29 ideas
12249 | 'Animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The standard classification holds that 'animal' is a genus and 'rational' is a specific difference. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.5) | |
A reaction: My understanding of 'difference' would take it down to the level of the individual, so the question is - which did Aristotle believe in. Not all commentators agree with Oderberg, and Wedin thinks the individual substance is paramount. |
12242 | Definition distinguishes one kind from another, and individuation picks out members of the kind [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: To define something just means to set forth its limits in such a way that one can distinguish it from all other things of a different kind. To distinguish it from all other things of the same kind belongs to the theory of 'individuation'. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) | |
A reaction: I take Aristotle to have included individuation as part of his understanding of definition. Are tigers a kind, or are fierce tigers a kind, and is my tiger one-of-a-kind? |
15510 | Classes are a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities [Goodman] |
Full Idea: I will not willingly use apparatus that peoples the world with a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities. | |
From: Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], II.2), quoted by David Lewis - Parts of Classes 2.1 | |
A reaction: This represents the big gap that opened up with Goodman's former comrade in arms, Quine. Lewis quotes it in order to ask whether he means ethereal or platonic, as they are very different. I sympathise with Goodman. |
9920 | Two objects can apparently make up quite distinct arrangements in sets [Goodman, by Burgess/Rosen] |
Full Idea: Goodman argues that the set or class {{a}},{a,b}} is supposed to be distinct from the set or class {{b},{a,b}}, even though both are ultimately constituted from the same a and b. | |
From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.2.a | |
A reaction: I'm with Goodman all the way here, even though it is deeply unfashionable, particularly in the circles I move in. If there are trillion grains of sand on a beach, how many sets are we supposed to be committed to? |
10657 | The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman] |
Full Idea: A class (counties of Utah) is different neither from the individual (state of Utah) that contains its members, nor from any other class (acres of Utah) whose members exhaust the whole. For nominalists, distinction of entity means distinction of content. | |
From: Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], p.26), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 3.1 | |
A reaction: This is a nice credo for the nominalist version of mereology. You can still have a mereology that commits you to the wholes as well as the parts. Cf. Lewis in Idea 10660. |
12238 | The Aristotelian view is that numbers depend on (and are abstracted from) other things [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The Aristotelian account of numbers is that their existence depends on the existence of things that are not numbers, ..since numbers are abstractions from the existence of things. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.2) | |
A reaction: This is the deeply unfashionable view to which I am attached. The problem is the status of transfinite, complex etc numbers. They look like fictions to me. |
12254 | Being is substantial/accidental, complete/incomplete, necessary/contingent, possible, relative, intrinsic.. [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Being is heterogeneous: there is substantial being, accidental being, complete being, incomplete being, necessary being, contingent being, possible being, absolute being, relative being, intrinsic being, extrinsic being, and so on. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 5.3) | |
A reaction: Dependent being? Oderberg is giving the modern scholastic view. Personally I take 'being' to be univocal, even if it can be qualified in all sorts of ways. I don't believe we actually have any grasp at all of different ways to exist. |
12253 | If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: If tropes are in space and time, in what sense are they abstract? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.5) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a conclusive objection to claims for any such thing to be abstract. See, for example, Dummett's claim that the Equator is an abstract object. |
12256 | We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: We need a theory of essence to help us distinguish between the powers that do and do not belong to the essence of a thing. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 6.3) | |
A reaction: I take this to be a very good reason for searching for the essence of things, though the need to distinguish does not guarantee that there really is something to distinguish. Maybe powers just come and go. A power is essential in you but not in me? |
7956 | If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
Full Idea: According to Goodman's 'companionship difficulty', resemblance nominalism has a problem if, say, all and only the red things were the round things, because we cannot distinguish the two different respects in which the things resemble one another. | |
From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
A reaction: Goodman opts for extreme linguististic nominalism in response to this (Idea 7952), whereas Russell opts for a sort of Platonism (4441). The current idea gives Russell a further problem, of needing a universal of the respect of the resemblance. |
7957 | Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
Full Idea: Goodman's 'imperfect community' problem for Resemblance Nominalism says that without mention of respects in which things resemble, we end up with a heterogeneous collection with nothing wholly in common (blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock). | |
From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6 | |
A reaction: This suggests Wittgenstein's 'family' resemblance as a way out (Idea 4141), but a blue book and a red clock seem totally unrelated. Nice objection! At this point we start to think that the tropes resemble, rather than the objects. |
7952 | If we apply the same word to different things, it is only because we are willing to do so [Goodman, by Macdonald,C] |
Full Idea: Predicate nominalism is the view that what all things to which the same word applies have in common is simply our willingness to apply the same word to them. | |
From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], Ch.6) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things | |
A reaction: This is Goodman's 'extreme nominalist' position. This seems also to be an anti-realist position, as it denies any 'joints' to nature (Idea 7953). It strikes me as daft. WHY are we willing to apply words in certain ways? |
12252 | Empiricists gave up 'substance', as unknowable substratum, or reducible to a bundle [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The demise of 'substance' was wholly due to mistaken notions, mainly from the empiricists, by which it was conceived either as an unknowable featureless substratum, or as dispensable in favour of some or other bundle theory. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.4) | |
A reaction: There seems to be a view that the notion of substance is essential to explaining how we understand the world. I am inclined to think that if we accept the notion of essence we can totally dispense with the notion of substance. |
12241 | Essences are real, about being, knowable, definable and classifiable [Oderberg, by PG] |
Full Idea: Real essences are objectively real, they concern being, they are knowable, they are definable, and they are classifiable. | |
From: report of David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: This is a lovely summary (spread over two pages) of what essentialism is all about. It might be added that they are about unity and identity. The fact that they are intrinsically classifiable seems to mislead some people into a confused view. |
12244 | Nominalism is consistent with individual but not with universal essences [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Nominalism is consistent with belief in individual essences, but real essentialism postulates essences as universals (quiddities). Nominalists are nearly always empiricists, though the converse may not be the case. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 2.1) | |
A reaction: This is where I part company with Oderberg. I want to argue that the nominalist/individualist view is more in tune with what Aristotle believed (though he spotted a dilemma here). Only individual essences explain individual behaviour. |
12240 | Essentialism is the main account of the unity of objects [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Real essentialism, more than any other ontological theory, stresses and seeks to explain the unity of objects. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.3) | |
A reaction: A key piece in the jigsaw I am beginning to assemble. If explanation is the aim, and essence the key to explanation, then explaining unity is the part of it that connects with other metaphysics, about identity and so on. 'Units' breed numbers. |
12247 | Essence is not explanatory but constitutive [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Essence is not reducible to explanatory relations, ...and fundamentally the role of essence is not explanatory but constitutive. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Effectively, this asserts essence as part of 'pure' metaphysics, but I like impure metaphysics, as the best explanation of the things we can know. Hence we can speculate about constitution only by means of explanation. Constitution is active. |
12258 | Properties are not part of an essence, but they flow from it [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: A substance is constituted by its essence, and properties are a species of accident. No property of a thing is part of a thing's essence, though properties flow from the essence. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 7.2) | |
A reaction: I'm not sure I understand this. How can you know of something which has no properties? I'm wondering if the whole notion of a 'property' should be eliminated from good metaphysics. |
12257 | Could we replace essence with collections of powers? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Why not do away with talk of essences and replace it with talk of powers pure and simple, or reduce essences to collections of powers? But then what unites the powers, and could a power be lost, and is there entailment between the powers? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 6.3) | |
A reaction: [He cites Bennett and Hacker 2003 for this view] The point would seem to be that in addition to the powers, there are also identity and unity and kind-membership to be explained. Oderberg says the powers flow from the essence. |
12236 | Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's Law is an essentialist truth. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: That is, if two things must have identical properties because they are the same thing, this is because those properties are essential to the thing. Otherwise two things could be the same, even though one of them lacked a non-identifying property. |
12250 | Bodies have act and potency, the latter explaining new kinds of existence [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The fundamental thesis of real essentialism is that every finite material body has a twofold composition, being a compound of act and potency. ...Reality can take on new kinds of existence because there is a principle of potentiality inherent in reality. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 4.1) | |
A reaction: I take from this remark that the 'powers' discussed by Molnar and other scientific essentialists is roughly the same as 'potentiality' identified by Aristotle. |
12234 | Realism about possible worlds is circular, since it needs a criterion of 'possible' [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Any realist theory of possible worlds will be circular in its attempt to illuminate modality, for there has to be some criterion of what counts as a possible world. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: Seems right. At the very least, if we are going to rule out contradictory worlds as impossible (and is there a more obvious criterion?), we already need to understand 'impossible' in order to state that rule. |
12235 | Necessity of identity seems trivial, because it leaves out the real essence [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The necessity of identity carries the appearance of triviality, because it is the eviscerated contemporary essentialist form of a foundational real essentialist truth to the effect that every object has its own nature. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: I like this. Writers like Mackie and Forbes have to put the 'trivial' aspects of essence to one side, without ever seeing why there is such a problem. Real substantial essences have necessity of identity as a side-effect. |
12237 | Rigid designation has at least three essentialist presuppositions [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The rigid designator approach to essentialism has essentialist assumptions. ..The necessity of identity is built into the very conception of a rigid designator,..and Leibniz's Law is presupposed...and necessity of origin presupposes sufficiency of origin. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.1) | |
A reaction: [compressed. He cites Salmon 1981:196 for the last point] This sounds right. You feel happy to 'rigidly designate' something precisely because you think there is something definite and stable which can be designated. |
12245 | Essence is the source of a thing's characteristic behaviour [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: In the traditional terminology, function follows essence. Essence just is the principle from which flows the characteristic behaviour of a thing. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 2.1) | |
A reaction: Hence essence must be identified if the behaviour is to be explained, and a successful identification of essence is the terminus of our explanations. But the essences must go down to the micro-level. Explain non-characteristic behaviour? |
12246 | What makes Parmenidean reality a One rather than a Many? [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: Even if there were no multiplicity in unity - only a Parmenidean 'block' - still the question would arise as to what gave the amorphous lump its unity; by virtue of what would it be one rather than many? | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: Which is prior, division or unification? If it was divided, he would ask what divided it. One of them must be primitive, so why not unity? If one big Unity is primitive, why could not lots of unities be primitive? Etc. |
12239 | The real essentialist is not merely a scientist [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: It is incorrect to hold that the job of the real essentialist just is the job of the scientist. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.3) | |
A reaction: Presumably scientific essentialism, while being firmly a branch of metaphysics, is meant to clarify the activities of science, and thereby be of some practical use. You can't beat knowing what it is you are trying to do. |
12243 | The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken [Oderberg] |
Full Idea: The reductionism found in scientific essentialism is mistaken. | |
From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 1.4) | |
A reaction: Oderberg's point is that essence doesn't just occur at the bottom of the hierarchy of kinds, but can exist on a macro-level, and need not be a concealed structure, as we see in the essence of a pile of stones. |
5994 | Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG] |
Full Idea: The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning. | |
From: report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out. |