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9455
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Maybe proper names have the content of fixing a thing's category [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Some say that proper names have no descriptive content, but others think that although a name does not have the right sort of descriptive content which fixes a unique referent, it has a content which fixes the sort or category to which it belongs.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §7)
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A reaction:
Presumably 'Mary', and 'Felix', and 'Rover', and 'Smallville' are cases in point. There is a well known journalist called 'Manchester', a famous man called 'Hilary', a village in Hertfordshire called 'Matching Tie'... Interesting, though.
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9454
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The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The four leading theories of definite descriptions are Frege's, Russell's, Evans's, and Prior's, ...of which to many Frege's is the most intuitive of the four. Frege says they refer to the unique item (if it exists) which satisfies the predicate.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §5)
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A reaction:
He doesn't expound the other three, but I record this a corrective to the view that Russell has the only game in town.
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10579
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Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo]
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Full Idea:
Saying 'the number of Fs is 5', instead of using five quantifiers, puts the numeral in quantifiable position, which brings expressive advantages. 'There are more sheep in the field than cows' is an infinite disjunction, expressible in finite compass.
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From:
Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 08)
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A reaction:
See Hofweber with similar thoughts. This idea I take to be a key one in explaining many metaphysical confusions. The human mind just has a strong tendency to objectify properties, relations, qualities, categories etc. - for expression and for reasoning.
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16665
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There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
Beyond the entities there are certain real 'modes', which are positive, and in their own right act on those entities, giving them something that is outside their whole essence as individuals existing in reality.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3
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A reaction:
Suárez is apparently the first person to formulate a proper account of properties as 'modes' of a thing, rather than as accidents which are separate, or are wholly integrated into a thing. A typical compromise proposal in philosophy. Can modes act?
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16666
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A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
The inherence of quantity is called its mode, because it affects that quantity, which serves to ultimately determine the state and character of its existence, but does not add to it any new proper entity, but only modifies the preexisting entity.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3
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A reaction:
He seems to present mode as a very active thing, like someone who gives it a coat of paint, or hammers it into a new shape. I don't see how a 'mode' can have any ontological status at all. To exist, there has to be some way to exist.
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17007
|
Forms must rule over faculties and accidents, and are the source of action and unity [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
A form is required that, as it were, rules over all those faculties and accidents, and is the source of all actions and natural motions of such a being, and in which the whole variety of accidents and powers has its root and unity.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.1.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4
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A reaction:
Pasnau emphasises that this is scholastics giving a very physical and causal emphasis to forms, which made them vulnerable to doubts among the new experiment physicists. Pasnau says forms are 'metaphysical', following Leibniz.
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16780
|
Partial forms of leaf and fruit are united in the whole form of the tree [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
In a tree the part of the form that is in the leaf is not the same character as the part that is in the fruit., but yet they are partial forms, and apt to be united ….to compose one complete form of the whole.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.30), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.6
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A reaction:
This is a common scholastic view, the main opponent of which was Aquinas, who says each thing only has one form. Do leaves have different DNA from the bark or the fruit? Presumably not (since I only have one DNA), which supports Aquinas.
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16758
|
The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
The most powerful arguments establishing substantial forms are based on the necessity, for the perfect constitution of a natural being, that all the faculties and operations of that being are rooted in one essential principle.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.64), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4
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A reaction:
Note Idea 15756, that this stability not only applies to biological entities (the usual Aristotelian examples), but also to non-living natural kinds. We might say that the drive for survival is someone united around a single entity.
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16742
|
We only know essences through non-essential features, esp. those closest to the essence [Suárez]
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Full Idea:
We can almost never set out the essences of things, as they are in things. Instead, we work through their connection to some non-essential feature, and we seem to succeed well enough when we spell it out through the feature closest to the essence.
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From:
Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.4.16), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5
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A reaction:
It is a common view that with geometrical figures we can actually experience the essence itself. So has science broken through, and discerned actual essences of things?
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9452
|
Propositions might be reduced to functions (worlds to truth values), or ordered sets of properties and relations [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
The reductionist view of propositions sees them as either extensional functions from possible worlds to truth values, or as ordered sets of properties, relations, and perhaps particulars.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
The usual problem of all functional accounts is 'what is it about x that enables it to have that function?' And if they are sets, where does the ordering come in? A proposition isn't just a list of items in some particular order. Both wrong.
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9451
|
Modal logic and brain science have reaffirmed traditional belief in propositions [Bealer]
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Full Idea:
Philosophers have been skeptical about abstract objects, and so have been skeptical about propositions,..but with the rise of modal logic and metaphysics, and cognitive science's realism about intentional states, traditional propositions are now dominant.
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From:
George Bealer (Propositions [1998], §1)
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A reaction:
I personally strongly favour belief in propositions as brain states, which don't need a bizarre ontological status, but are essential to explain language, reasoning and communication.
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