66 ideas
| 3656 | The greatest good for a state is true philosophers [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The greatest good which can exist in a state is to have true philosophers. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
| A reaction: …because they understand true reality, especially the Good. |
| 5486 | Essentialism says metaphysics can't be done by analysing unreliable language [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The new essentialism leads to a turning away from semantic analysis as a fundamental tool for the pursuit of metaphysical aims, ..since there is no reason to think that the language we speak accurately reflects the kind of world we live in. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The last part of that strikes me as false. We have every reason to think that a lot of our language very accurately reflects reality. It had better, because we have no plan B. We should analyse our best concepts, but not outdated, culture-laden ones. |
| 12695 | Epicurean atomists say body is sensible, to distinguish it from space. [Garber] |
| Full Idea: The Epicurean atomists also defined body in terms of the property of being sensible, in order to distinguish it from empty space, which is not sensible. | |
| From: Daniel Garber (Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad [2009], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is a very illuminating bit of background, for those of us who have the knee-jerk reaction that monadology is barking mad. |
| 5468 | Properties are 'dispositional', or 'categorical' (the latter as 'block' or 'intrinsic' structures) [Ellis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: 'Dispositional' properties involve behaviour, and 'categorical properties' are structures in two or more dimensions. 'Block' structures (e.g. molecules) depend on other things, and 'instrinsic' structures (e.g. fields) involve no separate parts. | |
| From: report of Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This is an essentialist approach to properties, and sounds correct to me. The crucial preliminary step to understanding properties is to eliminate secondary qualities (e.g. colour), which are not properties at all, and cause confusion. |
| 5469 | The passive view of nature says categorical properties are basic, but others say dispositions [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: 'Categorical realism' is the most widely accepted theory of dispositional properties, because passivists can accept it, ..that is, that dispositions supervene on categorical properties; ..the opposite would imply nature is active and reactive. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: Essentialists believe 'the opposite' - i.e. that dispositions are fundamental, and hence that the essence of nature is active. See 5468 for explanations of the distinctions. I am with the essentialists on this one. |
| 5456 | Redness is not a property as it is not mind-independent [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Redness is not a property, because it has no mind-independent existence. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: Well said. Secondary qualities are routinely cited in discussions of properties, and they shouldn't be. Redness causes nothing to happen in the physical world, unless a consciousness experiences it. |
| 16744 | All powers can be explained by obvious features like size, shape and motion of matter [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There are no powers in stones and plants that are not so mysterious that they cannot be explained …from principles that are known to all and admitted by all, namely the shape, size, position, and motion of particles of matter. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], IV.187), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6 | |
| A reaction: This is an invocation of 'categorical' properties, against dispositions. I take this to be quite wrong. The explanation goes the other way. What supports the structures; what drives the motion; what initiates anything? |
| 5481 | Properties have powers; they aren't just ways for logicians to classify objects [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: One cannot think of a property as just a set of objects in a domain (as Fregean logicians do), as though the property has no powers, but is just a way of classifying objects. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I agree. It is sometimes suggested that properties are what 'individuate' objects, but how could they do that if they didn't have some power? If properties are known by their causal role, why do they have that causal role? |
| 5458 | Nearly all fundamental properties of physics are dispositional [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: With few, if any, exceptions, the fundamental properties of physical theory are dispositional properties of the things that have them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: He is denying that they are passive (as Locke saw primary qualities), and says they are actively causal, or else capacities or propensities. Sounds right to me. |
| 5016 | Five universals: genus, species, difference, property, accident [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The five commonly enumerated universals are: genus, species, difference, property and accident. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, this seems to be Descartes passing on his medieval Aristotelian inheritance, in which things are defined by placing them in a class, and then noting what distinguishes them within that class. |
| 5015 | A universal is a single idea applied to individual things that are similar to one another [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Universals arise solely from the fact that we avail ourselves of one idea in order to think of all individual things that have a certain similitude. When we understand under the same name all the objects represented by this idea, that name is universal. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.59) | |
| A reaction: Judging by the boldness of the pronouncement, it looks as if Descartes hasn't recognised the complexity of the problem. How do we spot a 'similarity', especially an abstraction like 'tool' or 'useful'? This sounds like Descartes trying to avoid Platonism. |
| 16630 | If we perceive an attribute, we infer the existence of some substance [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Based on perceiving the presence of some attribute, we conclude there must also be present an existing thing or substance to which it can be attributed. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.52), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.1 | |
| A reaction: A rainbow might be a tricky case. This illustrates the persistent belief in substances, even among philosophers who embraced the new corpuscular and mechanistic view of matter. |
| 5013 | A substance needs nothing else in order to exist [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: By substance we can understand nothing else than a thing which so exists that it needs no other thing in order to exist. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.51) | |
| A reaction: Properties, of course, are the things which have dependent existence. Can properties be reduced to substances (e.g. by adopting a materialist theory of mind)? Note that Descartes does not think that substances depend on God for existence. |
| 5443 | Kripke and others have made essentialism once again respectable [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The revival of essentialism owes much to the work of Saul Kripke and Hilary Putnam, who made belief in essences once again respectable, with Harré and Madden arguing that there were real causal powers in nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me important to separate two stages of this: 1) causation results from essences, and 2) essences can never change. The first seems persuasive to me. For the second, see METAPHYSICS/IDENTITY/COUNTERPARTS. |
| 5444 | 'Individual essences' fix a particular individual, and 'kind essences' fix the kind it belongs to [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The new essentialism retains Aristotelian ideas about essential properties, but it distinguishes more clearly between 'individual essences' and 'kind essences'; the former define a particular individual, the latter what kind it belongs to. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: This might actually come into conflict with Aristotle, who seems to think that my personal essence is largely a human nature I share with everyone else. The new distinction is trying to keep the Kantian individual on the stage. |
| 16633 | A substance has one principal property which is its nature and essence [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Each substance has one principal property that constitutes its nature and essence, to which all its other properties are referred. Extension in length, breadth, and depth constitutes the nature of corporeal substance; and thought of thinking substances. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 08.3 | |
| A reaction: Property is likely to be 'propria', which is a property distinctive of some thing, not just any old modern property. This is quite a strikingly original view of the nature of essence. Descartes despised 'substantial forms'. |
| 5462 | Essential properties are usually quantitatively determinate [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Most of the essential properties of things are quantitatively determinate properties. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This makes the essential nature of the world very much the province of science, which deals in quantities and equations. Essentialists must deal with mental events, as well as basic physics. |
| 5448 | 'Real essence' makes it what it is; 'nominal essence' makes us categorise it a certain way [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The 'real essence' of a thing is that set of its properties or structures in virtue of which it is a thing of that kind; its 'nominal essence' is the properties or structures in virtue of which it is described as a thing of that kind. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I like this distinction, because it is the kind made by realists like me who are fighting to make philosophers keep their epistemology and their ontology separate. |
| 5477 | One thing can look like something else, without being the something else [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: In considering questions of real possibility, it is important to keep the distinction between what a thing is and what it looks like clearly in mind. There is a possible world containing a horse that could then look like a cow, but it wouldn't BE a horse. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This is an interesting test assertion of the notion that there are essences (although Ellis does not allow that animals actually have essences - how could you, given evolution?). His point is a good one. |
| 5479 | Scientific essentialists say science should define the limits of the possible [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Scientific essentialists hold that one of the primary aims of science is to define the limits of the possible. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure working scientists will go along with that, but I like the claim that philosophy is very much part of the same enterprise as practical science (and NOT subservient to it!). I think of metaphysics as very high level physics. |
| 5483 | Essentialists deny possible worlds, and say possibilities are what is compatible with the actual world [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists are modal realists; ..what is really possible, they say, is what is compatible with the natures of things in this world (and this does not commit them to the existence of any world other than the actual world). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This introduces something like 'compatibilities' into our ontology. That must rest on some kind of idea of a 'natural contradiction'. We can discuss the possibilities resulting from essences, but what are the possible variations in the essences? |
| 5447 | Metaphysical necessities are true in virtue of the essences of things [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysical necessities are propositions that are true in virtue of the essences of things. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: I am cautious about this. It sounds like huge Leibnizian metaphysical claims riding in on the back of a rather sensible new view of the laws of science. How can we justify equating natural necessity with metaphysical necessity? |
| 5476 | Essentialists say natural laws are in a new category: necessary a posteriori [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists do not accept the standard position, which says necessity is a priori, and contingency is a posteriori. They have a radically new category: the necessary a posteriori. The laws of nature are, for example, both necessary and a posteriori. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: Based on Kripke. I'm cautious about this. Presumably God, who would know the essences, could therefore infer the laws a priori. The laws may follow of necessity from the essences, but the essences can't be known a posteriori to be necessary. |
| 5478 | Imagination tests what is possible for all we know, not true possibility [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The imaginability test of possibility confuses what is really or metaphysically possible with what is only epistemically possible. ..The latter is just what is possible for all we know. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) |
| 5482 | Possible worlds realism is only needed to give truth conditions for modals and conditionals [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The main trouble with possible worlds realism is that the only reason anyone has, or ever could have, to believe in other possible worlds (other than this one) is that they are needed, apparently, to provide truth conditions for modals and conditionals. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This attacks Lewis. Ellis makes this sound like a trivial technicality, but if our metaphysics is going to make sense it must cover modals and conditionals. What do they actually mean? Lewis has a theory, at least. |
| 3658 | Total doubt can't include your existence while doubting [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: He who decides to doubt everything cannot nevertheless doubt that he exists while he doubts. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) |
| 5005 | I think, therefore I am, because for a thinking thing to not exist is a contradiction [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: There is a contradiction in conceiving that what thinks does not (at the same time as it thinks) exist. Hence this conclusion I think, therefore I am, is the first and most certain that occurs to one who philosophises in an orderly way. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.07) | |
| A reaction: The classic statement of his argument. The significance here is that it seems to have the structure of an argument, as it involves 'philosophising', which leads to a 'contradiction', and hence to the famous conclusion. It is not just intuitive. |
| 5006 | 'Thought' is all our conscious awareness, including feeling as well as understanding [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: By the word 'thought' I understand everything we are conscious of as operating in us. And that is why not only understanding, willing, imagining, but also feeling, are here the same thing as thinking. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.09) | |
| A reaction: There is a bit of tension here between Descartes' correct need to include feeling in thought for his Cogito argument, and his tendency to dismiss animal consciousness, on the grounds that they only sense things, and don't make judgements. |
| 5012 | 'Nothing comes from nothing' is an eternal truth found within the mind [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The proposition 'nothing comes from nothing' is not to be considered as an existing thing, or the mode of a thing, but as a certain eternal truth which has its seat in our mind and is a common notion or axiom. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.49) | |
| A reaction: There is a tension here, in his assertion that it is 'eternal', but 'not existing'. How does one distinguish an innate idea from an innate truth? 'Eternal' sounds like an external guarantee of truth, but being 'in our mind' sounds less reliable. |
| 5453 | Essentialists mostly accept the primary/secondary qualities distinction [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists mostly accept the distinction between primary and secondary qualities, ..where the primary qualities of things are those that are intrinsic to the objects that have them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: One reason I favour essentialism is because I have always thought that the primary/secondary distinction was a key to understanding the world. 'Primary' gets at the ontology, 'secondary' shows us the epistemology. |
| 5466 | Primary qualities are number, figure, size, texture, motion, configuration, impenetrability and (?) mass [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: For Boyle, Locke and Newton, the qualities inherent in bodies were just the primary qualities, namely number, figure, size, texture, motion and configuration of parts, impenetrability and, perhaps, body (or mass). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: It is nice to have a list. Ellis goes on to say these are too passive, and urges dispositions as primary. Even so, the original seventeenth century insight seems to me a brilliant step forward in our understanding of the world. |
| 5004 | We can know basic Principles without further knowledge, but not the other way round [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is on the Principles, or first causes, that the knowledge of other things depends, so the Principles can be known without these last, but the other things cannot reciprocally be known without the Principles. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], Pref) | |
| A reaction: A particularly strong assertion of foundationalism, as it says that not only must the foundations exist, but also we must actually know them. This sounds false, as elementary knowledge then seems to require far too much sophistication. |
| 5485 | Emeralds are naturally green, and only an external force could turn them blue [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Emeralds cannot all turn blue in 2050 (as Nelson Goodman envisaged), because to do so they would have to have an extrinsically variable nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I was never very impressed by the 'grue' problem, probably for this reason, but also because Goodman probably thought predicates and properties are the same thing, which they aren't (Idea 5457). |
| 5484 | Essentialists don't infer from some to all, but from essences to necessary behaviour [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: For essentialists the problem of induction reduces to discovering what natural kinds there are, and identifying their essential problems and structures. We then know how they must behave in any world, and there is no inference from some to all. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The obvious question is how you would determine the essences if you are not allowed to infer 'from some to all'. Personally I don't see induction as a problem, because it is self-evidently rational in a stable world. Hume was right to recommend caution. |
| 5014 | We can understand thinking occuring without imagination or sensation [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We can understand thinking without imagination or sensation, as is quite clear to anyone who attends to the matter. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.53) | |
| A reaction: We may certainly take it that Descartes means if it is understandable then it is logically possible. To believe that thinking could occur without imagination strikes me as an astonishing error. I take imagination to be more central than understanding. |
| 5017 | In thinking we shut ourselves off from other substances, showing our identity and separateness [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Because each one of us understands what he thinks, and that in thinking he can shut himself off from every other substance, we may conclude that each of us is really distinct from every other thinking substance and from corporeal substance. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a novel argument which requires elucidation. I can 'shut myself off from every other substance'? If I shut myself off from thinking about food, does that mean hunger is not part of me? Or convince yourself that you don't have a brother? |
| 5010 | Our free will is so self-evident to us that it must be a basic innate idea [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: It is so evident that we are possessed of a free will that can give or withhold its assent, that this may be counted as one of the first and most common notions found innately in us. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.39) | |
| A reaction: It seems to me plausible to say that we have an innate conception of our own will (our ability to make decisions), though Hume says we only learn about the will from experience, but the idea that it is absolutely 'free' might never cross our minds. |
| 5011 | There are two ultimate classes of existence: thinking substance and extended substance [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I observe two ultimate classes of things: intellectual or thinking things, pertaining to the mind or to thinking substance, and material things, pertaining to extended substance or to body. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.48) | |
| A reaction: This is clear confirmation that Descartes believed the mind is a substance, rather than an insubstantial world of thinking. It leaves open the possibility of a different theory: that mind is not a substance, but is a Platonic adjunct to reality. |
| 5018 | Even if tightly united, mind and body are different, as God could separate them [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: Even if we suppose God had united a body and a soul so closely that they couldn't be closer, and made a single thing out of the two, they would still remain distinct, because God has the power of separating them, or conserving out without the other. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.60) | |
| A reaction: If Descartes lost his belief in God (after discussing existence with Kant) would he cease to be a dualist? This quotation seems to be close to conceding a mind-body relationship more like supervenience than interaction. |
| 5007 | Most errors of judgement result from an inaccurate perception of the facts [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: What usually misleads us is that we very frequently form a judgement although we do not have an accurate perception of what we judge. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.33) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a generally accurate observation, particularly in the making of moral judgements (which was probably not what Descartes was considering). The implication is that judgements are to a large extent forced by our perceptions. |
| 5457 | Predicates assert properties, values, denials, relations, conventions, existence and fabrications [Ellis, by PG] |
| Full Idea: As well as properties, predicates can assert evaluation, denial, relations, conventions, existence or fabrication. | |
| From: report of Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: This seems important, in order to disentangle our ontological commitments from our language, which was a confusion that ran throughout twentieth-century philosophy. A property is a real thing in the world, not a linguistic convention. |
| 5488 | Regularity theories of causation cannot give an account of human agency [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A Humean theory of causation (as observed regularities) makes it very difficult for anyone even to suggest a plausible theory of human agency. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure what a 'theory' of human agency would look like. Hume himself said we only get to understand our mental powers from repeated experience (Idea 2220). How do we learn about the essence of our own will? |
| 5489 | Humans have variable dispositions, and also power to change their dispositions [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: It seems that human beings not only have variable dispositional properties, as most complex systems have, but also meta-powers: powers to change their own dispositional properties. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a key to how we act, and also to morality. 'What dispositions do you want to have?' is the central question of virtue theory. Humans are essentially multi-level thinkers. Irony is the window into the soul. |
| 5009 | We do not praise the acts of an efficient automaton, as their acts are necessary [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: We do not praise automata, although they respond exactly to the movements they were designed to produce, since their actions are performed necessarily | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
| A reaction: I say we attribute responsibility when we perceive something like a 'person' as causing them. We don't blame small animals, because there is 'no one at home', but we blame children as they develop a full character and identity. We can ignore free will. |
| 5008 | The greatest perfection of man is to act by free will, and thus merit praise or blame [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: That the will should extend widely accords with its nature, and it is the greatest perfection in man to be able to act by its means, that is, freely, and by so doing we are in peculiar way masters of our actions, and thereby merit praise or blame. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], I.37) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be a deep-rooted and false understanding which philosophy has inherited from theology. It doesn't strike me that there must an absolute 'buck-stop' to make us responsible. Why is it better for a decision to appear out of nowhere? |
| 5490 | Essentialism fits in with Darwinism, but not with extreme politics of left or right [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The extremes of left and right in politics have much more reason than Darwinists to be threatened by the 'new essentialism', because it must reinstate the concept of human nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: The point being that political extremes go against the grain of our nature. Personally I am favour of essentialism, and human nature. I notice that Steven Pinker is now defending human nature, from a background of linguistics and psychology. |
| 15987 | Physics only needs geometry or abstract mathematics, which can explain and demonstrate everything [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: I do not accept or desire any other principle in physics than in geometry or abstract mathematics, because all the phenomena of nature may be explained by their means, and sure demonstrations can be given of them. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.64), quoted by Peter Alexander - Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles 7 | |
| A reaction: This is his famous and rather extreme view, which might be described as hyper-pythagoreanism (by adding geometry to numbers). It seems to leave out matter, forces and activity. |
| 12730 | We will not try to understand natural or divine ends, or final causes [Descartes] |
|
Full Idea:
We will not seek for the reason of natural things from the end which God or nature has set before him in their creation |
|
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], §28) | |
| A reaction: Teleology is more relevant to biology than to the other sciences, and it is hard to understand an eye without a notion of 'what it is for'. Planetary motion reveals nothing about purposes. If you demand a purpose, it becomes more baffling. |
| 12705 | Epicurean atoms are distinguished by their extreme hardness [Garber] |
| Full Idea: In Epicurean atomism (of Cordemoy, for example) there is a world of basic things distinguished by virtue of their extreme hardness. | |
| From: Daniel Garber (Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: Garber says that Leibniz espouses 'substantial atomism', which is different from this. Leibniz's atoms have active power, where these atoms just embody total resistance. |
| 16601 | Matter is not hard, heavy or coloured, but merely extended in space [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The nature of matter, or body viewed as a whole, consists not in its being something which is hard, heavy, or colored, or which in any other way affects the senses, but only in its being a thing extended in length, breadth and depth. | |
| From: René Descartes (Principles of Philosophy [1646], 2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 04.5 |
| 5472 | Natural kinds are of objects/substances, or events/processes, or intrinsic natures [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds appear to be of objects or substances, or of events or processes, or of the intrinsic nature of things; hence there should be laws of nature specific to each of these categories. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: It is nice to see someone actually discussing what sort of natural kinds there are, instead of getting bogged down in how natural kinds terms get their meaning or reference. Ellis recognises that 'intrinsic nature' needs some discussion. |
| 5471 | Essentialism says natural kinds are fundamental to nature, and determine the laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: According to essentialists, the world is wholly structured at the most fundamental level into natural kinds, and the laws of nature are all determined by those kinds. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: I am a fan of this view, despite being cautious about claims that natural kinds have necessary identity. Why are the essences active? That is the old Greek puzzle about the origin of movement. And why are natural kinds stable? |
| 5446 | For essentialists two members of a natural kind must be identical [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Modern essentialists would insist that any two members of the same natural kind must be identical in all essential respects. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.1) | |
| A reaction: For this reason, animals no longer qualify as natural kinds, but electrons, gold atoms, and water molecules do. My sticking point is when anyone asserts that an electron necessarily has (say) its mass. Why no close counterpart of electrons? |
| 5480 | The whole of our world is a natural kind, so all worlds like it necessarily have the same laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: It is plausible to suppose that the world is an instance of a natural kind, ..and what is naturally necessary in our world is what must be true in any world of the same natural kind. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.6) | |
| A reaction: This is putting an awful lot of metaphysical weight on the concept of a 'natural kind', so it had better be a secure one. If we accept that natural laws necessarily follow from essences, why shouldn't the whole of our world have an essence, as water does? |
| 5445 | Essentialists regard inanimate objects as genuine causal agents [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialist suppose that the inanimate objects of nature are genuine causal agents: things capable of acting or interacting. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I have no idea how one might demonstrate such a fact, even though it seems to stare us in the face. This is where science bumps into philosophy. I find myself intuitively taking the essentialist side quite strongly. |
| 5463 | Essentialists believe causation is necessary, resulting from dispositions and circumstances [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists believe elementary causal relations involve necessary connections between events, namely between the displays of dispositional properties and the circumstances that give rise to them. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: I like essentialism, but I feel a Humean caution about talk of 'natural necessity'. Let's just say that causation seems to be entirely the result of the nature of how things are. How things could be is a large topic for little mites like us. |
| 5491 | A general theory of causation is only possible in an area if natural kinds are involved [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A general theory of causation in an area is possible only if the kinds of entities under investigation can reasonably be assumed to belong to natural kinds. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Human beings will be a problem, and also different levels of natural kinds (e.g. a chemical and an organism). 'Natural kind' is a very loose concept. He is referring to scientific, rather than philosophical, theories, I presume. |
| 5442 | For 'passivists' behaviour is imposed on things from outside [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: A 'passivist' believes that the tendencies of things to behave as they do can never be inherent in the things themselves; they must always be imposed on them from the outside. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is the medieval view, inherited by Newton and Hume, which makes miracles a possibility, and makes the laws of nature contingent. Essentialism disagree. I think I am with the essentialists. |
| 5473 | The laws of nature imitate the hierarchy of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: If the natural kinds are divided into hierarchical categories, then essentialists would expect the laws of nature also to divide up into these categories, with the same hierarchy. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me a real step forwards in our understanding of nature, and hence a nice example of the contribution which philosophy can make, instead of just physics. |
| 5474 | Laws of nature tend to describe ideal things, or ideal circumstances [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Most of the propositions we think of as being (or as expressing) genuine laws of nature seem to describe only the behaviour of ideal kinds of things, or of things in ideal circumstances. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: Ellis this suggests that this phenomenon is because science aims at broad understanding instead of strict prediction. Do we simplify because we are a bit dim? Or is it because generalisation wouldn't exist without idealisation and abstraction? |
| 5475 | We must explain the necessity, idealisation, ontology and structure of natural laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: There are four major problems about the laws of nature: a necessity problem (must they be true?), an idealisation problem (why is this preferable?), an ontological problem (their grounds), and a structural problem (their relationships). | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.5) | |
| A reaction: One might also ask why the laws (or their underlying essences) are the way they are, and not some other way, though the prospects of answering that don't look good. I don't think we should be satisfied with saying all of these questions are hopeless. |
| 5460 | Causal relations cannot be reduced to regularities, as they could occur just once [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Causal relations cannot be reduced to mere regularities, as Hume supposed, as they could exist as a singular case, even if it never happened on more than one occasions. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the key reason for modern views moving away from Hume. The suspicion is that regularity is a test for or symptom of causation, but we are deeply committed to the real nature of causation being whatever creates the regularities. |
| 5459 | Essentialists say dispositions are basic, rather than supervenient on matter and natural laws [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialists say that dispositional properties may be fundamental, whereas for a passivist such qualities are not primary, but supervene on the primary qualities of matter, and on the laws of nature. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: I am strongly in favour of this view of nature. Without essentialism, we have laws of nature arising out of a total void (or God), and arbitrarily imposing themselves on matter. What are the 'primary qualities of matter', if not dispositions? |
| 5461 | The essence of uranium is its atomic number and its electron shell [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The essential properties of uranium are its atomic number, and the common electron shell structure for all uranium atoms. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: For those who deny essences (e.g. Quineans) this is a nice challenge. You might have to add accounts of the essences of the various particles that make up the atoms. There is nothing arbitrary or conventional about what makes something uranium. |
| 5464 | For essentialists, laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, being based on essences of natural kinds [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Essentialist believe the laws of nature are metaphysically necessary, because anything that belongs to a natural kind is logically required (or is necessarily disposed) to behave as its essential properties dictate. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.4) | |
| A reaction: What a thrillingly large claim. Best approached with caution.. If we say 'essences make laws, and essences are necessary', we might wonder whether a natural kind essence could be SLIGHTLY different (a counterpart) in another world. |
| 5487 | Essentialism requires a clear separation of semantics, epistemology and ontology [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: Scientific essentialism requires that philosophers distinguish clearly between semantic issues, epistemological issues, and ontological issues. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism [2002], Ch.7) | |
| A reaction: Music to my ears - but then I think everyone should require that of philosophers, because it where they get themselves most confused. The trouble is that ontology is only obtainable epistemologically, and only expressible semantically. |