41 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. |
| 4036 | What matters is not how many entities we postulate, but how many kinds of entities [Armstrong, by Mellor/Oliver] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong argues that what matters is not how few entities we postulate (quantitative economy), but how few kinds of entities (qualitative economy). | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992]) by DH Mellor / A Oliver - Introduction to 'Properties' §9 | |
| A reaction: Is this what Ockham meant? Armstrong is claiming that the notion of a 'property' is needed to identify kinds. See also Idea 7038. |
| 15754 | Without properties we would be unable to express the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The ontological correlates of true law-statements must involve properties. How else can one pick our the uniformities which the law-statements entail? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: I'm unconvinced about the 'laws', but I have to admit that it is hard to know how to describe the relevant bits of nature without some family of concepts covered by the word 'property'. I'm in favour of taking some of the family into care, though. |
| 4034 | Whether we apply 'cold' or 'hot' to an object is quite separate from its change of temperature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Evading properties by means of predicates is implausible when things change. If a cold thing becomes hot, first 'cold' applies, and then 'hot', but what have predicates to do with the temperature of an object? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: A clear illustration of why properties are part of nature, not just part of language. But some applications of predicates are more arbitrary than this (ugly, cool) |
| 8535 | To the claim that every predicate has a property, start by eliminating failure of application of predicate [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Upholders of properties have been inclined to postulate a distinct property corresponding to each distinct predicate. We could start by eliminating all those properties where the predicate fails to apply, is not true, of anything. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: This would leave billions of conjunctional, disjunctional and gerrymandered properties where the predicate applies very well. We are all 'on the same planet as New York'. Am I allowed to say that I 'wish' that a was F? He aims for 'sparse' properties. |
| 8537 | Tropes fall into classes, because exact similarity is symmetrical and transitive [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Exact similarity is a symmetrical and transitive relation. (Less than exact similarity is not transitive, even for tropes). So the relation of exact similarity is an equivalence relation, partitioning the field of tropes into equivalence classes. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
| A reaction: Armstrong goes on the explore the difficulties for trope theory of less than exact similarity, which is a very good line of discussion. Unfortunately it is a huge problem for everyone, apart from the austere nominalist. |
| 8538 | Trope theory needs extra commitments, to symmetry and non-transitivity, unless resemblance is exact [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Trope theory needs extra ontological baggage, the Axioms of Resemblance. There is a principle of symmetry, and there is the failure of transitivity - except in the special case of exact resemblance. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
| A reaction: [see text for fuller detail] Is it appropriate to describe such axioms as 'ontological' baggage? Interesting, though I suspect that any account of properties and predicates will have a similar baggage of commitments. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 8539 | Universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A reason why I reject trope theory is that universals are required to give a satisfactory account of the laws of nature. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
| A reaction: This is the key thought in Armstrong's defence of universals. Issues about universals may well be decided on such large playing fields. I think he is probably wrong, and I will gradually explain why. Watch this space as the story unfolds... |
| 8529 | Deniers of properties and relations rely on either predicates or on classes [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The great deniers of properties and relations are of two sorts: those who put their faith in predicates and those who appeal to sets (classes). | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: This ignores the Quine view, which is strictly for ostriches. Put like this, properties and relations seem undeniable. Predicates are too numerous (gerrymandering) or too few (colour shades). Classes can have arbitrary members. |
| 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. |
| 8532 | Resemblances must be in certain 'respects', and they seem awfully like properties [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: If a resembles b, in general, they resemble in certain respects, and fail to resemble in other respects. But respects are uncomfortably close to properties, which the Resemblance theory proposes to do without. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: This is a good objection. I think it is plausible to build a metaphysics around the idea of respects, and drop properties. Shall we just talk of 'respects' for categorising, and 'powers' for causation and explanation? Respects only exist in comparisons. |
| 8530 | Change of temperature in objects is quite independent of the predicates 'hot' and 'cold' [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: To appreciate the implausibility of the predicate view, consider where a thing's properties change. 'Hot' becomes applicable when 'cold' ceases to, ..but the change in the object would have occurred if the predicates had never existed. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: They keep involving secondary qualities! Armstrong is taking a strongly realist view (fine by me), but anti-realists can ignore his argument. I take predicate nominalism to be a non-starter. |
| 8536 | We want to know what constituents of objects are grounds for the application of predicates [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: The properties that are of ontological interest are those constituents of objects, of particulars, which serve as the ground in the objects for the application of predicates. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: Good. This is a reversal of the predicate nominalist approach, and is a much healthier attitude to the relationship between ontology and language. Value judgements will be an interesting case. Does this allow us to invent new predicates? |
| 8531 | In most sets there is no property common to all the members [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Most sets are uninteresting because they are utterly heterogeneous, that is, the members have nothing in common. For most sets there is no common property F, such that the set is the set of all the Fs. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: One might link the interesting sets together by resemblance, without invoking the actual existence of an item F which all the members carry (like freemasons' briefcases). Personally I am only really interested in 'natural' sets. |
| 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. |
| 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'. |
| 15753 | Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: A sophisticated Resemblance theory can appeal to the natures of the resembling things, from which the resemblances flow. The natures are suitably internal, but are as coarse as the things themselves (and perhaps are the things themselves). | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1) | |
| A reaction: Note that this is essentialism as an underpinning for Resemblance Nominalism. His objection is that he just can't believe in essences, because they are too 'coarse' - which I take to mean that we cannot distinguish the boundaries of an essence. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 8638 | Thomae's idea of abstract from peculiarities gives a general concept, and leaves the peculiarities [Frege on Thomae] |
| Full Idea: When Thomae says "abstract from the peculiarities of the individual members of a set of items", or "disregard those characteristics which serve to distinguish them", we get a general concept under which they fall. The things keep their characteristics. | |
| From: comment on C.J. Thomae (works [1869], §34) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §34 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. You don't have to leave out their distinctive fur in order to count cats. But you have to focus on some aspect of them, because they aren't 'three meats'. |
| 8533 | Predicates need ontological correlates to ensure that they apply [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Must there not be something quite specific about the thing which allows, indeed ensures, that predicates like 'underneath' and 'hot' apply? The predicates require ontological correlates. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: An interesting proposal, that in addition to making use of predicates, we should 'ensure that they apply'. Sounds verificationist. Obvious problem cases would be speculative, controversial or metaphorical predicates. "He's beneath contempt". |
| 4035 | There must be some explanation of why certain predicates are applicable to certain objects [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: When we have said that predicates apply to objects, we have surely not said enough. The situation cries out for an explanation. Must there not be something specific about the things which allows, indeed ensures, that these predicates apply? | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §1) | |
| A reaction: A nice challenge to any philosopher who places too much emphasis on language. A random and arbitrary (nominalist?) language simply wouldn't work. Nature has joints. |
| 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? |
| 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. |
| 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 |
| 8541 | Regularities theories are poor on causal connections, counterfactuals and probability [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Regularity theories make laws molecular, with no inner causal connections; also, only some cosmic regularities are manifestations of laws; molecular states can't sustain counterfactuals; and probabilistic laws are hard to accommodate. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
| A reaction: [very compressed] A helpful catalogue of difficulties. The first difficulty is the biggest one - that regularity theories have nothing to say about why there is a regularity. They offer descriptions instead of explanations. |
| 8540 | The introduction of sparse properties avoids the regularity theory's problem with 'grue' [Armstrong] |
| Full Idea: Regularity theories of laws face the grue problem. That, I think, can only be got over by introducing properties, sparse properties, into one's ontology. | |
| From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], §2) | |
| A reaction: The problem is, roughly, that regularities have to be described in language, which is too arbitrary in character. Armstrong rightly tries to break the rigid link to language. See his Idea 8536, which puts reality before language. |