18 ideas
| 15118 | A successful Aristotelian 'definition' is what sciences produces after an investigation [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: My current use of the Aristotelian term 'definition' is intended to correspond to what is typically accessible to a scientist only at the end of a successful investigation into the nature of a particular phenomenon. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
| A reaction: It is crucial to understand that Aristotle's definitions could be several hundred pages long. It has nothing to do with dictionary definitions. He proposes 'nominal' and 'real' definitions. |
| 15116 | Essences cause necessary features, and definitions describe those necessary features [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Since essences cause the other necessary features of a thing, so definitions, as the linguistic correlates of essences, explain, together with other axioms, the propositions describing those necessary features. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
| A reaction: This is nice and clear. Definitions are NOT essences - they are the linguistic correlates of essences, and mirror those essences. The necessary features are not the only things needing explanation. That picture is too passive. |
| 15110 | An essence and what merely follow from it are distinct [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: We can distinguish (as Aristotle and Fine do) between what belongs to the essence of an object, and what merely follows from the essence of an object. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1) | |
| A reaction: This can help to clarify the confusions that result from treating necessary properties as if they were essential. |
| 15113 | Individuals are perceived, but demonstration and definition require universals [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Individual instances of a kind of phenomenon, in Aristotle's view, can only be perceived through sense-perception; but they are not the proper subject-matter of scientific demonstration and definition. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
| A reaction: A footnote (11) explains that this is because they involve syllogisms, which require universals. I take Aristotle, and anyone sensible, to rest on individual essences, but inevitably turn to generic essences when language becomes involved. |
| 15112 | If an object exists, then its essential properties are necessary [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: If an object has a certain property essentially, then it follows that the object has the property necessarily (if it exists). | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.2) | |
| A reaction: She is citing Fine, who says that the converse (necessity implying essence) is false. I agree with that. I also willing to challenge the first bit. I suspect an object can retain identity and lose essence. Coma patient; broken clock; aged athlete. |
| 15111 | In demonstration, the explanatory order must mirror the causal order of the phenomena [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Demonstration encompasses more than deductive entailment, in that the explanatory order of priority represented in a successful demonstration must mirror precisely the causal order of priority present in the phenomena in question. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.1) | |
| A reaction: She is referring to Aristotle's 'Posterior Analytics'. Put so clearly this sounds like an incredibly useful concept in discussing how we present good modern scientific explanations. Reinstating Aristotle is a major priority for philosophy! |
| 15115 | In a demonstration the middle term explains, by being part of the definition [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: In a proper demonstrative argument, the middle term must be explanatory of the conclusion, in a very specific sense: the middle term must state what properly belongs to the definition of the kind of phenomenon in question. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1) | |
| A reaction: So 'All men are mortal, S is a man, so S is mortal'. The middle term is 'man', which gives a generic explanation for why S is mortal. Explanation as categorisation? I don't think this is the whole story of Aristotelian explanation. |
| 6027 | From the fact that some men die, we cannot infer that they all do [Philodemus] |
| Full Idea: There is no necessary inference, from the fact that men familiar to us die when pierced through the heart, that all men do. | |
| From: Philodemus (On Signs (damaged) [c.50 BCE], 1.3) | |
| A reaction: This is scepticism about the logic of induction, long before David Hume. This is said to be a Stoic argument against Epicureans - though on the whole Stoics are not keen on scepticism. |
| 15117 | Greek uses the same word for 'cause' and 'explanation' [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The Greek does not disambiguate between 'cause' and 'explanation', since the same terms ('aitia' and 'aition') can be translated in both ways. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n15) | |
| A reaction: This is essential information if we are to understand Aristotle's Four Causes, which are quite baffling if we take 'causes' in the modern way. The are the Four Modes of Explanation. |
| 15114 | Discovering the Aristotelian essence of thunder will tell us why thunder occurs [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Both the question 'what is thunder?', and the question 'why does thunder occur?', for Aristotle, are answered simultaneously, once it has been discovered what the essence of thunder it, i.e. what it is to be thunder. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Essence, Necessity and Explanation [2012], 13.3.1 n10) | |
| A reaction: I take this idea to be pretty much the whole story about essences. |
| 7590 | Consequentialism emphasises value rather than obligation in morality [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: According to consequentialism, the fundamental concept of morality is not obligation (deontological ethics) but value (axiological ethics). | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'consequentialism') | |
| A reaction: These two views could come dramatically apart, in wartime, or in big ecological crises, or in a family breakup, or in religious disputes. Having identified the pair so clearly, why can we not aim for a civilised (virtuous) balance between the two? |
| 7589 | Altruism is either emotional (where your interests are mine) or moral (where they are reasons for me) [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Two distinct motives go by the name of altruism: the emotions of liking, love and friendship, making another's interest automatically mine; and the moral motive of respect or considerateness, where another's interests become reasons for me, but not mine. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'altruism') | |
| A reaction: The second one has a strongly Kantian flavour, with its notion of impersonal duty. Virtue theorists will aspire to achieve the first state rather than the second, because good actions are then actively desired, and give pleasure to the doer. |
| 7595 | The idea of a right seems fairly basic; justice may be the disposition to accord rights to people [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a right seems to be as basic as any other; we might even define justice in terms of it, as the disposition to accord to every person his rights. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'rights') | |
| A reaction: I am inclined to think that a set of fairly pure values (such as equality, kindness, sympathy, respect) must be in place before the idea of a right would occur to anyone. Aristotle has a powerful moral sense, but rights for slaves don't cross his mind. |
| 7588 | Allegiance is fundamental to the conservative view of society [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Conservatives have made the concept of allegiance, conceived as a power, fundamental to their description of the experience of society | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'allegiance') | |
| A reaction: This provokes the famous slogan of "My country - right or wrong!" However, the issue here is not going to be decided by a consequentialist analysis, but by a view a of human nature. I think I would want to carefully prise allegiance apart from loyalty. |
| 7594 | Democrats are committed to a belief and to its opposite, if the majority prefer the latter [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The paradox of democracy (emphasised by Rousseau) is that I am compelled by my belief in democracy to embrace conflicting - perhaps even contradictory - opinions. If I believe A, and the majority vote for B, I am committed to enacting them both. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'paradox of democracy') | |
| A reaction: The paradox would have to be resolved by qualifying what exactly one is committed to by being a democrat. I would say I am committed to the right of my opponents to enact a policy with which I disagree. |
| 7593 | Liberals focus on universal human freedom, natural rights, and tolerance [Scruton, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Liberalism believes (roughly) in the supremacy of the individual, who has freedom and natural rights; it focuses on human, not divine affairs; it claims rights and duties are universal; and it advocates tolerance in religion and morality. | |
| From: report of Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'liberalism') by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: I find it hard to disagree with these principles, but the upshot in practice is often an excessive commitment to freedom and tolerance, because people fail to realise the subtle long-term erosions of society that can result. |
| 7592 | For positivists law is a matter of form, for naturalists it is a matter of content [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: For the positivist, law is law by virtue of its form; for the naturalist, by virtue of its content. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'law') | |
| A reaction: Clearly a perverse and 'unnatural' social rule (backed by government and implied force) is a 'law' in some sense of the word. It is hard to see how you could gain social consensus for a law if it didn't appear in some way to be 'natural justice'. |
| 7587 | The issue of abortion seems insoluble, because there is nothing with which to compare it [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The issue of abortion is intractable, partly because of the absence of any other case to which it can be assimilated. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (A Dictionary of Political Thought [1982], 'abortion') | |
| A reaction: This is the legalistic approach to the problem, which always looks for precedents and comparisons. All problems must hav solutions, though (mustn't they?). The problem, though, is not the value of the foetus, but the unique form of 'ownership'. |