22 ideas
| 5831 | The new view is that "water" is a name, and has no definition [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps the modern view is best expressed as saying that "water" has no definition at all, at least in the traditional sense, and is a proper name of a specific substance. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: This assumes that proper names have no definitions, though I am not clear how we can grasp the name 'Aristotle' without some association of properties (human, for example) to go with it. We need a definition of 'definition'. |
| 5829 | We refer to Thales successfully by name, even if all descriptions of him are false [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: We can refer to Thales by using the name "Thales" even though perhaps the only description we can supply is false of him. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: It is not clear what we would be referring to if all of our descriptions (even 'Greek philosopher') were false. If an archaeologist finds just a scrap of stone with a name written on it, that is hardly a sufficient basis for successful reference. |
| 5830 | The traditional theory of names says some of the descriptions must be correct [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: The traditional theory of proper names entails that at least some combination of the things ordinarily believed of Aristotle are necessarily true of him. | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §III) | |
| A reaction: Searle endorses this traditional theory. Kripke and co. tried to dismiss it, but you can't. If all descriptions of Aristotle turned out to be false (it was actually the name of a Persian statue), our modern references would have been unsuccessful. |
| 3523 | Shadows are supervenient on their objects, but not reducible [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: Shadows are distinct from the physical objects casting the shadows and irreducible to them; any attempt at reduction would be incoherent, as it would entail identifying a shadow with the object of which it is a shadow. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: Another failure to find a decent analogy for what is claimed in property dualism. A 'shadow' is a reification of the abstract concept of an absence of light. Objects lose their shadows at dusk, but the object itself doesn't change. |
| 3517 | 'Ontology' means 'study of things which exist' [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: The word 'ontology' is derived from the Greek word 'ontia', which means 'things which exist'. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 1.1) |
| 15127 | A categorical basis could hardly explain a disposition if it had no powers of its own [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: The categorical basis would be a poor explanans for the disposition as explanandum, if the categorical basis did not drag any causal powers along with it. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: The idea that the world is explained just by some basic stuff having qualities and relations always strikes me as wrong, because the view of nature is too passive. |
| 15123 | Is the causal profile of a property its essence? [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: We might say that the causal profile of a property is its essence. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: I associate this view with Shoemaker, and find it sympathetic. We always want to know more. What gives rise to these causal powers? Where does explanation end? He notes that you might say some of the powers are non-essential. |
| 15122 | Could two different properties have the same causal profile? [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: If there is more to the nature of a property than the causal powers that it confers, then two different internal natures of properties might necessitate the same causal profile. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: If the causal profiles were identical, it is hard to see how we could even propose, let alone test, their intrinsic difference. ...Unless, perhaps, we knew that the properties arose from different substrata. |
| 15124 | If properties are more than their powers, we could have two properties with the same power [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: If a property is something over and above its causal profile, we seem to have conceptual space for an electron to have negative charge 1 and negative charge 2, that have exactly the same causal powers. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 1.3) |
| 15128 | We can treat the structure/form of the world differently from the nodes/matter of the world [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: It does not seem altogether arbitrary to treat the structure of the world (the 'form' of the world) in a different way to the nodes in the structure (the 'matter' of the world). | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 2.5) | |
| A reaction: An interesting contemporary spin put on Aristotle's original view. Hawthorne is presenting the Aristotle account as a sort of 'structuralism' about nature. |
| 15121 | An individual essence is a necessary and sufficient profile for a thing [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: An individual essence is a profile that is necessary and sufficient for some particular thing. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: By 'for' he presumably means for the thing to have an existence and a distinct identity. If it retained its identity, but didn't function any more, would that be loss of essence? |
| 3538 | Analogy to other minds is uncheckable, over-confident and chauvinistic [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: The argument from analogy makes it impossible to check my inductive inferences because of the privacy of other minds; it also seems irresponsible to generalise from a single case; and it seems like a case of human chauvinism. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: Privacy of other minds need not imply scepticism about them. I'm a believer, so I have no trouble checking my theories. Solipsists can't 'check' anything. It isn't 'irresponsible' to generalise from one case if that is all you have. |
| 3540 | If we are brains then we never meet each other [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: If I am my brain this leads to the odd result that you have never met me because you have never seen my brain. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 10.7) | |
| A reaction: 'Star Trek' is full of aliens who appear beautiful, and turn out to be ugly grey lumps. 'I am my face' would be just as odd, particularly if I were in a coma, or dead. |
| 3518 | I'm not the final authority on my understanding of maths [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: I may be the final authority on whether my shoe pinches, but I am manifestly not the final authority on whether I understand some mathematical theorem. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: However, it doesn't follow that his teachers are the final authority either, because he may get correct answers by an algorithm, and bluff his way when demonstrating his understanding. Who knows whether anyone really understands anything? |
| 3530 | Denial of purely mental causation will lead to epiphenomenalism [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: If mental events are causally efficacious only by virtue of their physical features and not their mental ones, …then anomalous monism leads straight to ephiphenomenalism. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: As epiphenomenalism strikes me as being incoherent (see Idea 7379), what this amounts to is that either mental effects are causally efficacious, or they are not worth mentioning. I take them to be causally efficacious because they are brain events. |
| 3520 | Token-identity removes the explanatory role of the physical [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: In token-identity mental and physical features seem as unrelated as colour and shape, which is very weak physicalism because it does not allow physical states an explanatory role in accounting for mental states. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 3.8.6) | |
| A reaction: Colour and shape are not totally unrelated, as they can both be totally explained by a full knowledge of the physical substance involved. ...But maybe if we fully understood Spinoza's single substance...? See Idea 4834. |
| 5826 | The intension of "lemon" is the conjunction of properties associated with it [Schwartz,SP] |
| Full Idea: The conjunction of properties associated with a term such as "lemon" is often called the intension of the term "lemon". | |
| From: Stephen P. Schwartz (Intro to Naming,Necessity and Natural Kinds [1977], §II) | |
| A reaction: The extension of "lemon" is the set of all lemons. At last, a clear explanation of the word 'intension'! The debate becomes clear - over whether the terms of a language are used in reference to ideas of properties (and substances?), or to external items. |
| 15126 | Maybe scientific causation is just generalisation about the patterns [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: Perhaps science doesn't need a robust conception of causation, and can get by with thinking of causal laws in a Humean way, as the simplest generalization over the mosaic. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: The Humean view he is referring to is held by David Lewis. That seems a council of defeat. We observe from a distance, but make no attempt to explain. |
| 3528 | Causality may require that a law is being followed [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: The principle of nomological causality says that if two events are intrinsically causally related, there must be a strict physical law under which they can be subsumed. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.5) |
| 15125 | We only know the mathematical laws, but not much else [Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: We know the laws of the physical world, in so far as they are mathematical, pretty well, but we know nothing else about it. | |
| From: John Hawthorne (Causal Structuralism [2001], Ch.25) | |
| A reaction: Lovely remark [spotted by Hawthorne]. This sums up exactly what I take to be the most pressing issue in philosophy of science - that we develop a view of science that has space for the next step in explanation. |
| 3525 | Strict laws make causation logically necessary [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: 'Deductive-nomological' explanation consists of two premises - a strict law with no exceptions and supporting deterministic counterfactuals, and a statement of an event which falls under the law - which together logically require the effect. | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.4) |
| 3527 | Strict laws allow no exceptions and are part of a closed system [Maslin] |
| Full Idea: 'Strict' laws of nature contain no ceteris paribus clauses ('all things being equal'), and are part of a closed system (so that whatever affects the system must be included within the system). | |
| From: Keith T. Maslin (Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind [2001], 7.5) |