13 ideas
| 13804 | A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: A property P is an essential property of an object x iff x could not exist and lack P, that is, as they say, iff x has P at every world at which x exists. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 1) | |
| A reaction: This immediately places the existence of x outside the normal range of its properties, so presumably 'existence is not a predicate', but that dictum may be doubted. As it stands this definition will include trivial and vacuous properties. |
| 13805 | Properties are trivially essential if they are not grounded in a thing's specific nature [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: Essential properties may be trivial or nontrivial. It is characteristic of P's being trivially essential to x that x's possession of P is not grounded in the specific nature of x. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is where my objection to the modal view of essence arises. How is he going to explain 'grounded' and 'specific nature' without supplying an entirely different account of essence? |
| 13808 | A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: A relation R is essential to x and y (in that order) iff Rxy holds at every world where x and y both exist. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: I find this bizarre. Not only does this seem to me to have nothing whatever to do with essence, but also the relation might hold even though it is a purely contingent matter. All rabbits are a reasonable distance from the local star. Essence of rabbit? |
| 13806 | Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: The main groups of trivially essential properties are (a) existence, self-identity, or their consequences in S5; and (b) properties possessed in virtue of some de dicto necessary truth. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: He adds 'extraneously essential' properties, which also strike me as being trivial, involving relations. 'Is such that 2+2=4' or 'is such that something exists' might be necessary, but they don't, I would say, have anything to do with essence. |
| 13807 | A property is 'extraneously essential' if it is had only because of the properties of other objects [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: P is 'extraneously essential' to x iff it is possessed by x at any world w only in virtue of the possession at w of certain properties by other objects. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2) | |
| A reaction: I would say that these are the sorts of properties which have nothing to do with being essential, even if they are deemed to be necessary. |
| 13809 | One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: In the case of artefacts, there is an essentialism about original matter; for instance, it would be said of any particular bronze statue that it could not have been cast from a totally different quantity of bronze. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3) | |
| A reaction: Forbes isn't endorsing this, and it doesn't sound convincing. He quotes the thought 'I wish I had made this pot from a different piece of clay'. We might corrupt a statue by switching bronze, but I don't think the sculptor could do so. |
| 13810 | The source of de dicto necessity is not concepts, but the actual properties of the thing [Forbes,G] |
| Full Idea: It is widely held that the source of de dicto necessity is in concepts, ..but I deny this... even with simple de dicto necessities, the source of the necessity is to be found in the properties to which the predicates of the de dicto truth refer. | |
| From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3) | |
| A reaction: It is normal nowadays to say this about de re necessities, but this is more unusual. |
| 22480 | Possessing the virtue of justice disposes a person to good practical rationality [Foot] |
| Full Idea: If justice is a virtue it must make action good by disposing its possessor to goodness in practical rationality; the latter consisting of the right recognition of reasons, and corresponding action. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.174) | |
| A reaction: This somewhat inverts Aristotle, who says the possessing of good practical reason is the key to acquiring the virtues. Foot suggests that possessing the virtue promotes the practical rationality. Someone can be sensible without being virtuous. |
| 22477 | Calling a knife or farmer or speech or root good does not involve attitudes or feelings [Foot] |
| Full Idea: No one thinks that calling a knife a good knife, a farmer a good farmer, a speech a good speech, a root a good root, necessarily expresses or even involves an attitude or feeling towards it. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.163) | |
| A reaction: This is the Aristotelian idea (which I favour) that good derives from function. In such a case it seems obvious that it has nothing to do with expressing emotions. |
| 22478 | The essential thing is the 'needs' of plants and animals, and their operative parts [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The key notion is the concept of need, …as when we say what a plant or animal of a certain species needs to have, …and what its operative features, such roots, leaves, hearts and lungs, need to do. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.164) | |
| A reaction: Good. That takes it away from the idea of a function, which could be possessed by an inanimate machine (even though that still entails success and failure). Strictly, we need oxygen, but the goodness resides in the lungs. |
| 22479 | Observing justice is necessary to humans, like hunting to wolves or dancing to bees [Foot] |
| Full Idea: The teaching and observing of the rules of justice is as necessary a part of the life of human beings as hunting together in packs with a leader is a necessary part of the lives of wolves, or dancing part of the life of the dancing bee. | |
| From: Philippa Foot (Rationality and Virtue [1994], p.168) | |
| A reaction: So why are some men unjust? All wolves hunt, and all appropriate bees dance. A few men even thrive on injustice. |
| 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. |