54 ideas
| 19648 | Since Kant we think we can only access 'correlations' between thinking and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The central notion of philosophy since Kant is 'correlation' - that we only ever have access to the correlation between thinking and being, and never to either term considered apart from the other. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux's charge is that philosophy has thereby completely failed to grasp the scientific revolution, which has used mathematics to make objectivity possible. Quine and Putnam would be good examples of what he has in mind. |
| 19674 | The Copernican Revolution decentres the Earth, but also decentres thinking from reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The Copernican Revolution is not so much the decentring of observers in the solar system, but (by the mathematizing of nature) the decentring of thought relative to the world within the process of knowledge. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: In other words, I take it, the Copernican Revolution was the discovery of objectivity. That is a very nice addition to my History of Ideas collection. |
| 19657 | In Kant the thing-in-itself is unknowable, but for us it has become unthinkable [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The major shift that has occurred in the conception of thought from Kant's time to ours is from the unknowability of the thing-in-itself to its unthinkability. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux is making the case that philosophy is alienating us more and more from the triumphant realism of the scientific revolution. He says thinking has split from being. He's right. Modern American pragmatists are the worst (not Peirce!). |
| 15477 | Ontology is highly abstract physics, containing placeholders and exclusions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Ontology sets out an even more abstract model of how the world is than theoretical physics, a model that has placeholders for scientific results and excluders for tempting confusions. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: Most modern metaphysicians accept this account. The interesting (mildly!) question is whether physicists will accept it. If the metaphysics is really rooted in physics, a metaphysical physicist is better placed than a metaphysician knowing some physics. |
| 19675 | Since Kant, philosophers have claimed to understand science better than scientists do [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Ever since Kant, to think science as a philosopher has been to claim that science harbours a meaning other than the one delivered by science itself. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The point is that science discovered objectivity (via the mathematising of nature), and Kant utterly rejected objectivity, by enmeshing the human mind in every possible scientific claim. This makes Meillassoux and I very cross. |
| 19649 | Since Kant, objectivity is defined not by the object, but by the statement's potential universality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Kant, objectivity is no longer defined with reference to the object in itself, but rather with reference to the possible universality of an objective statement. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux disapproves of this, as a betrayal by philosophers of the scientific revolution, which gave us true objectivity (e.g. about how the world was before humanity). |
| 4262 | If the only aim was consistent beliefs then new evidence and experiments would be irrelevant [Goldman] |
| Full Idea: If mere consistency is our aim in achieving a coherent set of beliefs, then new evidence and experiments are irrelevant. | |
| From: Alvin I. Goldman (The Internalist Conception of Justification [1980], §VIII) | |
| A reaction: An important reminder. What epistemic duty requires us to attend to anomalous observations, instead of sweeping them under the carpet? |
| 19666 | If we insist on Sufficient Reason the world will always be a mystery to us [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: So long as we continue to believe that there is a reason why things are the way they are rather than some other way, we will construe this world is a mystery, since no such reason will every be vouchsafed to us. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Giving up sufficient reason sounds like a rather drastic response to this. Put it like this: Will we ever be able to explain absolutely everything? No. So will the world always be a little mysterious to us? Yes, obviously. Is that a problem? No! |
| 19656 | Non-contradiction is unjustified, so it only reveals a fact about thinking, not about reality? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The principle of non-contradiction itself is without reason, and consequently it can only be the norm for what is thinkable by us, rather than for what is possible in the absolute sense. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: This is not Meillassoux's view, but describes the modern heresy of 'correlationism', which ties all assessments of how reality is to our capacity to think about it. Personally I take logical non-contradiction to derive from non-contradiction in nature. |
| 15471 | Truth is a relation between a representation ('bearer') and part of the world ('truthmaker') [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Truth is a relation between two things - a representation (the truth 'bearer') and the world or some part of it (the 'truthmaker'). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: That truth is about representations seems to me to be exactly right. That it is about truthmakers is more controversial. There are well known problems with negative truths, general truths, future truths etc. I'm happy with 'facts'. |
| 19663 | We can allow contradictions in thought, but not inconsistency [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: For contemporary logicians, it is not non-contradiction that provides the criterion for what is thinkable, but rather inconsistency. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that para-consistent logic might permit isolated contradictions (as true) within a system, but it is only contradiction across the system (inconsistencies) which make the system untenable. |
| 19664 | Paraconsistent logics are to prevent computers crashing when data conflicts [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics were only developed in order to prevent computers, such as expert medical systems, from deducing anything whatsoever from contradictory data, because of the principle of 'ex falso quodlibet'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) |
| 19665 | Paraconsistent logic is about statements, not about contradictions in reality [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Paraconsistent logics are only ever dealing with contradictions inherent in statements about the world, never with the real contradictions in the world. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: Thank goodness for that! I can accept that someone in a doorway is both in the room and not in the room, but not that they are existing in a real state of contradiction. I fear that a few daft people embrace the logic as confirming contradictory reality. |
| 19677 | What is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must establish the thesis that what is mathematically conceivable is absolutely possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 5) | |
| A reaction: The truth of this thesis would permanently establish mathematics as the only possible language of science. Personally I have no idea how you could prove or assess such a thesis. It is a lovely speculation, though. 'The structure of the possible' (p,127) |
| 19659 | The absolute is the impossibility of there being a necessary existent [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We maintain that it is absolutely necessary that every entity might not exist. ...The absolute is the absolute impossibility of a necessary being. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is the main thesis of his book. The usual candidates for necessary existence are God, and mathematical objects. I am inclined to agree with Meillassoux. |
| 19662 | It is necessarily contingent that there is one thing rather than another - so something must exist [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is necessary that there be something rather than nothing because it is necessarily contingent that there is something rather than something else. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: The great charm of metaphysics is the array of serious answers to the question of why there is something rather than nothing. You'll need to read Meillassoux's book to understand this one. |
| 19654 | We must give up the modern criterion of existence, which is a correlation between thought and being [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: It is incumbent upon us to break with the ontological requisite of the moderns, according to which 'to be is to be a correlate'. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: He blames Kant for this pernicious idea, which has driven philosophy away from realist science, when it should be supporting and joining it. As a realist I agree, and find Meillassoux very illuminating on the subject. |
| 15484 | A property is a combination of a disposition and a quality [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take properties to have a dual nature; in virtue of possessing a property, an object possesses both a particular dispositionality and a particular qualitative character. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: That leaves you with the question of the relationship between the disposition and the quality. I say you must choose, and I choose the disposition. Qualities (which are partly subjective, obviously) arise from fundamental dispositions. |
| 15478 | Properties are the respects in which objects resemble, which places them in classes [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: If objects belong to classes in virtue of resemblances they bear to one another, they resemble one another in virtue of their properties. Objects resemble in some way or respect, and you could think of these ways or respects as 'properties'. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: If you pare the universe down to one object with five distinct properties, they resemble nothing, and fail this definition. Resemblance seems like the epistemology, not the ontology. |
| 15483 | Properties are ways particular things are, and so they are tied to the identity of their possessor [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The redness or sphericity of this tomato cannot migrate to another tomato. This is a consequence of the idea that properties are particular ways things are. The identity of a property is bound up with the identity of its possessor. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: This is part of his declaration that he believes in tropes. At the very least, properties can be thought of separately, and have second-order properties that don't seem tied to the particulars. |
| 15480 | Objects are not bundles of tropes (which are ways things are, not parts of things) [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The bundle theory for tropes treats properties inappositely as parts of objects. Objects can have parts, but an object's properties are not its parts, they are particular ways the object is. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: The 'way an object is' seems a very vague concept. Most things that get labelled as tropes are actually highly complex. Without mention of causal powers I think these discussions drift in a muddle. |
| 15489 | A property that cannot interact is worse than inert - it isn't there at all [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: A property that is intrinsically incapable of affecting or being affected by anything else, actual or possible, is not merely a case of inertness - it amounts to a no-thing. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin rejects Shoemaker's purely causal account of properties, but he clearly understands Shoemaker's point well. |
| 15487 | If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Given a realist view of dispositions as fully actual, even without manifestations or partners, a purely dispositional account of properties has a degree of plausibility, which is enhanced because properties lack purely qualitative characterisations. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.4) | |
| A reaction: In the end Martin opts for a mixed account, as in Idea 15484, but he gives reasons here for the view which I favour. If he concedes that dispositions may exist without manifestation, they must surely lack qualities. Are they not properties, then? |
| 15479 | Properties endow a ball with qualities, and with powers or dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Each property endows a ball with a distinctive qualitative character and a distinctive range of powers or dispositionalities. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the wrong way round. Do properties support powers, or powers support properties? I favour the latter. Properties are much vaguer than powers. Powers generate the required causation and activity. |
| 15488 | Qualities and dispositions are aspects of properties - what it exhibits, and what it does [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: For any intrinsic and irreducible property, what is qualitative and what is dispositional are one and the same property considered as what that property exhibits of its nature and what that property is directive and selective for in its manifestation. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 06.6) | |
| A reaction: This is supposed to support qualities and dispositions as equal partners, but I don't see how 'what a property exhibits' can have any role in fundamental ontology. What it exhibits may be very misleading about its nature. |
| 15469 | Dispositions in action can be destroyed, be recovered, or remain unchanged [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Three forms of dispositionality are illustrated by explosives (which are destroyed by manifestation), being soluble (where the dispositions is lost but recoverable), and being stable (where the disposition is unchanged). | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.7) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Presumably the explosives could be recovered after the explosion, since the original elements are still there, but it would take a while. The retina remains stable by continually changing. There are no simple distinctions! |
| 15467 | Powers depend on circumstances, so can't be given a conditional analysis [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Nobody believes, or ought to believe, that manifestations of powers follow upon the single event mentioned in the antecedent of the conditional independently of the circumstances. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.4) | |
| A reaction: Another way of putting it would be that the behaviour of powers is more ceteris paribus than law. |
| 15466 | 'The wire is live' can't be analysed as a conditional, because a wire can change its powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: According to the conditional analysis of 'the wire is live', if the wire is touched then it gives off electricity. What ultimately defeats this analysis is the acknowledged possibility of objects gaining or losing powers. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.3) | |
| A reaction: He offers his 'electro-fink' as a counterexample, where touching the wire changes its disposition. The conditional analysis is simple and clearcut, but dispositions in reality are complex and unstable. |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I take it as obvious that any structural property involves dispositionality and, therefore, cannot be used to 'explain' dispositionality. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: I think this is the right way round. The so-called 'categorical' properties seem to be close in nature to the 'structural' properties. |
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It is self-defeating to try to explain dispositionality in terms of structural states because structural states are themselves dispositional. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 01.2) | |
| A reaction: No doubt structures have dispositions, but are they entirely dispositional? Might there be 'emergent' dispositions which can only be explained by the structure itself, rather than by the dispositions that make up the structure? |
| 15481 | I favour the idea of a substratum for properties; spacetime seems to be just a bearer of properties [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: I favour the old idea of substratum: the haver of properties not itself had as a property. Space-time might itself be the bearer of properties, not itself borne as a property. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: A very nice idea. The choice is between saying either that fundamentals like space-time and physical fields are the propertyless bearers of properties, or that they purely consist of properties (so properties are fundamental, not substrata). |
| 15474 | Properly understood, wholes do no more causal work than their parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: There is no causal work for the whole that is not done by the parts, provided the complex role of the parts is fully appreciated. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.1) | |
| A reaction: It seems like a truth that because some parts are doing particular causal work (e.g. glue), the whole can acquire causal powers that the mereological sum of parts lacks. |
| 15486 | Only abstract things can have specific and full identity specifications [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Abstract entities (as nonspatiotemporal) seem to be the only candidates for specific and full identity specifications. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.2 n1) | |
| A reaction: Martin says that only the 'mad logician' seeks such specifications elsewhere. Some people like persons to have perfect identity. God is a popular candidate too. Can objects have perfect 'macroscopic' identity? |
| 15475 | The concept of 'identity' must allow for some changes in properties or parts [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: We must avoid a use of 'identity' that implies that any entity over time must be said to lack continuing identity simply because it has changed properties or has lost, added, or had substituted some parts. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.3) | |
| A reaction: This may the key area where the logical-mathematical type of philosophy comes into contact with the natural-metaphysical type. Imagine Martin's concept of 'identity' in mathematics. π changes to 3.1387... during the calculation! |
| 19660 | Possible non-being which must be realised is 'precariousness'; absolute contingency might never not-be [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: My term 'precariousness' designates a possibility of not-being which must eventually be realised. By contrast, absolute contingency designates a pure possibility; one which may never be realised. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 3) | |
| A reaction: I thoroughly approve of this distinction, because I have often enountered the assumption that all contingency is precariousness, and I have never seen why that should be so. In Aquinas's Third Way, for example. The 6 on a die may never come up. |
| 19671 | The idea of chance relies on unalterable physical laws [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The very notion of chance is only conceivable on condition that there are unalterable physical laws. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Laws might be contingent, even though they never alter. Chance in horse racing relies on the stability of whole institution of horse racing. |
| 15472 | It is pointless to say possible worlds are truthmakers, and then deny that possible worlds exist [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: To claim that the truthmaker for a counterfactual, for example, is a set of possible worlds, but to deny that these worlds really exist, seems pointless. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Lewis therefore argues that they do exist. Martin argues that possible worlds are not truthmakers. He rests his account of modality on dispositions. I prefer Martin. |
| 19651 | Unlike speculative idealism, transcendental idealism assumes the mind is embodied [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: What distinguishes transcendental idealism from speculative idealism is the fact that the former does not posit the existence of the transcendental subject apart from its bodily individuation. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: These modern French philosophers explain things so much more clearly than the English! The 'speculative' version is seen in Berkeley. On p.17 he says transcendental idealism is 'civilised', and speculative idealism is 'uncouth'. |
| 19647 | The aspects of objects that can be mathematical allow it to have objective properties [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: All aspects of the object that can give rise to a mathematical thought rather than to a perception or a sensation can be meaningfully turned into the properties of the thing not only as it is with me, but also as it is without me. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Meillassoux's spin on the primary/secondary distinction, which he places at the heart of the scientific revolution. Cartesian dualism offers a separate space for the secondary qualities. He is appalled when philosophers reject the distinction. |
| 19652 | How can we mathematically describe a world that lacks humans? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: How is mathematical discourse able to describe a reality where humanity is absent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: He is referring to the prehistoric world. He takes this to be a key question about the laws of nature. We extrapolate mathematically from the experienced world, relying on the stability of the laws. Must they be necessary to be stable? No, it seems. |
| 19668 | Hume's question is whether experimental science will still be valid tomorrow [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Hume's question can be formulated as follows: can we demonstrate that the experimental science which is possible today will still be possible tomorrow? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Could there be deep universal changes going on in nature which science could never, even in principle, detect? |
| 15492 | Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Explanations are mind-dependent, theory-laden, and interest-relative. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.2) | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can rule out the 'real' explanation, as the one dominant causal predecessor, such as the earthquake producing a tsunami. |
| 15495 | Analogy works, as when we eat food which others seem to be relishing [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The long-derided way of analogy works! Otherwise why, when someone else is relishing a food we have not tried, is it reasonable for us to try it ourselves? | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 12.2) | |
| A reaction: Why wouldn't we rush to eat something an animal was relishing? Nice idea. |
| 15493 | Memory requires abstraction, as reminders of what cannot be fully remembered [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Selectivity and abstraction are required for the development of memory, because reminders and promptings are rarely replicas of what is being remembered. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: I take the key idea of mental life to be that of a 'label'. This need not be verbal, so 'conceptual label'. It could be an image, as on a road sign. Labelling is the most indispensable aspect of thought. We label objects, parts, properties and groups. |
| 19650 | The transcendental subject is not an entity, but a set of conditions making science possible [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The transcendental subject simply cannot be said to exist; which is to say that the subject is not an entity, but rather a set of conditions rendering objective scientific knowledge of entities possible. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux treats this as part of the Kantian Disaster, which made an accurate account of the scientific revolution impossible for philosophers. Kant's ego seems to have primarily an epistemological role. |
| 15485 | Instead of a cause followed by an effect, we have dispositions in reciprocal manifestation [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: The two-event cause-and-effect view is easily avoided and replaced by the view of mutual manifestations of reciprocal disposition partners, suggesting a natural contemporaneity. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: This view, which I find much more congenial than the traditional one, is explored in the ideas of Mumford and Anjum. |
| 15491 | Causation should be explained in terms of dispositions and manifestations [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Disposition and manifestation are the basic categories by means of which cause and effect are to be explained. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 07.8) | |
| A reaction: 'Manifestation' sounds a bit subjective. The manifestation evident to us may not indicate what is really going on below the surface. I like his basic picture. |
| 15468 | Causal counterfactuals are just clumsy linguistic attempts to indicate dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: 'Causal' counterfactuals have a place, of course, but only as clumsy and inexact linguistic gestures to dispositions, and they should be kept in that place. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.6) | |
| A reaction: Counterfactuals only seem to give a regularity account of causation, by correlating an effect with a minimal context which will give rise to it. Surely dispositions run deeper than that? |
| 19667 | If the laws of nature are contingent, shouldn't we already have noticed it? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: The standard objection is that if the laws of nature were actually contingent, we would already have noticed it. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meillassoux offers a sustained argument that the laws of nature are necessarily contingent. In Idea 19660 he distinguishes contingencies that must change from those that merely could change. |
| 19670 | Why are contingent laws of nature stable? [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: We must ask how we are to explain the manifest stability of physical laws, given that we take these to be contingent? | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 4) | |
| A reaction: Meissalloux offers a very deep and subtle answer to this question... It is based on the possibilities of chaos being an uncountable infinity... It is a very nice question, which physicists might be able to answer, without help from philosophy. |
| 15470 | Causal laws are summaries of powers [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: Causal laws are summaries of what entities are capable and incapable of. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 02.8) | |
| A reaction: That's a pretty good formulation. Personally I favour a Humean analysis, perhaps along Lewis's lines, but on a basis of real powers. This remark of Martin's has got me rethinking. |
| 15482 | We can't think of space-time as empty and propertyless, and it seems to be a substratum [Martin,CB] |
| Full Idea: It makes no sense in ontology or modern physics to think of space-time as empty and propertyless. Space-time nicely fulfils the condition of a substratum. | |
| From: C.B. Martin (The Mind in Nature [2008], 04.6) | |
| A reaction: At the very least, space-time seems to be 'curved', so it had better be something. Time has properties like being transitive. Space-time (or fields) might be a pure bundle of properties (the only pure bundle?), rather than a substratum. |
| 19653 | The ontological proof of a necessary God ensures a reality external to the mind [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Since Descartes conceives of God as existing necessarily, whether I exist to think of him or not, Descartes assures me of a possible access to an absolute reality - a Great Outdoors that is not a correlate of my thought. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: His point is that the ontological argument should be seen as part of the scientific revolution, and not an anomaly within it. Interesting. |
| 19658 | Now that the absolute is unthinkable, even atheism is just another religious belief (though nihilist) [Meillassoux] |
| Full Idea: Once the absolute has become unthinkable, even atheism, which also targets God's inexistence in the manner of an absolute, is reduced to a mere belief, and hence to a religion, albeit of the nihilist kind. | |
| From: Quentin Meillassoux (After Finitude; the necessity of contingency [2006], 2) | |
| A reaction: An interesting claim. Rather hard to agree or disagree, though the idea that atheism must qualify as a religion seems odd. If it is unqualified it does have the grand quality of a religion, but if it is fallibilist it just seems like an attitude. |