15 ideas
9208 | Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Philosophers with a new concept are like children with a new toy; their world shrinks to one in which it takes centre stage. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: A wonderfully accurate observation, I'm afraid. You can trace the entire history of the subject as a wave of obsessions with exciting new ideas. Fine is referring to a posteriori necessities and possible worlds. |
10580 | Mathematics is both necessary and a priori because it really consists of logical truths [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Mathematics seems necessary because the real contents of mathematical statements are logical truths, which are necessary, and it seems a priori because logical truths really are a priori. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 10) | |
A reaction: Yablo says his logicism has a Kantian strain, because numbers and sets 'inscribed on our spectacles', but he takes a different view (in the present Idea) from Kant about where the necessity resides. Personally I am tempted by an a posteriori necessity. |
10579 | Putting numbers in quantifiable position (rather than many quantifiers) makes expression easier [Yablo] |
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. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 08) | |
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. |
10577 | Concrete objects have few essential properties, but properties of abstractions are mostly essential [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Objects like me have a few essential properties, and numerous accidental ones. Abstract objects are a different story. The intrinsic properties of the empty set are mostly essential. The relations of numbers are also mostly essential. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 01) |
9210 | Possible objects are abstract; actual concrete objects are possible; so abstract/concrete are compatible [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: If it is in the nature of a possible object to be abstract, this is presumably a property it has in any possible circumstance in which it is actual. If it is actual it is also concrete. So the property of being abstract and concrete are not incompatible. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.14) | |
A reaction: A rather startling and powerful idea. What of the definition of an abstract object as one which is not in space-time, and lacks causal powers? Could it be that abstraction is a projection of our minds, onto concepts or objects? |
10578 | We are thought to know concreta a posteriori, and many abstracta a priori [Yablo] |
Full Idea: Our knowledge of concreta is a posteriori, but our knowledge of numbers, at least, has often been considered a priori. | |
From: Stephen Yablo (Abstract Objects: a Case Study [2002], 02) |
9211 | A non-standard realism, with no privileged standpoint, might challenge its absoluteness or coherence [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: By challenging the assumption that reality is 'absolute' (not relative to a standpoint), or that reality is 'coherent' (it is of a piece, from one standpoint), one accepts worldly facts without a privilege standpoint. I call this 'non-standard' realism. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.15) | |
A reaction: Fine's essay 'Tense and Reality' explores his proposal. I'm not drawn to either of his challenges. I have always taken as articles of faith that there could be a God's Eye view of all of reality, and that everything coheres, independent of our view. |
9202 | Objects, as well as sentences, can have logical form [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: We normally think of logical form as exclusively an attribute of sentences; however, the notion may also be taken to have application to objects. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 3) | |
A reaction: A striking proposal which seems intuitively right. If one said that objects have 'powers', one might subsume abstract and physical objects under a single account. |
9206 | We must distinguish between the identity or essence of an object, and its necessary features [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The failure to distinguish between the identity or essence of an object and its necessary features is an instance of what we may call 'modal mania'. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 9) | |
A reaction: He blames Kripke's work for modal mania, a reaction to Quine's 'contempt' for modal notions. I don't actually understand Fine's remark (yet), but it strikes me as incredibly important! Explanations by email, please. |
9205 | The three basic types of necessity are metaphysical, natural and normative [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There are three basic forms of necessity - the metaphysical (sourced in the identity of objects); natural necessity (in the 'fabric' of the universe); and normative necessity (in the realm of norms and values). | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 7) | |
A reaction: Earlier he has allowed, as less 'basic', logical necessity (in logical forms), and analytic necessity (in meaning). Fine insists that the three kinds should be kept separate (so no metaphysical necessities about nature). I resent this. |
9209 | Metaphysical necessity may be 'whatever the circumstance', or 'regardless of circumstances' [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: There are two fundamental ways in which a property may be metaphysically necessary: it may be a worldly necessity, true whatever the circumstances; or it may be a transcendent necessity, true regardless of the circumstances. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: [See Fine's 'Necessity and Non-Existence' for further details] The distinction seems to be that the first sort needs some circumstances (e.g. a physical world?), whereas the second sort doesn't (logical relations?). He also applies it to existence. |
9200 | Empiricists suspect modal notions: either it happens or it doesn't; it is just regularities. [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: Empiricists have always been suspicious of modal notions: the world is an on-or-off matter - either something happens or it does not. ..Empiricists, in so far as they have been able to make sense of modality, have tended to see it as a form of regularity. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p. 1) | |
A reaction: Fine is discussing the two extreme views of Quine and Lewis. It is one thing to have views about what is possible, and another to include possibilities 'in your ontology'. Our imagination competes with our extrapolations from actuality. |
9207 | If sentence content is all worlds where it is true, all necessary truths have the same content! [Fine,K] |
Full Idea: The content of a sentence is often identified with the set of possible worlds in which it is true, where the worlds are metaphysically possible. But this has the awkward consequence that all metaphysically necessary truths will have the same content. | |
From: Kit Fine (Intro to 'Modality and Tense' [2005], p.10) | |
A reaction: I've never understood how the content of a sentence could be a vast set of worlds, so I am delighted to see this proposal be torpedoed. That doesn't mean that truth conditions across possible worlds is not a promising notion. |
22595 | Liberty is the triumph of the individual, over both despotic government and enslaving majorities [Constant] |
Full Idea: Lliberty is the triumph of the individual, as much over a government which seeks to rule by despotic methods, as over the masses who seek to render the minority the slave of the majority. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (Principles of Politics [1806]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4 | |
A reaction: [No page given] Dunt describes Constant's book as the first really systematic account of liberalism. Very important to have rights against the majority, as well as against government. |
22597 | Minority rights are everyone's rights, because we all have turns in the minority [Constant] |
Full Idea: To defend the rights of minorities is to defend the rights of all. Everyone in turn finds himself in the minority. | |
From: Benjamin Constant (Principles of Politics [1806]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 4 | |
A reaction: Very conformist people, who are often the most oppressive, are rarely in the minority, and are unlikely to be impressed by this idea. |