11 ideas
| 16052 | 'Superdupervenience' is supervenience that has a robustly materialistic explanation [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a ontological supervenience that is robustly explainable in a materialistically explainable way I hereby dub 'superdupervenience'. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: [He credits William Lycan with the actual word] His assumption prior to this introduction is that mere supervenience just adds a new mystery. I take supervenience to be an observation of 'tracking', which presumably needs to be explained. |
| 16053 | 'Global' supervenience is facts tracking varying physical facts in every possible world [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'global supervenience' is standardly expressed as 'there are no two physically possible worlds which are exactly alike in all physical respects but different in some other respect'. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5) | |
| A reaction: [Jaegwon Kim is the source of this concept] The 'local' view will be that they do indeed track, but they could, in principle, come apart. A zombie might be a case of them possibly coming apart. Zombies are silly. |
| 16056 | Don't just observe supervenience - explain it! [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Although the task of explaining supervenience has been little appreciated and little discussed in the philosophical literature, it is time for that to change. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8) | |
| A reaction: I would offer a strong addition to this: be absolutely sure that you are dealing with two distinct things in the supervenience relationship, before you waste time trying to explain how they relate to one another. |
| 16055 | Materialism requires that physics be causally complete [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Any broadly materialistic metaphysical position needs to claim that physics is causally complete. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §6) | |
| A reaction: Since 'physics' is a human creation, I presume he means that physical reality is causally complete. The interaction problem that faced Descartes seems crucial - how could something utterly non-physical effect a physical change? |
| 16054 | Physicalism needs more than global supervenience on the physical [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Global supervenience seems too weak to capture the physical facts determining all the facts. …There could be two spatio-temporal regions alike in all physical respects, but different in some intrinsic non-physical respect. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5) | |
| A reaction: I.e. there might be two physically identical regions, but one contains angels and the other doesn't (so the extra fact isn't tracking the physical facts). Physicalism I take to be the simple denial of the angels. Supervenience is an explanandum. |
| 16057 | Instrumentalism normally says some discourse is useful, but not genuinely true [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Instrumentalist views typically attribute utility to the given body of discourse, but deny that it expresses genuine truths. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8) | |
| A reaction: To me it is obvious to ask why anything could have a high level of utility (especially in accounts of the external physical world) without being true. Falsehoods may sometimes (though I doubt it) be handy in human life, but useful in chemistry…? |
| 21386 | We should accept as explanations all the plausible ways in which something could come about [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The phases of the Moon could happen in all the ways [at least four] which the phenomena in our experience suggest for the explanation of this kind of thing - as long as one is not so enamoured of unique explanations as to groundlessly reject the others. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE], 94) | |
| A reaction: Very interesting, for IBE. While you want to embrace the 'best', it is irrational to reject all of the other candidates, simply because you want a single explanation, if there are no good grounds for the rejection. |
| 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. |
| 14051 | A cosmos is a collection of stars and an earth, with some sort of boundary, movement and shape [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: A cosmos is a circumscribed portion of the heavens containing stars and an earth; it is separated from the unlimited, with a boundary which is rare or dense; it is revolving or stationary; it is round or triangular, or some shape. All these are possible. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE], 88) | |
| A reaction: Notice that there seem to exist the 'heavens' which extend beyond the cosmos. See Idea 14036, saying that there are many other cosmoi in the heavens. |
| 1828 | God does not intervene in heavenly movements, but is beyond all action and perfectly happy [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Let us beware of making the Deity interpose in heavenly movements, for that being we ought to suppose exempt from all occupation and perfectly happy. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Pythocles [c.292 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 10.25 |