13 ideas
16039 | Supervenience: No A-difference without a B-difference [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: The slogan for supervenience might be 'there cannot be an A-difference without a B-difference'. …(qualifying as a 'perfect forgery' would be an example). | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], Intro) | |
A reaction: The key point about supervenience is that it is one-way. Presumably 'tracking' would be a better single word for it than 'dependence', which implies some sort of causal power. Supervenience describes, but doesn't attempt to explain. |
16043 | Supervenience is non-symmetric - sometimes it's symmetric, and sometimes it's one-way [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: Supervenience is neither symmetric nor asymmetric; it is non-symmetric. Sometimes it holds symmetrically. …And sometimes it holds asymmetrically. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], §3.2) | |
A reaction: I think of supervenience as 'tracking'. Stalkers track victims; married couples track one another. Beauty tracks statues, but statues don't seem to track beauty. I take so-called mind-brain supervenience to be two-way, not one-way. |
16047 | Weak supervenience is in one world, strong supervenience in all possible worlds [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: Weak supervenience says there is no possible world that contains individuals that are B-indiscernible but A-discernible. Strong supervenience entails the same even if they are in different possible worlds. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], §4.1) | |
A reaction: In other words (I presume), in simple language, the weak version says they happen supervene, the strong version says they have to supervene. |
16040 | Aesthetics, morality and mind supervene on the physical? Modal on non-modal? General on particular? [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: It has been claimed that aesthetic, moral and mental properties supervene upon physical properties, …and that modal truths supervene on non-modal ones, and that general truths supervene on particular ones. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], Intro) | |
A reaction: I am attracted to the last bit. I am bewildered by people who try to derive particular truths from general ones, such as deriving physical behaviour from laws, or the nature of some creature simply from its species. Only some tigers are man-eaters. |
16044 | Some entailments do not involve supervenience, as when brotherhood entails siblinghood [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: Some entailments do not suffice for supervenience. Being a brother entails being a sibling, but being a sibling does not supervene on being a brother. Sarah has a sister and Jack in an only child. Sarah, unlike Jack, is a sibling; neither is a brother. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], §3.2) | |
A reaction: The whole point of supervenience, I take it, is to label a relation of tracking, while offering no explanation of the tracking. Entailment would be a rather powerful explanation, as would a dog's being tied to a cart. |
16046 | Reduction requires supervenience, but does supervenience suffice for reduction? [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: Everyone agrees that reduction requires supervenience, …but the more interesting issue is whether supervenience suffices for reduction. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], §3.3) | |
A reaction: I think we should assume that there is a reason for every genuine case of supervenience (i.e. there are no cases of eternal or ubiquitious coincidence). One-way causation seems to give supervenience without reduction. |
16049 | Definitions of physicalism are compatible with a necessary God [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: All definitions of physicalism are compatible with the existence of a necessarily existing God. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], 5.4) | |
A reaction: All the definitions seem to depend on all the facts covarying with the physical facts, so anything which is invariant (such as divine or platonic entities) will stand outside the definition. Physicalism is more like a credo about all facts whatever. |
16042 | The metaphysically and logically possible worlds are the same, so they are the same strength [Bennett,K] |
Full Idea: Metaphysical necessity is just as strong as logical necessity in that the space of metaphysical possibility is exactly the same as the space of logical possibility: the logically possible worlds = the metaphysically possible worlds. | |
From: Karen Bennett (Supervenience [2011], §3.1) | |
A reaction: I think this is wrong. To be the 'same strength' there would also have to be the same number of logical as metaphysical truths, and I presume that is not the case. There are far more logical than metaphysical possibilities. |
22331 | Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock] |
Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable. | |
From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9 | |
A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement? |
22484 | Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot] |
Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism. | |
From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191 | |
A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea. |
6449 | The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel] |
Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative. | |
From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality | |
A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised. |
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. |