38 ideas
6979 | Serious metaphysics cares about entailment between sentences [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Serious metaphysics is committed to views about which sentences entail which other sentences. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This does not say that metaphysics is only about entailment, or (even worse) only about sentences. Put another way: if we wish to be wise, we must study the implications of our beliefs. Yes. |
6980 | Conceptual analysis studies whether one story is made true by another story [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Conceptual analysis is the very business of addressing when and whether a story told in one vocabulary is made true by one told in some allegedly more fundamental vocabulary. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: This is a view of linguistic analysis as focusing on entailments rather than on usage or truth conditions. If philosophy is the attempt to acquire a totally consistent set of beliefs (a plausible view), then Jackson is right. |
6983 | Intuitions about possibilities are basic to conceptual analysis [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Intuitions about possibilities are the bread and butter of conceptual analysis. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Hence the centrality of the debate over conceivability and possibility. Which seems to reduce to the relationship between 'intuition' and 'imagination'. Imagination is a very weak guide to what is possible, and intuition is very uncertain.... |
14707 | Conceptual analysis is needed to establish that metaphysical reductions respect original meanings [Jackson, by Schroeter] |
Full Idea: On the empiricist view of meaning, the relevance of conceptual analysis to metaphysics is that it establishes that a putative reduction respects the original meaning of the target expression. | |
From: report of Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], p.28) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics 2.2.4 |
7005 | Something can only have a place in a preferred account of things if it is entailed by the account [Jackson] |
Full Idea: The one and only way of having a place in an account told in some set of preferred terms is by being entailed by that account - a view I will refer to as the entry by entailment thesis. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: How do we distinguish between the original account, which seems to be just accepted, and the additions which accrue because they are entailed by it? Why does this club distinguish members from guests? |
6994 | Truth supervenes on being [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Truth supervenes on being. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A nice slogan for those of us who find the word 'truth' to be meaningful. |
7306 | If the only property of a name was its reference, we couldn't explain bearerless names [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: If having a reference were the only semantic property in terms of which we could explain the functioning of names, we would be in trouble with respect to names that simply have no bearer. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 2.1.1) | |
A reaction: (Miller is discussing Frege) 'Odysseus' is given as an example. Instead of switching to a bundle of descriptions, we could say that we just imagine an object which is stamped with the name. Names always try to refer. |
6984 | Smooth reductions preserve high-level laws in the lower level [Jackson] |
Full Idea: In a 'smooth' reduction the laws of the reduced theory (thermodynamics of gases) are pretty much preserved in (and isomorphic with) the corresponding laws in the reducing theory (molecular or kinetic theory of gases). | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Are the 'laws' of weather (e.g. linking humidity, temperature and pressure to rainfall) preserved at the level of physics? One might say that they are not preserved, but they are not lost either (they just fade away). Contradictions would be worrying. |
6978 | Baldness is just hair distribution, but the former is indeterminate, unlike the latter [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Baldness is a much more indeterminate matter than is hair distribution, nevetheless baldness is nothing over and above hair distribution. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], p.22) | |
A reaction: This seems to support Williamson's view that there is no vagueness in nature, and that 'vague' is an entirely epistemological concept. |
6993 | Redness is a property, but only as a presentation to normal humans [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We typically count things as red just if they have a property that interacts with normal human beings to make the object look red in such a way that their so looking counts as a presentation of the property to normal humans. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.4) | |
A reaction: This is Jackson's careful statement of the 'Australian' primary property view of colours. He is trying to make red a real property of objects, but personally I take the mention of 'normal' humans as a huge danger sign. Nice try, but no. See Idea 5456. |
6987 | We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We should not multiply senses of necessity beyond necessity. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: It would be nice if there was just one sense of necessity, with the multiplication arising from the different ways in which necessities arise. In chess, checkmate is a necessity which rests on contingencies. Absolute necessities seem different. |
6988 | Mathematical sentences are a problem in a possible-worlds framework [Jackson] |
Full Idea: There is notoriously a problem about what to say concerning mathematical sentences within the possible-worlds framework. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3 n25) | |
A reaction: Presumably this concerns possible axioms and their combinations. |
6975 | Possible worlds could be concrete, abstract, universals, sentences, or properties [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Possible worlds might be concrete (Lewis), or abstract (Stalnaker), or structured universals (Forrest), or collections of sentences (Jeffrey), or mere combinations of properties and relations (Armstrong). | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: A helpful summary. I don't like concrete, or collections of sentences. Whatever they are, they had better be 'possible', so not any old collection or idea will do. |
6982 | Long arithmetic calculations show the a priori can be fallible [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We know that being fallible and being a priori can co-exist - the results of long numerical additions are well-known examples. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.2) | |
A reaction: I see this realisation as a good example of progress in philosophy. Russell, who says self-evidence comes in degrees, deserves major credit. It is the key idea that once again makes rationalism respectable. |
6991 | We examine objects to determine colour; we do not introspect [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We examine objects to determine their colour; we do not introspect. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Interesting, but the theory of secondary qualities did not arise from experience, but from a theory about what is actually going on. Compare pain appearing to be in your foot. |
7322 | Constitutive scepticism is about facts, and epistemological scepticism about our ability to know them [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: We should distinguish 'constitutive scepticism' (about the existence of certain sorts of facts) from the traditional 'epistemological scepticism' (which concedes that the sort of fact in question exists, but questions our right to claim knowledge of it). | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.7) | |
A reaction: I would be inclined to call the first type 'ontological scepticism'. Miller is discussing Quine's scepticism about meaning. Atheists fall into the first group, and agnostics into the second. An important, and nicely simple, distinction. |
7325 | Dispositions say what we will do, not what we ought to do, so can't explain normativity [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Dispositional facts are facts about what we will do, not about what we ought to do, and as such cannot capture the normativity of meaning. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.2) | |
A reaction: Miller is discussing language, but this raises a nice question for all behaviourist accounts of mental events. Perhaps there is a disposition to behave in a guilty way if you do something you think you shouldn't do. (Er, isn't 'guilt' a mental event?) |
6976 | In physicalism, the psychological depends on the physical, not the other way around [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Physicalism is associated with various asymmetry doctrines, most famously with the idea that the psychological depends in some sense on the physical, and not the other way around. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: Sounds okay to me. Shadows depend on objects, and not the other way round. It might suggest properties depending on substances (or bare particulars), but I prefer the dependence of processes on mechanisms (waterfalls on liquid water). |
6986 | Is the dependence of the psychological on the physical a priori or a posteriori? [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Should the necessary passage from the physical account of the world to the psychological one that physicalists are committed to, be placed in the a posteriori or the a priori basket? | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: That is, is 'the physical entails the mental' empirical or a priori? See Idea 3989. If we can at least dream of substance dualism, it is hard to see how it could be fully a priori. I think I prefer to see it as an inductive explanation. |
6992 | If different states can fulfil the same role, the converse must also be possible [Jackson] |
Full Idea: It would be strange if having learnt the lesson of multiple realisability that the same role may be filled by different states, we turned around and insisted that the converse - different roles filled by the same state - is impossible. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.4 n3) | |
A reaction: Good. The world is full of creatures who seem to enjoy the smell of decay etc. Some people (not me) like horror films. The separation of qualia and role leaves type-type physicalism as a possibility. Survival needs similar roles, not similar qualia. |
6996 | Folk psychology covers input, internal role, and output [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Folk psychology has a tripartite nature, with input clauses, internal role clauses, and output clauses. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Interesting, particularly that folk psychology refers to internal roles, or attempts to explain what is going on inside the 'black box'. The folk have collectively worked out a standard flow diagram for human thought. |
6977 | Egocentric or de se content seems to be irreducibly so [Jackson] |
Full Idea: I have been convinced by arguments (e.g. of Perry, Castaņeda and Lewis) that egocentric or de se content is irreducibly so. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.1) | |
A reaction: This is associated with the use of indexicals (like 'I' and 'now') in language. Quine disagrees, and should not be written off. Any theory of content, concepts, meaning etc. must clearly taken account of such subjective language. |
6990 | Keep distinct the essential properties of water, and application conditions for the word 'water' [Jackson] |
Full Idea: My guess is that objectors to the deflationary account of the Twin Earth parable are confusing the essential properties of water with the question of what is essential for being water. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: That is, we must distinguish between the actual ontology of water's properties and the conditions under which we (in our society) apply the word 'water'. Interesting. The latter issue, though, might push us back towards internalism... |
6985 | Analysis is finding necessary and sufficient conditions by studying possible cases [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Conceptual analysis is sometimes understood as the business of finding necessary and sufficient conditions by the method of possible cases. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: Some (e.g. Stich) reject this, but it seems to me undeniable that the procedure can be very illuminating, even if it is never totally successful. Jackson prefers to see analysis as the study of entailments between stories about the world. |
7324 | Explain meaning by propositional attitudes, or vice versa, or together? [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Grice wants to explain linguistic meaning in terms of the content of propositional attitudes, Dummett has championed the view that propositional attitudes must be explained by linguistic meaning, while Davidson says they must be explained together. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 6.1) | |
A reaction: A useful map. My intuition says propositional attitudes come first, for evolutionary reasons. We are animals first, and speakers second. Thought precedes language. A highly social animal flourishes if it can communicate. |
6995 | Successful predication supervenes on nature [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Successful predication supervenes on nature. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: A nice slogan, but it is in danger of being a tautology. If I say x and y 'are my favourites/are interesting', is that 'successful' predication? Is 'Juliet is the sun' unsuccessful? |
6989 | I can understand "He has a beard", without identifying 'he', and hence the truth conditions [Jackson] |
Full Idea: If I hear someone say "He has a beard", and I don't know whether it is Jackson, Jones, or someone else, I don't know which proposition is being expressed in the sense of not knowing the conditions under which what is said is true. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.3) | |
A reaction: This is the neatest and simplest problem I have encountered for Davidson's truth-conditions account of meaning. However, we probably just say that we understand the sense but not the reference. The strict-and-literal but not contextual meaning. |
7323 | If truth is deflationary, sentence truth-conditions just need good declarative syntax [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: On a deflationary concept of truth, for a sentence to possess truth-conditions it is sufficient that it be disciplined by norms of correct usage, and that it possess the syntax distinctive of declarative sentences. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Idea 6337 gives the basic deflationary claim. He mentions Boghossian as source of this point. So much the worse for the deflationary concept of truth, say I. What are the truth-conditions of "Truth rotates"? |
7315 | 'Jones is a married bachelor' does not have the logical form of a contradiction [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: The syntactic notion of contradiction (p and not-p) is well understood, but is no help in explaining analyticity, since "Jones is a married bachelor" is not of that syntactic form. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This point is based on Quine. This means we cannot define analytic sentences as those whose denial is a contradiction, even though that seems to be true of them. Both the Kantian and the modern logical versions of analyticity are in trouble. |
7328 | The principle of charity is holistic, saying we must hold most of someone's system of beliefs to be true [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: Properly construed, the principle of charity is a holistic constraint applying, not to individual beliefs, but rather to systems of belief: we must interpret a speaker so that most of the beliefs in his system are, by our lights, true. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
A reaction: This is a lot more plausible than applying the principle to individual sentences, particularly if you are in the company of habitual ironists or constitutional liars. |
7329 | Maybe we should interpret speakers as intelligible, rather than speaking truth [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: A more sophisticated version of the principle of charity holds that we interpret speakers not as necessarily having beliefs that are true by our own lights, but as having beliefs that are intelligible by our own lights. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 8.7) | |
A reaction: Consider Idea 4161 in the light of this. Presumably this means that we treat them as having a coherent set of beliefs, even if they seem to us to fail to correspond to reality. I prefer the stronger version that there has to be some proper truth in there. |
6998 | Folk morality does not clearly distinguish between doing and allowing [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We have, it seems to me, currently no clear sense of the place and rationale of the distinction between doing and allowing in folk morality. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Does this mean that philosophers should endeavour to appear on television in order to improve folk morality, so that Jackson, back at the ranch, can then infer the meanings of moral terms from the new improved version? |
6997 | Moral functionalism says moral terms get their meaning from their role in folk morality [Jackson] |
Full Idea: Moral functionalism is the view that the meanings of moral terms are given by their place in the network of input, internal clauses, and output that makes up folk psychology. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: Jackson considers this enough to support a cognitivist view of morality. In assuming that there is something stable called 'folk morality' he seems to be ignoring questions about cultural relativism. |
7000 | Which are prior - thin concepts like right, good, ought; or thick concepts like kindness, equity etc.? [Jackson] |
Full Idea: 'Centralists' (e.g. Bernard Williams) say thin ethical concepts (right, good, ought) are conceptually fundamental; 'non-centralists' (e.g. Susan Hurley) say that such concepts are not conceptually prior to kindness, equity and the like. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: My immediate intuition is to side with Susan Hurley, since morality grows out of immediate relationships, not out of intellectual principles and theoretical generalisations. This would go with particularist views of virtue theory. |
7333 | The Frege-Geach problem is that I can discuss the wrongness of murder without disapproval [Miller,A] |
Full Idea: The main problem faced by non-cognitivism is known as the Frege-Geach problem: if I say "If murder is wrong, then getting your brother to murder people is wrong", that is an unasserted context, and I don't necessarily express disapproval of murder. | |
From: Alexander Miller (Philosophy of Language [1998], 9.2) | |
A reaction: The emotivist or non-cognitivist might mount a defence by saying there is some second-order or deep-buried emotion involved. Could a robot without feelings even understand what humans meant when they said "It is morally wrong"? |
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. |
6999 | It is hard to justify the huge difference in our judgements of abortion and infanticide [Jackson] |
Full Idea: We allow that abortion is permissible in many circumstances, but infanticide is hardly ever permissible, and yet it is hard to justify this disparity in moral judgement in the sense of finding the relevant difference. | |
From: Frank Jackson (From Metaphysics to Ethics [1998], Ch.5) | |
A reaction: The implications of this are tough to face. A foetus is (maybe) just not as important as a new-born babe - and so a new-born babe is of less importance than a five-year old. Birth is (or was) a hugely dangerous hurdle to be cleared. |
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. |