18 ideas
18851 | Pairing (with Extensionality) guarantees an infinity of sets, just from a single element [Rosen] |
Full Idea: In conjunction with Extensionality, Pairing entails that given a single non-set, infinitely many sets exist. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04) |
18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
Full Idea: Meinongian abstraction principles say that for any (suitably restricted) class of properties, there exists an abstract entity (arbitrary object, subsistent entity) that possesses just those properties. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04) | |
A reaction: This is 'Meinongian' because there will be an object which is circular and square. The nub of the idea presumably resides in what is meant by 'restricted'. An object possessing every conceivable property is, I guess, a step too far. |
18850 | 'Metaphysical' modality is the one that makes the necessity or contingency of laws of nature interesting [Rosen] |
Full Idea: 'Metaphysical' modality is the sort of modality relative to which it is an interesting question whether the laws of nature are necessary or contingent. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
A reaction: Being an essentialist here, I take it that the stuff of the universe necessitates the so-called 'laws'. The metaphysically interesting question is whether the stuff might have been different. Search me! A nice test of metaphysical modality though. |
18849 | Metaphysical necessity is absolute and universal; metaphysical possibility is very tolerant [Rosen] |
Full Idea: If P is metaphysically necessary, then it is absolutely necessary, and necessary in every real (non-epistemic) sense; and if P is possible in any sense, then it's possible in the metaphysical sense. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
A reaction: Rosen's shot at defining metaphysical necessity and possibility, and it looks pretty good to me. In my terms (drawing from Kit Fine) it is what is necessitated or permitted 'by everything'. So if it is necessitated by logic or nature, that's included. |
18858 | Sets, universals and aggregates may be metaphysically necessary in one sense, but not another [Rosen] |
Full Idea: It may be metaphysically necessary in one sense that sets or universals or mereological aggregates exist, while in another sense existence is always a contingent matter. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
A reaction: This idea depends on Idea 18856 and 18857. Personally I only think mereological aggregates and sets exist when people decide that they exist, so I don't see how they could ever be necessary. I'm unconvinced about his two concepts. |
18857 | Standard Metaphysical Necessity: P holds wherever the actual form of the world holds [Rosen] |
Full Idea: According to the Standard Conception of Metaphysical Necessity, P is metaphysically necessary when it holds in every possible world in which the laws of metaphysics (about the form or structure of the actual world) hold | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
A reaction: Rosen has a second meaning, in Idea 18856. He thinks it is crucial to see that there are two senses, because many things come out as metaphysically necessary on one concept, but contingent on the other. Interesting.... |
18856 | Non-Standard Metaphysical Necessity: when ¬P is incompatible with the nature of things [Rosen] |
Full Idea: According to the Non-Standard conception of Metaphysical Necessity, P is metaphysically necessary when its negation is logically incompatible with the nature of things. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 10) | |
A reaction: Rosen's new second meaning of the term. My immediate problem is with it resting on being 'logically' incompatible. Are squares 'logically' incompatible with circles? I like the idea that it rests on 'the nature of things'. (Psst! natures = essences) |
18848 | Something may be necessary because of logic, but is that therefore a special sort of necessity? [Rosen] |
Full Idea: It is one thing to say that P is necessary in some generic sense because it is a truth of logic (true in all models of a language, perhaps). It is something else to say that P therefore enjoys a special sort of necessity. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 02) | |
A reaction: This encourages my thought that there is only one sort of necessity (what must be), and the variety comes from the different types of necessity makers (everything there could be, nature, duties, promises, logics, concepts...). |
18855 | Combinatorial theories of possibility assume the principles of combination don't change across worlds [Rosen] |
Full Idea: Combinatorial theories of possibility take it for granted ....that possible worlds in general share a syntax, as it were, differing only in the constituents from which they are generated, or in the particular manner of their arrangements. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 08) | |
A reaction: For instance, it might assume that every world has 'objects', to which 'properties' and 'relations' can be attached, or to which 'functions' can apply. |
18853 | A proposition is 'correctly' conceivable if an ominiscient being could conceive it [Rosen] |
Full Idea: To a first approximation, P is correctly conceivable iff it would be conceivable for a logically ominiscient being who was fully informed about the nature of things. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 05) | |
A reaction: Isn't the last bit covered by 'ominiscient'? Ah, I think the 'logically' only means they have a perfect grasp of what is consistent. This is to meet the standard problem, of ill-informed people 'conceiving' of things which are actually impossible. |
3488 | Freud treats the unconscious as intentional and hence mental [Freud, by Searle] |
Full Idea: Freud thinks that our unconscious mental states exist as occurrent intrinsic intentional states even when unconscious. Their ontology is that of the mental, even when they are unconscious. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by John Searle - The Rediscovery of the Mind Ch. 7.V | |
A reaction: Searle states this view in order to attack it. Whether such states are labelled as 'mental' seems uninteresting. Whether unconscious states can be intentional is crucial, and modern scientific understanding of the brain strongly suggest they can. |
5689 | Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker] |
Full Idea: Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396 | |
A reaction: This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it. |
23950 | Freud said passions are pressures of some flowing hydraulic quantity [Freud, by Solomon] |
Full Idea: Freud argued that the passions in general …were the pressures of a yet unknown 'quantity' (which he simply designated 'Q'). He first thought this flowed through neurones, …and always couched the idea in the language of hydraulics. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Robert C. Solomon - The Passions 3.4 | |
A reaction: This is the main target of Solomon's criticism, because its imagery has become so widespread. It leads to talk of suppressing emotions, or sublimating them. However, it is not too different from Nietzsche's 'drives' or 'will to power'. |
22344 | Freud is pessimistic about human nature; it is ambivalent motive and fantasy, rather than reason [Freud, by Murdoch] |
Full Idea: Freud takes a thoroughly pessimistic view of human nature. ...Introspection reveals only the deep tissue of ambivalent motive, and fantasy is a stronger force than reason. Objectivity and unselfishness are not natural to human beings. | |
From: report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900], II) by Iris Murdoch - The Sovereignty of Good II | |
A reaction: Interesting. His view seems to have coloured the whole of modern culture, reinforced by the hideous irrationality of the Nazis. Adorno and Horkheimer attacking the Enlightenment was the last step in that process. |
8412 | A causal interaction is when two processes intersect, and correlated modifications persist afterwards [Salmon] |
Full Idea: When two processes intersect, and they undergo correlated modifications which persist after the intersection, I shall say that the intersection is a causal interaction. I take this as a fundamental causal concept. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §4) | |
A reaction: There may be a problem individuating processes, just as there is for events. I like this approach to causation, which is ontologically sparse, and fits in with the scientific worldview. Change of properties sounds precise, but isn't. Stick to processes. |
8413 | Cause must come first in propagations of causal interactions, but interactions are simultaneous [Salmon] |
Full Idea: In a typical cause-effect situation (a 'propagation') cause must precede effect, for propagation over a finite time interval is an essential feature. In an 'interaction', an intersection of processes resulting in change, we have simultaneity. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §8) | |
A reaction: This takes the direction of time as axiomatic, and quite right too. Salmon isn't addressing the real difficulty, though, which is that the resultant laws are usually held to be time-reversible, which is a bit of a puzzle. |
8411 | Instead of localised events, I take enduring and extended processes as basic to causation [Salmon] |
Full Idea: I propose to approach causality by taking processes rather than events as basic entities. Events are relatively localised in space and time, while processes have much greater temporal duration, and, in many cases, much greater spatial extent. | |
From: Wesley Salmon (Causality: Production and Propagation [1980], §2) | |
A reaction: This strikes me as an incredibly promising proposal, not just in our understanding of causation, but for our general metaphysics and understanding of nature. See Idea 4931, for example. Vague events and processes blend into one another. |
18854 | The MRL view says laws are the theorems of the simplest and strongest account of the world [Rosen] |
Full Idea: According to the Mill-Ramsey-Lewis account of the laws of nature, a generalisation is a law just in case it is a theorem of every true account of the actual world that achieves the best overall balance of simplicity and strength. | |
From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 08) | |
A reaction: The obvious objection is that many of the theorems will be utterly trivial, and that is one thing that the laws of nature are not. Unless you are including 'metaphysical laws' about very very fundamental things, like objects, properties, relations. |