6 ideas
| 22101 | Philosophy aims to know the truth about the way things are [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The study of philosophy has as its purpose to know not what people have thought, but rather the truth about the way things are. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Sententia on 'De Caelo' [1268], I.22.228), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 05 | |
| A reaction: I agree with this deeply unfashionable opinion. Of course, modern investigations must be more sensitive to biases built into language, culture and conceptual schemes. But I am one of those sad old folks who still think truths can be stated. |
| 9086 | The idea of abstract objects is not ontological; it comes from the epistemological idea of abstraction [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: The notion of an abstract object comes from the notion of abstraction; it is in origin an epistemological rather than an ontological category. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.232) | |
| A reaction: Etymology doesn't prove anything. However, if you define abstract objects as not existing in space or time, you must recognise that this may only be because that is how humans imaginatively created them in the first place. |
| 9087 | Theists may see abstract objects as really divine thoughts [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Theists may find attractive a view popular among medieval philosophers from Augustine on: that abstract objects are really divine thoughts. More exactly, propositions are divine thoughts, properties divine concepts, and sets divine collections. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.233) | |
| A reaction: Hm. I pass this on because we should be aware that there is a theological history to discussions of abstract objects, and some people have vested interests in keeping them outside of the natural world. Aren't properties natural? Does God gerrymander sets? |
| 9085 | If propositions are concrete they don't have to exist, and so they can't be necessary truths [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: Someone who believes propositions are concrete cannot agree that some propositions are necessary. For propositions are contingent beings, and could have failed to exist. But if they fail to exist, then they fail to be true. | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.230) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] He implies the actual existence of an infinity of trivial, boring or ridiculous necessary truths. I suspect that he is just confusing a thought with its content. Or we might just treat necessary propositions as hypothetical. |
| 9084 | Propositions can't just be in brains, because 'there are no human beings' might be true [Plantinga] |
| Full Idea: If propositions are brain inscriptions, then if there had been no human beings there would have been no propositions. But then 'there are no human beings' would have been true, so there would have been at least one truth (and thus one proposition). | |
| From: Alvin Plantinga (Why Propositions cannot be concrete [1993], p.229) | |
| A reaction: This would make 'there are no x's' true for any value of x apart from actual objects, which implies an infinity of propositions. Does Plantinga really believe that these all exist? He may be confusing propositions with facts. |
| 17993 | Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain [Vetter] |
| Full Idea: The laws of a domain are the fundamental, general explanatory relationships between kinds, quantities, and qualities of that domain, that supervene upon the essential natures of those things. | |
| From: Barbara Vetter (Dispositional Essentialism and the Laws of Nature [2012], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. How small can the domain be? Can it embrace the multiverse? Supervenience is a rather weak relationship. How about 'are necessitated/entailed by'? Are the relationships supposed to do the explaining? I would have thought the natures did that. |