61 ideas
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics. |
| 18390 | All metaphysical discussion should be guided by a quest for truthmakers [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: My plea, whatever conclusions are drawn, is to control the metaphysical discussion by continual reference to suggested truthmakers. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.7) | |
| A reaction: ...And my plea is to control metaethical discussion by continual reference to value-makers. In general, this is the approach which will deliver a unified account of the world. Truthmakers are the ideal restraint on extravagant metaphysics. |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Truth is a relation between two things - a representation (the truth 'bearer') and the world or some part of it (the 'truthmaker'). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: That truth is about representations seems to me to be exactly right. That it is about truthmakers is more controversial. There are well known problems with negative truths, general truths, future truths etc. I'm happy with 'facts'. |
| 18467 | Truth-making can't be entailment, because truthmakers are portions of reality [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Truth-making cannot be any form of entailment. Both terms of an entailment relation must be propositions, but the truth-making term of the truth-making relation is a portion of reality, and, in general at least, portions of reality are not propositions. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: Along with Idea 18466, that seems to firmly demolish the idea that truth-making is a logical entailment. |
| 18468 | Armstrong says truthmakers necessitate their truth, where 'necessitate' is a primitive relation [Armstrong, by MacBride] |
| Full Idea: In a bold manouevre Armstrong posited a metaphysically primitive relation of necessitation, and then defined truth-makers in terms of this bridging relation, as a thing that necessitates something being true. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3) by Fraser MacBride - Truthmakers 1.2 | |
| A reaction: [Not sure of page reference] Spelled out so clearly by MacBride, this sounds dubious. How many truths are necessitated by the City of London? Do truthmakers necessitate the existence of their truths? MacBride says it's a circular theory. |
| 18377 | Negative truths have as truthmakers all states of affairs relevant to the truth [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Postulate a higher-order state of affairs, of all the states of affairs in which Theaetetus is involved. Is this not a good candidate for a truthmaker for the negative truth that 'Theaetetus is not flying'? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2) | |
| A reaction: It certainly seems extravagant to need the whole universe to make true 'there are no lions in this room'. But for 'there are no unicorns' it is not clear which states of affairs unicorns are involved. (Armstrong is aware of this). |
| 18382 | The nature of arctic animals is truthmaker for the absence of penguins there [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Each of the arctic animals is by its nature different from a penguin, so this general state of affairs seems truthmaker enough for this negative existential. Similarly, the totality of all birds eliminates the phoenix. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Why is it 'animals' in one case, and 'birds' in the other? What if there was no life in arctic? Would the snow then do the job? This doesn't seem to work. |
| 18384 | One truthmaker will do for a contingent truth and for its contradictory [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It seems reasonable to say that a truthmaker for a contingent truth is also a truthmaker for the truth that the contradictory of that truth is possible. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.2) | |
| A reaction: The truthmaker will have to be not only some fact, but also the additional fact that it is contingent, in order to generate the possibility of the contradictory. |
| 18386 | What is the truthmaker for 'it is possible that there could have been nothing'? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It is possible that there could have been nothing. ...What would be its truthmaker? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.4) | |
| A reaction: I suppose the truthmaker here is the whole of reality, with its dispositions and contingencies. But that won't do for 'possibly there might never have been anything'. In such a case there wouldn't be any truths. |
| 18387 | The truthmakers for possible unicorns are the elements in their combination [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The obvious minimal truthmaker for the truth that 'it is possible that a unicorn exists' is combinatorial. The elements of the combination are all that is needed. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to imply that there are no possibilities which are not combinations of what currently exists. |
| 18394 | In mathematics, truthmakers are possible instantiations of structures [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A mathematical entity exists if and only if it is possible that there be instantiations of that structure. This transforms the question of truthmakers for the existence of mathematical entities into a question of truthmakers for certain possibilities. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.3) | |
| A reaction: This modal approach to structuralism [for which he endorses Hellman 1989] opens up a modal approach to other truthmakers, which places dispositions at the centre of physical truthmaking. No sets of Meinongian objects? |
| 18381 | Necessitating general truthmakers must also specify their limits [Armstrong] |
|
Full Idea:
The mereological sum of what happens to be all the men does not necessitate that it is all the men. So if truthmaking involves necessitation, then this object cannot be the complete truthmaker for |
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| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 06.1) | |
| A reaction: [He invokes Russell has his source] His point is that the truthmaker needs a further fact, beyond the men, which specifies that this is all of them. But only if truthmakers necessitate their truths (as Armstrong claims). I'm sympathetic to both claims. |
| 18396 | The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The idea is that braces { } attribute to an entity the place-holding, or perhaps determinable, property of unithood. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.5) | |
|
A reaction:
I like this. There is Socrates himself, then there is my concept |
| 18393 | For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong] |
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Full Idea:
The null class is useful in formal set theory, but I hope that does not require that there be a thing called the null class which is truthmaker for the strange proposition |
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| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: It is not quite clear why it doesn't, but then it is not quite clear to philosophers what the status of the null set is, in comparison with sets that have members. |
| 18392 | Classes have cardinalities, so their members must all be treated as units [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Classes, because they have a particular cardinality, are essentially a certain number of ones, things that, within the particular class, are each taken as a unit. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: [Singletons are exceptions] So units are basic to set theory, which is the foundations of technical analytic philosophy (as well as, for many, of mathematics). If you can't treat something as a unit, it won't go into set theory. Vagueness... |
| 18385 | Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: One of the assumptions of logical atomism is that all structural properties, all complex properties, are composed of simple properties and relations. ...But does the totality of the simple properties consist of the only possible simple properties? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.3) | |
| A reaction: This refers to what Lewis calls 'alien' properties - possible properties that cannot even be constructed from actual properties. Armstrong's question is about the truthmakers for such things. A bit speculative... |
| 18391 | 'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: I define 'naturalism' as the hypothesis that the world of space-time is all that there is. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1) | |
| A reaction: This is helpful, because it doesn't mention the nature of the physical matter contained in space-time, leaving theories like panpsychism as possible naturalistic theories. Galen Strawson, for example. |
| 18374 | Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: There must exist states of affairs as truthmakers, to get us beyond 'loose and separate' entities. ...They can be bundles of tropes, or trope-with-particular, or bundles of universals ('compresence'), or instantiations. They are an addition to ontology. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong is the great champion of states of affairs. They seem rather vague to me, and disconcertingly timeless. |
| 18372 | We need properties, as minimal truthmakers for the truths about objects [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The 'thing itself' seems not be a minimal truthmaker for the thing having its particular mass. ...The thing has a great many other properties. ...It seems entirely reasonable to postulate that the object has properties that are objectively there. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.2) | |
| A reaction: This is Armstrong using the truthmaker principle to argue for the existence of properties (as instantiated universals). I like truthmakers, but truths do not have enough precision in their parts for us to read off reality from them. |
| 18378 | Length is a 'determinable' property, and one mile is one its 'determinates' [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Length is a 'determinable' property; being some particular length, such as a mile, is one of its 'determinates'. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.1) | |
| A reaction: The seem to be 'type' and 'token' properties, except that this other vocabulary indicates the link between them. |
| 18379 | The determinates of a determinable must be incompatible with each other [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A set of determinates under the one determinable are incompatible by definition. If an object is not one mile in length, then its actual length will be incompatible with being one mile in length. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is a much better general version of the standard example 'if it is red it can't be green'. Armstrong uses it to give a more precise account of incompatibility. Useful. |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take properties to have a dual nature; in virtue of possessing a property, an object possesses both a particular dispositionality and a particular qualitative character. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: That leaves you with the question of the relationship between the disposition and the quality. I say you must choose, and I choose the disposition. Qualities (which are partly subjective, obviously) arise from fundamental dispositions. |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: If objects belong to classes in virtue of resemblances they bear to one another, they resemble one another in virtue of their properties. Objects resemble in some way or respect, and you could think of these ways or respects as 'properties'. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: If you pare the universe down to one object with five distinct properties, they resemble nothing, and fail this definition. Resemblance seems like the epistemology, not the ontology. |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The redness or sphericity of this tomato cannot migrate to another tomato. This is a consequence of the idea that properties are particular ways things are. The identity of a property is bound up with the identity of its possessor. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: This is part of his declaration that he believes in tropes. At the very least, properties can be thought of separately, and have second-order properties that don't seem tied to the particulars. |
| 18373 | If tropes are non-transferable, then they necessarily belong to their particular substance [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: 'Non-transferable' theories of tropes hold that the mass is of this stone by necessity. It is an identity condition for the property. Every property then becomes an essential property. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Martin and Heil for this view] It is hard to see in this proposal how the trope is in any way separate from its substance, and hence it seems a bit of a vacuous theory. (The other theories of properties aren't much cop either). |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The bundle theory for tropes treats properties inappositely as parts of objects. Objects can have parts, but an object's properties are not its parts, they are particular ways the object is. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: The 'way an object is' seems a very vague concept. Most things that get labelled as tropes are actually highly complex. Without mention of causal powers I think these discussions drift in a muddle. |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: A property that is intrinsically incapable of affecting or being affected by anything else, actual or possible, is not merely a case of inertness - it amounts to a no-thing. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin rejects Shoemaker's purely causal account of properties, but he clearly understands Shoemaker's point well. |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Given a realist view of dispositions as fully actual, even without manifestations or partners, a purely dispositional account of properties has a degree of plausibility, which is enhanced because properties lack purely qualitative characterisations. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin opts for a mixed account, as in Idea 15484, but he gives reasons here for the view which I favour. If he concedes that dispositions may exist without manifestation, they must surely lack qualities. Are they not properties, then? |
| 18400 | Properties are not powers - they just have powers [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Properties are not powers. But properties have powers. They bestow powers. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. In this view, powers become extremely vague things, ranging from the fine-grained to the hugely broad. It seems to me that powers are precise and real, but properties are the vague unhelpful things. |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: For any intrinsic and irreducible property, what is qualitative and what is dispositional are one and the same property considered as what that property exhibits of its nature and what that property is directive and selective for in its manifestation. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: This is supposed to support qualities and dispositions as equal partners, but I don't see how 'what a property exhibits' can have any role in fundamental ontology. What it exhibits may be very misleading about its nature. |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Each property endows a ball with a distinctive qualitative character and a distinctive range of powers or dispositionalities. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. Do properties support powers, or powers support properties? I favour the latter. Properties are much vaguer than powers. Powers generate the required causation and activity. |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Three forms of dispositionality are illustrated by explosives (which are destroyed by manifestation), being soluble (where the dispositions is lost but recoverable), and being stable (where the disposition is unchanged). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.7) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Presumably the explosives could be recovered after the explosion, since the original elements are still there, but it would take a while. The retina remains stable by continually changing. There are no simple distinctions! |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Nobody believes, or ought to believe, that manifestations of powers follow upon the single event mentioned in the antecedent of the conditional independently of the circumstances. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: Another way of putting it would be that the behaviour of powers is more ceteris paribus than law. |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: According to the conditional analysis of 'the wire is live', if the wire is touched then it gives off electricity. What ultimately defeats this analysis is the acknowledged possibility of objects gaining or losing powers. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: He offers his 'electro-fink' as a counterexample, where touching the wire changes its disposition. The conditional analysis is simple and clearcut, but dispositions in reality are complex and unstable. |
| 18397 | Powers must result in some non-powers, or there would only be potential without result [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Powers must surely issue in manifestations that are something more than just powers. A world where potency never issued in act, but only in more potency, would be one where one travelled without ever having the possibility of arriving. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: Tricky. The picture I favour is that the distinction between powers and categorical properties is a misunderstanding. What is fundamental is active and powerful categoricals. |
| 18399 | How does the power of gravity know the distance it acts over? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: If masses are powers, the forces generated between two particulars have to vary inversely with the square of their distance apart. Have not the masses got to 'know' at what distance they are from each other, to exert the right amount of force? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 10.4) | |
| A reaction: This seems like a good warning against a simplistic account of powers doing all the work, but I suspect that more sophisticated physics would offer the fan of powers a solution here. The power is to 'spread' the force around. |
| 18371 | The class of similar things is much too big a truthmaker for the feature of a particular [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: For a Class Nominalist 'the class of all 4-kilo objects' is the truthmaker for the truth that the particular has just that mass. Yet this looks far too big! Would not the object still be four kilos even if the other members of the class had never existed? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.2) | |
| A reaction: This seems so obvious to me as to be hardly worth saying. To identify redness with the class of red entities just seems crazy. Why do they belong in that class? Armstrong is illustrating the value of the truthmaker idea in philosophy. |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It is self-defeating to try to explain dispositionality in terms of structural states because structural states are themselves dispositional. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: No doubt structures have dispositions, but are they entirely dispositional? Might there be 'emergent' dispositions which can only be explained by the structure itself, rather than by the dispositions that make up the structure? |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take it as obvious that any structural property involves dispositionality and, therefore, cannot be used to 'explain' dispositionality. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the right way round. The so-called 'categorical' properties seem to be close in nature to the 'structural' properties. |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I favour the old idea of substratum: the haver of properties not itself had as a property. Space-time might itself be the bearer of properties, not itself borne as a property. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: A very nice idea. The choice is between saying either that fundamentals like space-time and physical fields are the propertyless bearers of properties, or that they purely consist of properties (so properties are fundamental, not substrata). |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: There is no causal work for the whole that is not done by the parts, provided the complex role of the parts is fully appreciated. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.1) | |
| A reaction: It seems like a truth that because some parts are doing particular causal work (e.g. glue), the whole can acquire causal powers that the mereological sum of parts lacks. |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (as nonspatiotemporal) seem to be the only candidates for specific and full identity specifications. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.2 n1) | |
| A reaction: Martin says that only the 'mad logician' seeks such specifications elsewhere. Some people like persons to have perfect identity. God is a popular candidate too. Can objects have perfect 'macroscopic' identity? |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: We must avoid a use of 'identity' that implies that any entity over time must be said to lack continuing identity simply because it has changed properties or has lost, added, or had substituted some parts. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: This may the key area where the logical-mathematical type of philosophy comes into contact with the natural-metaphysical type. Imagine Martin's concept of 'identity' in mathematics. π changes to 3.1387... during the calculation! |
| 18389 | When entities contain entities, or overlap with them, there is 'partial' identity [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: There is 'partial identity' where one entity contains another with something to spare, or else where entities overlap each other. ...Extensive quantities, such as length and mass, are the particularly plausible cases. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.5) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a very useful concept which deserves wider use. It will help discussions of rivers, statues, intersecting roads etc. |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: To claim that the truthmaker for a counterfactual, for example, is a set of possible worlds, but to deny that these worlds really exist, seems pointless. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Lewis therefore argues that they do exist. Martin argues that possible worlds are not truthmakers. He rests his account of modality on dispositions. I prefer Martin. |
| 18388 | Possible worlds don't fix necessities; intrinsic necessities imply the extension in worlds [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: It seems natural and plausible to say that it is the fact that a necessary truth is itself necessary that determines its truth in all possible worlds. This intension determines its extension across possible worlds. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 08.1) | |
| A reaction: Well said. To me (but not to Armstrong) this implies essentialism, that the necessity arises from the intrinsic natures of the things involved. The whole Lewisian approach of explaining things by mapping them strikes me as wrong. |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can rule out the 'real' explanation, as the one dominant causal predecessor, such as the earthquake producing a tsunami. |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The long-derided way of analogy works! Otherwise why, when someone else is relishing a food we have not tried, is it reasonable for us to try it ourselves? | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 12.2) | |
| A reaction: Why wouldn't we rush to eat something an animal was relishing? Nice idea. |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Selectivity and abstraction are required for the development of memory, because reminders and promptings are rarely replicas of what is being remembered. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: I take the key idea of mental life to be that of a 'label'. This need not be verbal, so 'conceptual label'. It could be an image, as on a road sign. Labelling is the most indispensable aspect of thought. We label objects, parts, properties and groups. |
| 18375 | General truths are a type of negative truth, saying there are no more ravens than black ones [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: General truths are a species of negative truth, 'no more' truths, asserting that there are no more men than the mortal ones, no more ravens than the black ones. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: He goes on to distinguish between 'absences' and 'limits' in this area. |
| 18368 | For all being, there is a potential proposition which expresses its existence and nature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The thesis of 'expressibility' says that for all being, there is a proposition (perhaps one never formulated by any mind at any time) that truly renders the existence and nature of this being. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.3.2) | |
| A reaction: [He credits Stephen Read 2000:68-9 for this] Armstrong accepts this, but I deny it. I can't make any sense of this vast plethora of propositions, each exactly expressing some minute nuance of the infinity complexity of all being. |
| 18370 | A realm of abstract propositions is causally inert, so has no explanatory value [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: We could not stand in any causal or nomic relation to a realm of propositions over and above the space-time world, ...so it is unclear that such a postulation is of any explanatory value. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: I agree, and I like Armstrong's appeal to explanation as a criterion for whether we should make an ontological commitment here. I am baffled by anyone who thinks reality is crammed full of unarticulated propositions. Only a philosopher.... |
| 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. |
| 18380 | Negative causations supervene on positive causations plus their laws? [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Is it not very plausible that negative causations supervene on the positive causations together with the laws that govern the positive causations? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 05.2.3) | |
| A reaction: This obviously has a naturalistic appeal, since all causation can then be based on the actual world. |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The two-event cause-and-effect view is easily avoided and replaced by the view of mutual manifestations of reciprocal disposition partners, suggesting a natural contemporaneity. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: This view, which I find much more congenial than the traditional one, is explored in the ideas of Mumford and Anjum. |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Disposition and manifestation are the basic categories by means of which cause and effect are to be explained. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 07.8) | |
| A reaction: 'Manifestation' sounds a bit subjective. The manifestation evident to us may not indicate what is really going on below the surface. I like his basic picture. |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: 'Causal' counterfactuals have a place, of course, but only as clumsy and inexact linguistic gestures to dispositions, and they should be kept in that place. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: Counterfactuals only seem to give a regularity account of causation, by correlating an effect with a minimal context which will give rise to it. Surely dispositions run deeper than that? |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Causal laws are summaries of what entities are capable and incapable of. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.8) | |
| A reaction: That's a pretty good formulation. Personally I favour a Humean analysis, perhaps along Lewis's lines, but on a basis of real powers. This remark of Martin's has got me rethinking. |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It makes no sense in ontology or modern physics to think of space-time as empty and propertyless. Space-time nicely fulfils the condition of a substratum. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: At the very least, space-time seems to be 'curved', so it had better be something. Time has properties like being transitive. Space-time (or fields) might be a pure bundle of properties (the only pure bundle?), rather than a substratum. |
| 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. |
| 18401 | The pure present moment is too brief to be experienced [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The metaphysical present will be a strict instant, or, if time is not infinitely divisible, the present will be a minimum granule of duration. But strict instants or minimal granules of duration, if these exist, cannot be experienced. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 11) | |
| A reaction: He points out that this is ironic, since Presentism lies on the basic experience of the present. |