13 ideas
8329 | Either causal relations are given in experience, or they are unobserved and theoretical [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: There is a fundamental choice between the realist approach to causation which says that the relation is immediately given in experience, and the view that causation is a theoretical relation, and so not directly observable. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1) | |
A reaction: Even if immediate experience is involved, there is a step of abstraction in calling it a cause, and picking out events. A 'theoretical relation' is not of much interest there if no observations are involved. I don't think a choice is required here. |
23831 | The essence of power is illusory prestige [Weil] |
Full Idea: Prestige, which is an illusion, is the very essence of power. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.255) | |
A reaction: It is hard to maintain illusory prestige if there is no actual power behind it. |
23830 | A group is only dangerous if it endorses an abstract entity [Weil] |
Full Idea: Any group which has not secreted an abstract entity will probably not be dangerous. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.255) | |
A reaction: Written in the 1930s, the era of many political -isms. No group can be united if it lacks a clear label, and a few simple slogans. |
23829 | National leaders want to preserve necessary order - but always the existing order [Weil] |
Full Idea: Those in command see their duty as defending order, without which no social life can survive; and the only order they conceive is the existing one. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.249) | |
A reaction: She sympathises with them, because a new order is such an unknown. But it always struck me as weird that traditions are preserved because they are traditions, and not because they are good. (My old school, for example!). |
23828 | National prestige consists of behaving as if you could beat the others in a war [Weil] |
Full Idea: What is called national prestige consists in behaving always in such a way as to demoralise other nations by giving them the impression that, if it comes to war, one would certainly defeat them. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.244) | |
A reaction: It's true. No nation gains prestige because of the happy lives of its citizens, or the creativity of its culture. |
23827 | Modern wars are fought in the name of empty words which are given capital letters [Weil] |
Full Idea: For our contemporaries the role of Helen in the Trojan War is is played by words with capital letters. …When empty words are given capital letters, then, on the slightest pretext, men will begin shedding blood for them and piling up ruin in their name. | |
From: Simone Weil (The Power of Words [1934], p.241) | |
A reaction: This seems particularly true of the 1930s, where specific dogmatic ideologies seemed to grip and divide people. Simple aggressive nationalism seems to be the cause of current wars, now the fear of Communism has diminished. |
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. |
8324 | The problem is to explain how causal laws and relations connect, and how they link to the world [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: Causal states of affairs encompass causal laws, and causal relations between events or states of affairs; two key questions concern the relation between causal laws and causal relations, and the relation between these and non-causal affairs. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1) | |
A reaction: This is the agenda for modern analytical philosophy. I'm not quite clear what would count as an answer. When have you 'explained' a relation? Does calling it 'gravity', or finding an equation, explain that relation? Do gravitinos explain it? |
8328 | Causation isn't energy transfer, because an electron is caused by previous temporal parts [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: The temporal parts of an electron (for example) are causally related, but this relation does not involve any transfer of energy or momentum. Causation cannot be identified with physical energy relations, and physicalist reductions look unpromising. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1) | |
A reaction: This idea, plus Idea 8327, are their grounds for rejecting Fair's proposal (Idea 8326). It feels like a different use of 'cause' when we say 'the existence of x was caused by its existence yesterday'. It is more like inertia. Destruction needs energy. |
8327 | If direction of causation is just direction of energy transfer, that seems to involve causation [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: The objection to Fair's view that the direction of causation is the direction of the transference of energy and/or momentum is that the concept of transference itself involves the idea of causation. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1) | |
A reaction: Does it? If a particle proceeds from a to b, how is that causation? ...But the problem is that the particle kicks open the door when it arrives (i.e. makes changes). We wouldn't call it causation if the transference didn't change any properties. |
8330 | Are causes sufficient for the event, or necessary, or both? [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: An early view of causation (Mill and Hume) is whatever is (ceteris paribus) sufficient for the event. A second view (E.Nagel) is that the cause should just be necessary. Some (R.Taylor) even contemplate the cause having to be necessary and sufficient. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §2) | |
A reaction: A cause can't be necessary if there is some other way to achieve the effect. A single cause is not sufficient if many other factors are also essential. If neither of those is right, then 'both' is wrong. Enter John Mackie... |
8325 | The dominant view is that causal laws are prior; a minority say causes can be explained singly [Sosa/Tooley] |
Full Idea: The dominant view is that causal laws are more basic than causal relations, with relations being logically supervenient on causal laws, and on properties and event relations; some, though, defend the singularist view, in which events alone can be related. | |
From: E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1) | |
A reaction: I am deeply suspicious about laws (see Idea 5470). I suspect that the laws are merely descriptions of the regularities that arise from the single instances of causation. We won't explain the single instances, but then laws don't 'explain' them either. |
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. |