanding the products of it. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 8) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly right, and it is a powerful idea with wide implications for metaphysics. Haslanger claims that an understanding of 'substance' is needed, which leads towards my defence of essentialism. |
| 13924 | The persistence of objects seems to be needed if the past is to explain the present [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: The notion that things persist through change is deeply embedded in ideas we have about explanation, and in particular, in the idea that the present is constrained by the past. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 1) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be both an important and an attractive idea. Deniers of persistence (4D-ists) will presumably have some ability to explain the present, but it is the idea of the present being 'constrained' by the past which is a challenge. |
| 13927 | We must explain change amongst 'momentary entities', or else the world is inexplicable [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: If the world of time-slices is to be explicable, then it must be possible to provide explanations of change understood as a continual generation and destruction of these 'momentary entities'. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 7) | |
| A reaction: While fans of time-slices can offer some sort of explanation, in the process of explaining a 'worm', there don't seem to be the sort of causal chains that we traditionally rely on. Maybe there are no explanations of anything? |
| 13928 | If the things which exist prior to now are totally distinct, they need not have existed [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: How is the case in which A exists prior to B, but is distinct from B, different (especially from B's point of view) from the case in which nothing exists prior to B? | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 7) | |
| A reaction: I sympathise with her view, but this isn't persuasive. For A substitute 'Sally's mother' and for B substitute 'Sally'. A 4D-ist could bite the bullet and say that, indeed, previous parts of my 'worm' need not have existed. |
| 13929 | Natural explanations give the causal interconnections [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: Natural explanations work by showing the systematic causal interconnections between things. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 7) | |
| A reaction: On the whole I love this sort of idea, but I am wondering if this one prevents mathematical or logical explanations from being natural. |
| 13926 | Best explanations, especially natural ones, need grounding, notably by persistent objects [Haslanger] |
| Full Idea: I am not resting my ontology on a simple 'argument to the best explanation'. ..What I want to say is that there are general demands on a kind of explanation, in particular, natural explanation, which require that there are persisting things. | |
| From: Sally Haslanger (Persistence, Change and Explanation [1989], 5) | |
| A reaction: This is a really nice idea - that best explanation is not just about specific cases, but also about best foundations for explanations in general, which brings in our metaphysics. I defend the role of essences in these best explanations. |
| 23262 | Experience, sympathy and history are sensible grounds for laying claim to rights [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Personal experience, social sympathies, and history together licence laying claim to rights …which we see to make good mutual as well as individual sense. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 6) | |
| A reaction: There are no such thing as natural rights, but there are clearly natural grounds on which it is very reasonable to base a claim for legal rights. If positive rights are just arbitrary, or expressions of power struggles, that is crazy. |
| 23263 | Politics is driven by power cliques [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: What drives political history is power cliques. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], Conc) | |
| A reaction: A simple ideas which strikes me as accurate. Alternative views are that power is universally distributed (Foucault), or that power resides in a social class (Marx). Grayling's idea strikes me as more accurate. Each class has its cliques. |
| 23254 | Democracies should require a supermajority for major questions [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: A threshhold or supermajority bar (such as 60%) is the appropriate way to deal with highly consequential questions. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], p.23) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a very conservative view, because rejection of a major change is a decision in favour of the status quo. Would this rule apply equally to abolishing capital punishment and to reintroducing it? |
| 23255 | It is essential for democracy that voting is free and well informed [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: A necessary condition for democracy to be realised is that the act of voting should be free and informed. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], p.25) | |
| A reaction: The requirement that voters should be well informed has become an increasing modern problem, because the media are owned by the wealthy, and false rumours can spread at lightning speed. |
| 23260 | A cap on time of service would restrict party control and career ambitions [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: A method by which legislators can be rendered independent of both party control and career ambitions is a cap on the amount of time they can serve as legislators. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 4) | |
| A reaction: The time of service must allow for learning the job, and then using the wisdom of experience. Presumably some career ambitions are needed if we are to have leaders. Not all party discipline is bad; great achievements are hard without it. |
| 23253 | Majority decisions are only acceptable if the minority interests are not vital [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: A majority being in favour of some course of action is the acceptable means of reaching decisions when no vital interest of a minority is endangered. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is generally accepted in extreme cases, such as the majority voting to exterminate the minority. The difficulty is to decide what is a 'vital' interest, and to get the majority to care about it. |
| 23256 | Liberty and equality cannot be reconciled [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: Liberty and equality appear to be irresolvable contradictions. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 2) | |
| A reaction: [He particularly cites Isaiah Berlin for this view] Hm. The liberty of one is the liberty of all. I don't think I would feel that my liberty was unreasonably infringed if I lived in a society of imposed equality. The greedy hate equality the most. |
| 23258 | The very concept of democracy entails a need for justice [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The concept of democracy - embodying the principles of participation and equal concern - entails that social justice is a mandatory aim. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 2) | |
| A reaction: The idea that democracy entails participation in any direct way is what the right wing reject. Sustained participation would presumably entail various sorts of justice. |
| 23259 | There should be separate legislative, executive and judicial institutions [Grayling] |
| Full Idea: The obvious solution is where the legislative, executive and judicial powers are exercised by different institutions, distinguished by function. The executive is answerable to the legislative, and the judicial is controlled by neither. | |
| From: A.C. Grayling (The Good State [2020], 3) | |
| A reaction: Separation by institution, rather than merely by separate individuals exercising the powers. I agree (with Popper etc) that institutions are the way to secure long-term success and justice. Grayling says the judiciary must not paralyse government. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |