6 ideas
9184 | We can't presume that all interesting concepts can be analysed [Williamson] |
Full Idea: We have no prior reason to suppose that philosophically significant concepts have interesting analyses into necessary and sufficient conditions. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988]) | |
A reaction: We might think that they are either analysable or primitive, and that failure of analysis invites us to take a concept as primitive. But maybe God can analyse it and we can't. |
9183 | Platonism claims that some true assertions have singular terms denoting abstractions, so abstractions exist [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The Fregean argument for platonism is that some true assertions contain singular terms which denote abstract objects if they denote anything; since the assertions are true, the singular terms denote. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Review of Bob Hale's 'Abstract Objects' [1988]) | |
A reaction: I am perplexed that anyone would rest their view of reality on such an argument. The obvious comparison would be with true remarks about blatantly fictional characters, or blatantly invented concepts such as 'checkmate'. |
7441 | Experiences are defined by their causal role, and causal roles belong to physical states [Lewis] |
Full Idea: The definitive characteristic of any experience is its causal role, its most typical causes and effects; but we materialists believe that these causal roles which belong by analytic necessity to experiences belong in fact to certain physical states. | |
From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §I) | |
A reaction: This is the Causal version of functionalism, which Armstrong also developed. The word 'typical' leads later to a teleological element in the theory (e.g. in Lycan). There are other things to say about mental states than just their causal role. |
7442 | 'Pain' contingently names the state that occupies the causal role of pain [Lewis] |
Full Idea: On my theory, 'pain' is a contingent name - that is, a name with different denotations in different possible worlds - since in any world, 'pain' names whatever state happens in that world to occupy the causal role definitive of pain. | |
From: David Lewis (An Argument for the Identity Theory [1966], §II n6) | |
A reaction: Better to say that 'pain' (like 'sound') is ambiguous. It is indiscriminately used by English-speakers to mean [1] the raw quale that we experience when damaged, and [2] whatever it is that leads to pain behaviour. Maybe frogs have 2 but not 1. |
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. |