5 ideas
| 16210 | Humean supervenience says the world is just a vast mosaic of qualities in space-time [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Humean supervenience says the world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact. We have a geometry of external relations of spatio-temporal distance between points, and local qualities at points. …In short: we have an arrangement of qualities. | |
| From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers II [1986], p.ix-x) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the key fundamental tenet of David Lewis's philosophy. He names it after Hume because it contains no necessary connections. It is 'supervenient' because all worldly truths reduce to and depend on the mosaic. His thesis is contingent. |
| 14366 | An explanation is a table of statistical information [Salmon, by Strevens] |
| Full Idea: On Salmon's statistical relevance view, an explanation is a table of statistical information. | |
| From: report of Wesley Salmon (Statistical Explanation [1970]) by Michael Strevens - No Understanding without Explanation 1 | |
| A reaction: [He cites W.Salmon 1970] When put like that the view sounds incredibly implausible, but maybe a reading of Salmon would improve the case for it. |
| 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. |
| 9426 | The world is just a vast mosaic of little matters of local particular fact [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The world is a vast mosaic of local matters of particular fact, just one little thing and then another. | |
| From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers II [1986]) | |
| A reaction: Basing laws on this picture is what Lewis calls 'Humean Supervenience'. |
| 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. |