7 ideas
15382 | Paraconsistent reasoning can just mean responding sensibly to inconsistencies [Jago] |
Full Idea: A practical application of paraconsistent reasoning is in large databases. It does not mean that contradictions could be true, but only that we sometimes need to draw sensible conclusions from inconsistent data. 'Dialethists' believe some contradictions. | |
From: Mark Jago (Paraconsistent Logic [2010]) | |
A reaction: Interesting as a more cautious and sensible attitude to the scandal of paraconsistency. |
15464 | The distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties leads to confusion [Lewis] |
Full Idea: To avoid the danger of claiming that dispositions are their own categorical bases, we do better to eschew the alleged distinction between dispositional and 'categorical' properties altogether. | |
From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], II) | |
A reaction: Since I have been unable to form any intuitive notion of what a 'categorical' property is, I like this, though not necessarily for his reason. |
15463 | All dispositions must have causal bases [Lewis] |
Full Idea: Prior, Pargetter and Jackson have argued convincingly for the thesis that all dispositions must have causal bases. | |
From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], II) | |
A reaction: [Their paper is 1982] This key thesis is tackled by modern defenders of powers. The question is not who has the best arguments, but who offers the most coherent picture. What is a 'causal basis'? What sort of thing could be primitive or fundamental? |
15461 | A 'finkish' disposition is real, but disappears when the stimulus occurs [Lewis] |
Full Idea: A disposition which would straight away vanish if put to the test is called 'finkish'. A finkishly fragile thing is fragile so long as it is not struck. But if it were struck, it would straight away cease to be fragile, and it would not break. | |
From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], I) | |
A reaction: There are also 'antidotes'. Finks kill the disposition, antidotes kill the effect. These cases are problems for the simple conditional analysis of a disposition - because we never achieved the consequent. |
15462 | Backtracking counterfactuals go from supposed events to their required causal antecedents [Lewis] |
Full Idea: 'Backtracking' counterfactual reasoning runs from a counterfactually supposed event to the causal antecedents it would have to have had. | |
From: David Lewis (Finkish dispositions [1997], I) | |
A reaction: Why not call it a 'transcendental' counterfactual? Presumably you go thisworld>> counterfactualevent>> worldneededtocauseit. It conjures up two possible worlds instead of one. |
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. |