32 ideas
16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Lewis articulated and made fashionable the cost-benefit reflective equilibrium methodology, but I have my reservations as it does not offer much guidance. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Stalnaker suggests that this approach has 'run amok' in Lewis's case, giving reality to possible worlds. He spends much effort on showing the 'benefits' of a profoundly implausible view. The same can be said of 4D Perdurantism. |
16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: One can make sense of necessary versus contingent necessities in a non-S5 modal semantics. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3 n17) | |
A reaction: In S5 □φ → □□φ, so all necessities are necessary. Does it make any sense to say 'I suppose this might have been necessarily true'? |
21548 | The null class is the class with all the non-existents as its members [MacColl, by Lackey] |
Full Idea: In 1905 the Scottish logician Hugh MacColl published a paper in which he argued that the null class in logic should be taken as the class with all the non-existents as its members. | |
From: report of Hugh MacColl (Symbolic Reasoning [1905]) by Douglas Lackey - Intros to Russell's 'Essays in Analysis' p.95 | |
A reaction: For the null object (zero) Frege just chose one sample concept with an empty extension. MacColl's set seems to have a lot of members, given that it is 'null'. How many, I wonder? Russell responded to this paper. |
16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: One principle of modal set theory should be uncontroversial: a set exists in a given possible world if and only if all of its members exist at that world. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.4) | |
A reaction: Does this mean there can be no set containing all of my ancestors and future descendants? In no world can we coexist. |
16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: The point of regimentation is to give a perspicuous representation of the semantic structure of an expression, making it easier to evaluate the validity of arguments and to interpret complex statements. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
A reaction: This is an authoritative summary from an expert of why all philosophers must take an interest in logical form. |
16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: In 'either Socrates was a philosopher or someone other than Socrates was a philosopher', both propositions expressed by the disjuncts depend for their existence on the existence of Socrates, but the whole disjunction does not. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
A reaction: Nice example, just the sort of thing we pay philosophers to come up with. He is claiming that propositions can exist in possible worlds in which the individuals mentioned do not exist. |
16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Some philosophers deny there could have been anything other than what in fact exists, or that anything that exists could have failed to exist. This is developed in very different ways by Wittgenstein (in 'Tractatus'), Lewis and Williamson. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: This could come in various strengths. A weak version would say that, empirically, that all talk of what doesn't exist is vacuous. A strong necessity (Williamson?) that totally rules out other possible existence is a very odd view. |
16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: A nominalist definition of existence is 'having spatio-temporal location'. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
A reaction: This would evidently be physicalist as well as nominalist. Presumably it fits the 'mosaic' of reality Lewis refers to. I find this view sympathetic. A process of abstraction is required to get the rest of the stuff we talk about. |
16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: I take properties and relations to be modal notions. Properties are to be understood in terms of what it would be for them to be exemplified, which means understanding them in terms of a range of possible situations. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
A reaction: I can't make head or tail of a property as anything other than a feature of some entity. Treating properties as a 'range of situations' is just as baffling to me as treating them as sets of objects. |
16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: I myself am prepared to accept higher-order properties and relations. There is the property of being Socrates, …and the property of being the property of being Socrates, ..and so on. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.4) | |
A reaction: Elsewhere I have quoted such a hierarchy of vacuous properties as an absurdity that arises if all predicates are treated as properties. Logicians can live with such stuff, given their set hierarchy and so on, but in science and life this is a nonsense. |
16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Dispositional properties deserve special mention since they seem to be properties that have modal consequences - consequences for what properties the individuals that instantiate them would have in counterfactual circumstances. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.4) | |
A reaction: I take this to be the key idea in trying to understand modality, but Stalnaker makes this point and then moves swiftly on, because it is so far away from his possible worlds models, in which he has invested a lifetime. |
16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: It seems natural to paraphrase the claim that Socrates is essentially human as the claim that nothing could be Socrates if it was not human. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
A reaction: In ordinary speech it would be emphasising how very human Socrates was (in comparison with Frege, for example). By this token Socrates essentially breathes oxygen, but that is hardly part of his essence. |
16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: On the bundle theory, the identity of indiscernibles (for 'individuals') is a necessary truth, since an individual is just the co-instantiation of all the properties represented by a point in the space of properties. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
A reaction: So much the worse for the bundle theory, I presume. Leibniz did not, I think, hold a bundle theory, but his belief in the identity of indiscernibles seems to have had a theologicial underpinning. |
16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Prior had a strong and a weak reading of necessity, where strong necessity is truth in all possible worlds, while weak necessity is falsity in no possible world. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
A reaction: [K.Fine 2005:Ch.9 is also cited] The point of the weak one is that in some worlds there might not exist the proposition which is the candidate for truth or falsehood. |
16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: My view is that if there were a nonmodal analysis of the modal concepts, that would be a sure sign that we were on the wrong track. Necessity and possibility are fundamental concepts, like truth and existence. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
A reaction: The mystery of modality is tied up with the mystery of time (which is a very big mystery indeed). You get a nice clear grip on the here and now, but time and motion whisk you away to something else. Modality concerns the something else. |
16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Modal concepts are central to our understanding of the world - the actual world - and understanding them should not require extravagant metaphysical commitments. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
A reaction: I agree. Personally I think powers and dispositions do the job nicely. You just have to embrace Leibniz's emphasis on the active nature of reality, and the implausible metaphysics starts to recede. |
16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: My main focus is on how, on an actualist interpretation of possible worlds as ways a world might be, one is to account for the possibility that there be individuals other than those that actually exist. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], Pref) | |
A reaction: The obvious thought would be that they are constructions from components of actual individuals, such as the chimaera, or fictional characters. We need some psychology here, which is not Stalnaker's style. |
16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Possible worlds are (to a first approximation) properties. [p.12] They are properties of the total universe. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) |
16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: It is not reduction (of modality) but regimentation that the possible-worlds framework provides - a procedure for representing modal discourse, using primitive modal notions, in a way that helps reveal its structure. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
A reaction: I think this is exactly my view. All discussion of the ontology of possible worlds is irrelevant. They no more exist than variables in logic exist. They're good when they clarify, but dubious when they over-simplify. |
16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: I prefer to think of the possible worlds not as points in logical space but as cells of a relatively fine-grained partition of logical space - a partition that makes all the distinctions we need. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
A reaction: Since he regards possible worlds as simply a means of regimenting our understanding of modality, he can think of possible worlds in any way that suits him. I find it hard work tuning in to his vision. |
16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Things have modal properties only relative to the choice of a counterpart relation, and the choice between alternative counterpart relations is not constrained by the metaphysics. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
A reaction: Stalnaker is sympathetic to counterparts, but this strikes me as a powerful objection to the theory. I take the modal properties of something to be fixed by its actuality. |
16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist strategy holds that a purely qualitative characterisation of a possible world would be a complete characterisation; there is, on this view, nothing to being a particular individual other than meeting certain qualitative conditions. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3) | |
A reaction: Not quite the same as the bundle theory of objects, which says the objects are the qualities. This is about individuation, not about ontology (I think). I don't like anti-haecceitism, but I also don't like haecceitism. Hmm. |
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'. |
16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: How can we know what we ourselves are thinking if the very existence of the content of our thought may depend on facts of which we are ignorant? | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 5) | |
A reaction: This has always been my main doubt about externalism. I may defer to experts about what I intend by an 'elm' (Putnam's example), but what I mean by elm is thereby a fuzzy tall tree with indeterminate leaves. I don't know the meaning of 'elm'! |
16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: We still do not know how to give a direct semantics for the quantifiers of a natural language; that is something that we still do not know how to do (or at least how it is done remains controversial). | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4) | |
A reaction: I am struck by how rapidly the domain of quantification changes, even in mid-sentence, in the course of an ordinary conversation. This is decided almost entirely by context, not by pure ('direct'?) semantics. |
16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: Most theorists agree that possible worlds semantics cannot provide an analysis of modal concepts which is an eliminative reduction, but it can still provide an explanation of the meanings of modal expressions. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Stalnaker cites Kit Fine for the view that there is no reduction of modality, which Fine takes to be primitive. Stalnaker defends the semantics, while denying the reduction which Lewis thought possible. |
16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: I will defend the view that propositions are truth conditions. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
A reaction: This sounds close to the Russellian view, which I take to equate propositions (roughly) with facts or states of affairs. But are 'truth conditions' in the world or in the head? |
16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: A minimal theory of propositions can make do with just two primitive properties: a property of consistency applied to sets of propositions, and a property of truth applied to propositions. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: I would have thought a minimal theory would need some account of what a proposition is supposed to be (since there seems to be very little agreement about that). Stalnaker goes on to sketch a theory. |
16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
Full Idea: It seems plausible that singular propositions are object-dependent in the sense that the proposition would not exist if the individual did not. It is also plausible that some objects exist contingently, and there are singular propositions about them. | |
From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
A reaction: This replies to the view that possible worlds are maximal sets of propositions, and so must exist for the worlds to exist; e.g. Lowe 1999:248. That is yet another commonplace of contemporary philosophy which I find utterly bewildering. |
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. |