Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Reference and Generality (3rd ed)' and 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz'

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19 ideas

6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / d. Counting via concepts

12154	Are 'word token' and 'word type' different sorts of countable objects, or two ways of counting? [Geach, by Perry]
	Full Idea: If we list the words 'bull', 'bull' and 'cow', it is often said that there are three 'word tokens' but only two 'word types', but Geach says there are not two kinds of object to be counted, but two different ways of counting the same object.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Perry - The Same F II
	A reaction: Insofar as the notion that a 'word type' is an 'object', my sympathies are entirely with Geach, to my surprise. Geach's point is that 'bull' and 'bull' are the same meaning, but different actual words. Identity is relative to a concept.

8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations

13076	Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
	A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation

13102	If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
	A reaction: There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.

13103	Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
	A reaction: This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / d. Individuation by haecceity

13104	Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
	A reaction: [He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects

8969	We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category [Geach, by Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: Geach argued that the notion of absolute identity should be abandoned. ..We can only grasp the meaning of a count noun when we associate it with a criterion of identity, expressed by a particular relative identity sortal.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by John Hawthorne - Identity
	A reaction: In other words, identity needs categorisation. Hawthorne concludes that Geach is wrong. Geach clearly has much common usage on his side. 'What's that?' usually invites a categorisation. Sameness of objects seems to need a 'respect'.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / a. Substance

13100	Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
	A reaction: They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance

13068	We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
	A reaction: My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined

13069	The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
	A reaction: It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties

13072	Modern essences are sets of essential predicate-functions [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: The modern view of essence is that the essence of a particular thing is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to it, and the essence of any kind is given by the set of predicate-functions essential to every possible member of that kind.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.2.2)
	A reaction: Thus the modern view has elided the meanings of 'essential' and 'necessary' when talking of properties. They are said to be 'functions' from possible worlds to individuals. The old view (and mine) demands real essences, not necessary properties.

17080	Modern essentialists express essence as functions from worlds to extensions for predicates [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: The modern essentialist gives the same metaphysical treatment to every grammatical predicate - by associating a function from worlds to extensions for each.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2)
	A reaction: I take this to mean that essentialism is the view that if some predicate attaches to an object then that predicate is essential if there is an extension of that predicate in all possible worlds. In English, essential predicates are necessary predicates.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 12. Origin as Essential

13101	Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
	A reaction: Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity

16075	Denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory [Wasserman on Geach]
	Full Idea: Geach's denial of absolute identity has drastic implications for logic, semantics and set theory. He must deny the axiom of extensionality in set theory, for example.
	From: comment on Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6
	A reaction: I'm beginning to think we have two entirely different concepts here - the logicians' and mathematicians' notion of when two things are identical, and the ordinary language concept of two things being 'the same'. 'We like the same music'.

12152	Identity is relative. One must not say things are 'the same', but 'the same A as' [Geach]
	Full Idea: Identity is relative. When one says 'x is identical with y' this is an incomplete expression. It is short for 'x is the same A as y', where 'A' represents some count noun understood from the context of utterance.
	From: Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980], p.39), quoted by John Perry - The Same F I
	A reaction: Perry notes that Geach's view is in conscious opposition to Frege, who had a pure notion of identity. We say 'they are the same insofar as they are animals', but not 'they are the same animal'. Perfect identity involves all possible A's.

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 8. Leibniz's Law

16073	Leibniz's Law is incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate [Geach, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: Geach rejects the standard formulation of Leibniz's Law as incomplete, since it includes a non-relativized identity predicate.
	From: report of Peter Geach (Reference and Generality (3rd ed) [1980]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 6
	A reaction: Not many people accept Geach's premiss that identity is a relative matter. I agree with Wiggins on this, that identity is an absolute (and possibly indefinable). The problem with the Law is what you mean by a 'property'.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity

13081	Even extreme modal realists might allow transworld identity for abstract objects [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: It might be suggested that even the extreme modal realist can countenance transworld identity for abstract objects.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 3.2.2 n46)
	A reaction: This may sound right for uncontroversial or well-defined abstracta such as numbers and circles, but even 'or' is ambiguous, and heaven knows what the transworld identity of 'democracy' is!

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / c. Explanations by coherence

13071	We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
	Full Idea: The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
	From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
	A reaction: This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles

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.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure

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.