17 ideas
8859 | The main modal logics disagree over three key formulae [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Lewis's different systems of modal logic differed about such formulae as □P implies □□P; ◊□P implies □P; and ◊S implies □◊S | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §06) | |
A reaction: Yablo's point is that the various version don't seem to make much difference to our practices in logic, mathematics and science. The problem, says Yablo, is deciding exactly what you mean by 'necessarily' and 'possibly'. |
8865 | If 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', does that mean that 50 million is on the rise? [Yablo] |
Full Idea: If someone says 'the number of Democrats is on the rise', he or she wants to focus on Democrats, not numbers. If the number is 50 million, is 50 million really on the rise? | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §14) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice warning from Yablo, against easy platonism, or any sort of platonism at all. We routinely say that numbers are 'increasing', but the real meaning needs entangling. Here it refers to people joining a party. |
8863 | We must treat numbers as existing in order to express ourselves about the arrangement of planets [Yablo] |
Full Idea: It is only by making as if to countenance numbers that one can give expression in English to a fact having nothing to do with numbers, a fact about stars and planets and how they are numerically proportioned. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
A reaction: To avoid the phrase 'numerically proportioned', he might have alluded to the 'pattern' of the stars and planets. I'm not sure which -ism this is, but it seems to me a good approach. The application is likely to precede the theory. |
8862 | Platonic objects are really created as existential metaphors [Yablo] |
Full Idea: The means by which platonic objects are simulated is existential metaphor. Numbers are conjured up as metaphorical measures of cardinality. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: 'Fictional' might be a better word than 'metaphorical', since the latter usually implies some sort of comparison. |
8864 | We quantify over events, worlds, etc. in order to make logical possibilities clearer [Yablo] |
Full Idea: It is not that the contents of sentences are inexpressible without quantifying over events, worlds, etc. (they aren't). But the logical relations become much more tractable if we represent them quantificationally. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §13) | |
A reaction: Yablo is explaining why we find ourselves committed to abstract objects. It is essentially, as I am beginning to suspect, a conspiracy of logicians. What on earth is 'the empty set' when it is at home? What's it made of? |
8858 | Philosophers keep finding unexpected objects, like models, worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets, properties [Yablo] |
Full Idea: There's a tradition in philosophy of finding 'unexpected objects' in truth-conditions, such as countermodels, possible worlds, functions, numbers, events, sets and properties. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §02) | |
A reaction: This is a very nice perspective on the whole matter of abstract objects. If we find ourselves reluctantly committed to the existence of something which is ontologically peculiar, we should go back to the philosophical drawing-board. |
15959 | If the substantial form of brass implies its stability, how can it melt and remain brass? [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: If we account for the stability of a piece of brass by reference to the substantial form of brass, then it is mysterious how it can be melted and yet remain brass. | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 02.3) | |
A reaction: [Alexander is discussing Boyle] |
15956 | The peripatetics treated forms and real qualities as independent of matter, and non-material [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: The peripatetic philosophers, in spite of their disagreements, all treated forms and real qualities as independent of matter and not to be understood in material terms. | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 54) | |
A reaction: This is the simple reason why hylomorphism became totally discredited, in the face of the 'mechanical philosophy'. But there must be a physical version of hylomorphism, and I don't think Aristotle himself would reject it. |
15975 | Can the qualities of a body be split into two groups, where the smaller explains the larger? [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: Is there any way of separating the qualities that bodies appear to have into two groups, one as small as possible and the other as large as possible, such that the smaller group can plausibly be used to explain the larger? | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 5.02) | |
A reaction: Alexander implies that this is a question Locke asked himself. This is pretty close to what I take to be the main question for essentialism, though I am cautious about couching it in terms of groups of qualities. I think this was Aristotle's question. |
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'. |
8861 | Hardly a word in the language is devoid of metaphorical potential [Yablo] |
Full Idea: There is hardly a word in the language - be it an adverb, preposition, conjunction, or what have you - that is devoid of metaphorical potential. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Apriority and Existence [2000], §12) | |
A reaction: Yablo goes on to claim that metaphor is at the heart of all of our abstract thinking. 'Dead metaphors' (like the "mouth" of a river) sink totally into literal language. I think Yablo is on the right lines. |
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. |
15963 | Science has been partly motivated by the belief that the universe is run by God's laws [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: The idea of a designed universe has not been utterly irrelevant to the scientific project; it is one of the beliefs that can give a scientist the faith that there are laws, waiting to be discovered, that govern all phenomena. | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 03.3) | |
A reaction: Of course if you start out looking for the 'laws of God' that is probably what you will discover. Natural selection strikes me as significant, because it shows no sign of being a procedure appropriate to a benevolent god. |
15951 | Alchemists tried to separate out essences, which influenced later chemistry [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: The alchemists sought the separation of the 'pure essences' of substances from unwanted impurities. This last goal was of great importance for the development of modern chemistry at the hands of Boyle and his successors. | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 01.1) | |
A reaction: In a nutshell this gives us the reason why essences are so important, and also why they became discredited. Time for a clear modern rethink. |
15981 | Absolute space either provides locations, or exists but lacks 'marks' for locations [Alexander,P] |
Full Idea: There are two conceptions of absolute space. In the first, empty space is independent of objects but provides a frame of reference so an object has a location. ..In the second space exists independently, but has no 'marks' into which objects can be put. | |
From: Peter Alexander (Ideas, Qualities and Corpuscles [1985], 6) | |
A reaction: He says that Locke seems to reject the first one, but accept the second one. |