23 ideas
| 14508 | A 'thisness' is a thing's property of being identical with itself (not the possession of self-identity) [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: A thisness is the property of being identical with a certain particular individual - not the property that we all share, of being identical with some individual, but my property of being identical with me, your property of being identical with you etc. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
| A reaction: These philosophers tell you that a thisness 'is' so-and-so, and don't admit that he (and Plantinga) are putting forward a new theory about haecceities, and one I find implausible. I just don't believe in the property of 'being-identical-to-me'. |
| 14511 | There are cases where mere qualities would not ensure an intrinsic identity [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: I have argued that there are possible cases in which no purely qualitative conditions would be both necessary and sufficient for possessing a given thisness. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
| A reaction: Are we perhaps confusing our epistemology with our ontology here? We can ensure that something has identity, or ensure that its identity is knowable. If it is 'something', then it has identity. Er, that's it? |
| 12031 | Essences are taken to be qualitative properties [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Essences have normally been understood to be constituted by qualitative properties. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 1) | |
| A reaction: I add this simple point, because it might be challenged by the view that an essence is a substance, rather than the properties of anything. I prefer that, and would add that substances are individuated by distinctive causal powers. |
| 12034 | If the universe was cyclical, totally indiscernible events might occur from time to time [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: There is a temporal argument for the possibility of non-identical indiscernibles, if there could be a cyclical universe, in which each event was preceded and followed by infinitely many other events qualitatively indiscernible from itself. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: The argument is a parallel to Max Black's indiscernible spheres in space. Adams offers the reply that time might be tightly 'curved', so that the repetition was indeed the same event again. |
| 14510 | Two events might be indiscernible yet distinct, if there was a universe cyclical in time [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Similar to the argument from spatial dispersal, we can argue against the Identity of Indiscernibles from temporal dispersal. It seems there could be a cyclic universe, ..and thus there could be distinct but indiscernible events, separated temporally. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 14509 for spatial dispersal. If cosmologists decided that a cyclical universe was incoherent, would that ruin the argument? Presumably there might even be indistinguishable events in the one universe (in principle!). |
| 16455 | Black's two globes might be one globe in highly curved space [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: If God creates a globe reached by travelling two diameters in a straight line from another globe, this can be described as two globes in Euclidean space, or a single globe in a tightly curved non-Euclidean space. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 3) | |
| A reaction: [my compression of Adams's version of Hacking's response to Black, as spotted by Stalnaker] Hence we save the identity of indiscernibles, by saying we can't be sure that two indiscernibles are not one thing, unusually described. |
| 14507 | Are possible worlds just qualities, or do they include primitive identities as well? [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Is the world - and are all possible worlds - constituted by purely qualitative facts, or does thisness hold a place beside suchness as a fundamental feature of reality? | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], Intro) | |
| A reaction: 'Thisness' and 'suchness' aim to capture Aristotelian notions of the entity and its attributes. Aristotle talks of 'a this'. Adams is after adding 'haecceities' to the world. My intuitive answer is no, there are no 'pure' identities. We add those. |
| 11964 | Possible worlds are world-stories, maximal descriptions of whole non-existent worlds [Adams,RM, by Molnar] |
| Full Idea: According to a theory proposed by Adams, possible worlds are world-stories, that is maximally complete consistent sets of propositions which between them describe non-existent whole worlds. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by George Molnar - Powers 12.2.2 | |
| A reaction: Presumably this places an additional constraint on the view that a world is just a maximal set of propositions. It seems to require coherence as well as consistency. Suppose an object destroys all others objects. Is that a world? |
| 16451 | Adams says anti-haecceitism reduces all thisness to suchness [Adams,RM, by Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist thesis (according to Adams's version) is that all thisnesses are reducible to, or supervenient upon, suchnesses. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Robert C. Stalnaker - Mere Possibilities 3.5 |
| 11901 | Haecceitism may or may not involve some logical connection to essence [Adams,RM, by Mackie,P] |
| Full Idea: Moderate Haecceitism says that thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive, but logically connected with suchnesses. ..Extreme Haecceitism involves the rejection of all logical connections between suchness and thisness, for persons. | |
| From: report of Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been | |
| A reaction: I am coming to the conclusion that they are not linked. That thisness is a feature of our conceptual thinking, and is utterly atomistic and content-free, while suchness is rich and a feature of reality. |
| 14512 | Moderate Haecceitism says transworld identities are primitive, but connected to qualities [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: My position, according to which thisnesses and transworld identities are primitive but logically connected to suchnesses, we may call 'Moderate Haecceitism'. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 6) | |
| A reaction: The rather tentative connection to qualities is to block the possibility of Aristotle being a poached egg, which he (quite reasonably!) holds to be counterintuitive. It all feels like a mess to me. |
| 19712 | Maybe there is plain 'animal' knowledge, and clearly justified 'reflective' knowledge [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: There is a distinction between 'animal knowledge' (which requires only apt belief), and 'reflective knowledge' (requiring both apt and justified belief). | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 5) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Sosa 1991] My inclination (Idea 19711) was to think of knowledge as a continuum (possibly with a contextual component), and this distinction doesn't change my view, though it makes the point. |
| 19703 | Epistemic is normally marked out from moral or pragmatic justifications by its truth-goal [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: It is widely believed that epistemic justification is distinct from other species of justification such as moral or pragmatic justification in that it is intended to serve the so-called 'truth-goal'. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 1) | |
| A reaction: Kvanvig explicitly argues against this view. He broadens the aims, but it strikes me that other aims are all intertwined with truth in some way, so I find this idea quite plausible. |
| 19705 | 'Mentalist' internalism seems to miss the main point, if it might not involve an agent's access [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: Since mentalism remains neutral on whether mental states need be accessible to an agent ...it does not seem to do justice to the intuitions that drive paradigm internalist positions. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 2 A) | |
| A reaction: The rival view is 'access internalism', which implies that you can act on and take responsibility for your knowledge, because you are aware of its grounding. If animals know things, that might fit the mentalist picture better. |
| 19706 | Strong access internalism needs actual awareness; weak versions need possibility of access [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: A strong form of 'access internalism' is when an agent is required to be actually aware of the conditions that constitute justification; a weaker version loosens the accessibility condition, requiring only the ability to access the justification. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 2 B) | |
| A reaction: The super strong version implies that you probably only know one thing at a time, so it must be nonsense. The weaker version has grey areas. I remember roughly the justification, but not the details. The justification is in my diary. Etc. |
| 19707 | Maybe we need access to our justification, and also to know why it justifies [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: Access internalism may also have a truth-conducive conception of justification, where one should not only know what one's reasons are, but also why one's beliefs are probable on one's reasons. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 2 B) | |
| A reaction: [he cites Bonjour 1985] Sounds reasonable. It would seem odd if you had clear access to the reason, but didn't understand it, because you had just learned it by rote. |
| 19709 | Internalism in epistemology over-emphasises deliberation about beliefs [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: The internalist approach in epistemology seems to suggest an over-inellectualized and deliberative picture of our belief-forming activities. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 2.2 B) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as confused. The question is not how do I arrive at my beliefs but what justifies my believing them, and what justifies the beliefs in themselves? My head is full of daft beliefs produced by TV advertising. |
| 19704 | Externalism may imply that identical mental states might go with different justifications [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: According to the 'mentalist' version of internalism, an externalist is someone who maintains that two people can be in the same present mental states while one has a justified belief and the other does not. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 2 A) | |
| A reaction: It seems an unlikely coincidence, that we have identical mental states, but your is (say) reliably created but mine isn't. Nevertheless this does seem to be an implication of externalism, though not a definition of it. |
| 19710 | With a counterfactual account of the causal theory, we get knowledge as tracking or sensitive to truth [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: The causal theory of justification was soon replaced by Nozick's construal of knowledge as counterfactually sensitive to its truth value (that is, it tracks truth). A counterfactual theory of causation connects this to the causal theory. | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is presented as an externalist theory, close to the causal theory (and prior to the reliability theory). But how could you be 'sensitive' to a changing truth if the justification was all external? Externally supported beliefs seem ossified. |
| 19711 | Externalism makes the acquisition of knowledge too easy? [Vahid] |
| Full Idea: Internalists say that externalism is inadequate because it makes the obtaining of knowledge and justified beliefs too easy | |
| From: Hamid Vahid (Externalism/Internalism [2011], 4) | |
| A reaction: This looks like a key issue in epistemology. Do children and animals have lots of knowledge, which they soak up unthinkingly, or do only thinking adults really 'know' things? Why not have degrees of knowledge? |
| 12032 | Direct reference is by proper names, or indexicals, or referential uses of descriptions [Adams,RM] |
| Full Idea: Direct reference is commonly effected by the use of proper names and indexical expressions, and sometimes by what has been called (by Donnellan) the 'referential' use of descriptions. | |
| From: Robert Merrihew Adams (Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity [1979], 2) | |
| A reaction: One might enquire whether the third usage should be described as 'direct', but then I am not sure that there is much of a distinction between references which are or are not 'direct'. Either you (or a sentence) refer or you (or it) don't. |
| 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. |