|
23669
|
Thinkers say that matter has intrinsic powers, but is also passive and acted upon [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Those philosophers who attribute to matter the power of gravitation, and other active powers, teach us, at the same time, that matter is a substance altogether inert, and merely passive; …that those powers are impressed on it by some external cause.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 6)
|
|
A reaction:
This shows the dilemma of the period, when 'laws of nature' were imposed on passive matter by God, and yet gravity and magnetism appeared as inherent properties of matter.
|
|
23666
|
It is obvious that there could not be a power without a subject which possesses it [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
It is evident that a power is a quality, and cannot exist without a subject to which it belongs. That power may exist without any being or subject to which that power may be attributed, is an absurdity, shocking to every man of common understanding.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
This is understandble in the 18th C, when free-floating powers were inconceivable, but now that we have fields and plasmas and whatnot, we can't rule out pure powers as basic. However, I incline to agree with Reid. Matter is active.
|
|
23647
|
Objects have an essential constitution, producing its qualities, which we are too ignorant to define [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
Individuals and objects have a real essence, or constitution of nature, from which all their qualities flow: but this essence our faculties do not comprehend. They are therefore incapable of definition.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
Aha - he's one of us! I prefer the phrase 'essential nature' of an object, which is understood, I think, by everyone. I especially like the last bit, directed at those who mistakenly think that Aristotle identified the essence with the definition.
|
|
8329
|
Either causal relations are given in experience, or they are unobserved and theoretical [Sosa/Tooley]
|
|
Full Idea:
There is a fundamental choice between the realist approach to causation which says that the relation is immediately given in experience, and the view that causation is a theoretical relation, and so not directly observable.
|
|
From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
Even if immediate experience is involved, there is a step of abstraction in calling it a cause, and picking out events. A 'theoretical relation' is not of much interest there if no observations are involved. I don't think a choice is required here.
|
|
23646
|
Reference is by name, or a term-plus-circumstance, or ostensively, or by description [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
An individual is expressed by a proper name, or by a general word joined to distinguishing circumstances; if unknown, it may be pointed out to the senses; when beyond the reach of the senses it may be picked out by an imperfect but true description.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Intellectual Powers 4: Conception [1785], 1)
|
|
A reaction:
[compressed] If Putnam, Kripke and Donnellan had read this paragraph they could have save themselves a lot of work! I take reference to be the activity of speakers and writers, and these are the main tools of the trade.
|
|
8324
|
The problem is to explain how causal laws and relations connect, and how they link to the world [Sosa/Tooley]
|
|
Full Idea:
Causal states of affairs encompass causal laws, and causal relations between events or states of affairs; two key questions concern the relation between causal laws and causal relations, and the relation between these and non-causal affairs.
|
|
From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
This is the agenda for modern analytical philosophy. I'm not quite clear what would count as an answer. When have you 'explained' a relation? Does calling it 'gravity', or finding an equation, explain that relation? Do gravitinos explain it?
|
|
8328
|
Causation isn't energy transfer, because an electron is caused by previous temporal parts [Sosa/Tooley]
|
|
Full Idea:
The temporal parts of an electron (for example) are causally related, but this relation does not involve any transfer of energy or momentum. Causation cannot be identified with physical energy relations, and physicalist reductions look unpromising.
|
|
From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
This idea, plus Idea 8327, are their grounds for rejecting Fair's proposal (Idea 8326). It feels like a different use of 'cause' when we say 'the existence of x was caused by its existence yesterday'. It is more like inertia. Destruction needs energy.
|
|
8383
|
Day and night are constantly conjoined, but they don't cause one another [Reid, by Crane]
|
|
Full Idea:
A famous example of Thomas Reid: day regularly follows night, and night regularly follows day. There is therefore a constant conjunction between night and day. But day does not cause night, nor does night cause day.
|
|
From:
report of Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788]) by Tim Crane - Causation 1.2.2
|
|
A reaction:
Not a fatal objection to Hume, of course, because in the complex real world there are huge numbers of nested constant conjunctions. Night and the rotation of the Earth are conjoined. But how do you tell which constant conjunctions are causal?
|
|
8325
|
The dominant view is that causal laws are prior; a minority say causes can be explained singly [Sosa/Tooley]
|
|
Full Idea:
The dominant view is that causal laws are more basic than causal relations, with relations being logically supervenient on causal laws, and on properties and event relations; some, though, defend the singularist view, in which events alone can be related.
|
|
From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
I am deeply suspicious about laws (see Idea 5470). I suspect that the laws are merely descriptions of the regularities that arise from the single instances of causation. We won't explain the single instances, but then laws don't 'explain' them either.
|
|
23667
|
Regular events don't imply a cause, without an innate conviction of universal causation [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
A train of events following one another ever so regularly, could never lead us to the notion of a cause, if we had not, from our constitution, a conviction of the necessity of a cause for every event.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 5)
|
|
A reaction:
Presumably a theist like Reid must assume that the actions of God are freely chosen, rather than necessities. It's hard to see why this principle should be innate in us, and hard to see why it must thereby be true. A bit Kantian, this idea.
|
|
23670
|
Scientists don't know the cause of magnetism, and only discover its regulations [Reid]
|
|
Full Idea:
A Newtonian philosopher …confesses his ignorance of the true cause of magnetic motion, and thinks that his business, as a philosopher, is only to find from experiment the laws by which it is regulated in all cases.
|
|
From:
Thomas Reid (Essays on Active Powers 1: Active power [1788], 6)
|
|
A reaction:
Since there is a 'true cause', that implies that the laws don't actively 'regulate' the magnetism, but only describe its regularity, which I think is the correct view of laws.
|