96 ideas
| 16606 | Original philosophers invariably seek inspiration from past thinkers [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Philosophers almost never strike out on wholly new ground, without the historical inspiration of some figure or other. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.1) |
| 16604 | Philosophy consists of choosing between Plato, Aristotle and Democritus [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The history of philosophy consists in a series of choices between three primordial rivals: Plato, Aristotle and Democritus. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.1) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau's point is that the importance of Democritus is not usually appreciated. As far as I can see, Democritus may have been the greatest of all philosophers, but most of his works are lost. His fragments are the best fragments. |
| 16586 | The commentaries of Averroes were the leading guide to Aristotle [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The commentaries of Averroes on virtually the whole Aristotelian corpus became by far the most important scholastic guide to the interpretation of Aristotle. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 03.1) |
| 16568 | Modernity begins in the late 12th century, with Averroes's commentaries on Aristotle [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: I tend to think of modernity as coming in the late twelfth century, with Averroes's magisterial commentaries on Aristotle. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: A rather quirky use of 'modernity', but this seems to be a huge landmark. Note that it comes from the Islamic Arab world, not from Europe. |
| 16653 | Once accidents were seen as real, 'Categories' became the major text for ontology [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Originally you count substances for ontology. Once there is the doctrine of real accidents (in the 14th cent) the list of ten categories begins to look like an inventory of the kinds of things there are, and 'Categories' looks like the fundamental text. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 12.1) | |
| A reaction: Prior to this development, 'Categories' was treated as a mere beginner's text, once the major corpus of Aristotle had been rediscovered in the 13th century. The result of this development is sortal essentialism, which I don't like. |
| 16704 | In 1347, the Church effectively stopped philosophy for the next 300 years [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The year 1347 is a great milestone in the history of philosophy, because then the route to modern philosophy was blocked by Church authorities, and effectively put on hold for almost 300 years. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 19.3) | |
| A reaction: It is interesting that it was 100 years after the Reformation before philosophy got going again, and then only thanks to one man. Islam stopped philosophy earlier. |
| 16605 | After c.1450 all of Plato was available. Before that, only the first half of 'Timaeus' was known [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: From the mid-fifteenth century forward, for the first time, the whole Platonic corpus was available in Ficino's Latin translation. Before then, only the first half of the 'Timaeus' had widely circulated in Latin. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.1) |
| 16607 | Renaissance Platonism is peripheral [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The fabled phenomenon of Renaissance Platonism is peripheral. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.3) | |
| A reaction: The point is that only a few Italians pursued the Platonic line. Pasnau suggests Cartesian dualism as a possible influence from Plato. |
| 16715 | Plato only made an impact locally in 15th century Italy [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In certain limited circles in Italy, Plato made an impact in the fifteenth century, but his influence never came close to challenging Aristotle's. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 20.2) |
| 16781 | The 17th century is a metaphysical train wreck [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The seventeenth century is a metaphysical train wreck. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 26.6) | |
| A reaction: This is, roughly, because the corpuscularian philosophy lacked the resources to answer all the problems dealt with by substantial forms. |
| 16610 | Philosophy could easily have died in 17th century, if it weren't for Descartes [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: As scholasticism collapsed in the 17th century, it might easily have happened is that philosophy simply died. That this did not happen is due in large part to René Descartes. …It is remarkable that this brilliant man insisted on still doing philosophy. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.5) | |
| A reaction: The alternative view is, of course, that you just can't stop people from thinking philosophically (except by totalitarian education). Are there philosophers in North Korea, or among the Taliban? |
| 16677 | Anti-Razor: if you can't account for a truth, keep positing things until you can [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The Anti-Razor says 'whenever an affirmative proposition is truly stated, if one thing does not suffice to account for its truth, then one must posit things, and if two do not suffice then three, and so on to infinity'. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 14.3) | |
| A reaction: This is quoted from an anonymous logic text of 1325. Apparently Ockham himself articulated the idea more than once. |
| 4098 | The theory of descriptions supports internalism, since they are thinkable when the object is non-existent [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The theory of descriptions gives a model of internalist intentionality, in that it describes cases where the thinkability of a belief does not depend on the existence of a specific object. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.36) | |
| A reaction: So what do externalists say about the theory? Surely a reference to 'water' can't entail the existence of water? |
| 16598 | Priority was a major topic of dispute for scholastics [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: For a scholastic author, hardly anything was so likely to precipitate a lengthy disputatio as talk of priority, in its various kinds. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 04.3) |
| 4077 | Aesthetic properties of thing supervene on their physical properties [Crane] |
| Full Idea: It is sometimes said that the aesthetic properties of a thing supervene on its physical properties. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.16) | |
| A reaction: A confusing example, as aesthetic properties only exist if there is an observer. Is 'supervenience' just an empty locution which tries to avoid reduction? |
| 4078 | Constitution (as in a statue constituted by its marble) is supervenience without identity [Crane] |
| Full Idea: A statue is constituted by the marble that makes it up. It is plausible to say that constitution is not the same as identity - since identity is symmetrical and identity is not - but nonetheless constitution is a supervenience relation. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.16) | |
| A reaction: So what makes it a statue, as opposed to a piece of marble? It may well be an abstraction which only exists relative to observers. |
| 16727 | In mixtures, the four elements ceased to exist, replaced by a mixed body with a form [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The standard view was that in a mixture there is only the mixed body and its substantial form (gold). There are no further substantial forms of the elements, because the elements do not actually exist within the body. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 22.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be the key idea that was overthrown in the seventeenth century, so that corpuscular matter kept aspects of its ingredients, which science could then investigate. With the substantial form, investigation seemed impossible. |
| 16732 | 17th C qualities are either microphysical, or phenomenal, or powers [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The seventeenth century is often said to have bequeathed us three ways of thinking about sensible qualities: either in reductive microphysical terms, or as internal phenomenal states, or else as powers or dispositions. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.1) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau goes on to claim that no one in the 17th century believed the third one. I take it to be a very new, and totally wonderful and correct, view. |
| 16733 | 17th century authors only recognised categorical properties, never dispositions [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In the seventeenth century, my claim is that authors during the period recognise only categorical properties, and never dispositional properties. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.1) |
| 4083 | If mental properties are emergent they add a new type of causation, and physics is not complete [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Whatever the causal process is, it remains true that if emergentism is true, the completeness of physics is false; there are some effects which would not have come about if mental things were absent from the world. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
| A reaction: Emergentism looks to me like an incoherent concept, unless it is another word for dualism. |
| 4082 | The distinction between 'resultant' properties (weight) and 'emergent' properties is a bit vague [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The distinction between 'resultant' properties like weight, and 'emergent' properties like colour, seems intuitive enough, but on examination it is very hard to make precise. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
| A reaction: It is no coincidence that the examples are of primary and secondary qualities. If 'the physical entails the mental' then all mental properties are resultant. |
| 16662 | The biggest question for scholastics is whether properties are real, or modes of substances [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Among scholastics the primary agreement is that what primarily exist are substances. The primary disagreement concerns the nature of their changeable properties. Are they real accidents, or mere modes of substance? | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 13.1) |
| 16767 | There is no centralised power, but we still need essence for a metaphysical understanding [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: One could empirically reject a centralised power within a substance - and still think a genuine substance requires a form of some more abstract kind, not for a physical explanation, but for a full metaphysical understanding of how things are. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 25.2) | |
| A reaction: This divorce of the 'metaphysical' from the physical is a running theme in Pasnau, and he cites support from Leibniz. I'm not sure I understand 'metaphysical' understanding, if it is actually contrary to physics. I take it to be 'psychological'. |
| 4079 | Properties are causes [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Properties are causes. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.17) | |
| A reaction: We can't detect properties if they lack causal powers. This may be a deep confusion. Properties are what make causal powers possible, but that isn't what properties are? |
| 14534 | Shoemaker moved from properties as powers to properties bestowing powers [Shoemaker, by Mumford/Anjum] |
| Full Idea: Shoemaker ventured the theory in 1980 that properties just are clusters of powers, but he has subsequently abandoned this, and now thinks properties bestow their bearers with causal powers. | |
| From: report of Sydney Shoemaker (Self, Body and Coincidence [1999], p.297) by S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum - Getting Causes from Powers 1.1 | |
| A reaction: Like Mumford and Anjum, I prefer the earlier theory. I think taking powers as basic is the only story that really makes sense. A power is intrinsic and primitive, whereas properties are complex, messy, partly subjective, and higher level. |
| 16788 | Instead of adding Aristotelian forms to physical stuff, one could add dispositions [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Someone who wants to enrich a strict corpuscularian account with other metaphysical entities has alternatives other than Aristotelian hylomorphism. One can, for instance, introduce dispositions. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 28.2) | |
| A reaction: This slightly throws me, because I have been flirting with a dispositional account of hylomorphism. The implication is that the form is abstract and structural, where the disposition is real and physical. But dispositions can do the job of forms. |
| 16738 | Scholastics reject dispositions, because they are not actual, as forms require [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Scholastics reject anything like bare dispositions, on Aristotelian principles. Powers are forms, and forms actualise their subject, and are causally efficacious. Therefore no powers can be bare dispositions. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.5) | |
| A reaction: The point seems to be that a mere disposition is not actual, as a form is required to be. I would have thought that a power does not have to be operational to be actual. A live electric wire is a real phenomenon. It isn't waiting to be live. |
| 16649 | Scholastics say there is a genuine thing if it is 'separable' [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Among the scholastics (after Duns Scotus) it would be come to be taken for granted that the crucial test for being a genuine thing - a 'res' - is separability. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 11.2) | |
| A reaction: The idea of separability is implicit in Aristotle. In borderline cases, it seems that they are tempted to claim that things like accidental properties are separable, simply because they want them to be genuine things. A criterion for separability? |
| 16785 | If you reject essences, questions of individuation become extremely difficult [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Given the accepted linkage between a thing's essence and its identity, the rejection of essences makes a complete mess out of questions of individuation. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 27.6) | |
| A reaction: I note that he talks of a thing having 'identity', contra the view of identity as a two-place relation. I agree with this, but there is a chicken-egg problem. Do I perceive an identity and surmise an essence, or surmise an essence and deduce identity? |
| 16680 | Scholastics thought Quantity could be the principle of individuation [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Quantity was a leading scholastic contender for the principle of individuation. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 14.4) |
| 16628 | Corpuscularianism promised a decent account of substance [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: One of the great attractions of corpuscularianism is that it promises to put our acquaintance with substances on a solid foundation. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 07.3) | |
| A reaction: This is why the seventeenth century did not abandon 'substance', even though they banished 'substantial form'. |
| 4068 | Traditional substance is separate from properties and capable of independent existence [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The traditional concept of substance says substances bear properties which are distinct from them, and substances are capable of independent existence. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.9) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, it sounds ridiculous as a physical theory. It is hard to dislodge substance, though, from a priori human metaphysics. |
| 16617 | Corpuscularian critics of scholasticism say only substances exist [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Corpuscularian critics of scholasticism tend to think that only substances exist. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 06.2) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau treats this as an extreme 17th C reaction which was hopelessly inadequate as metaphysics. We have been struggling with the nature of 'properties' ever since, while losing our grip on the concept of a unified 'substance'. |
| 16741 | Scholastics wanted to treat Aristotelianism as physics, rather than as metaphysics [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: There is a broad scholastic tendency to understand Aristotelianism not in abstract, metaphysical terms, but as a concrete, physical theory of the world. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 23.5) | |
| A reaction: This seems to give a good explanation of why Aristotelianism plummeted to oblivion in the 17th C. Pasnau obviously wants to revive it, by drawing a sharp line between metaphysics and science. I doubt the line. |
| 16777 | If crowds are things at all, they seem to be Substances, since they bear properties [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Crowds seem to be the bearers of properties, and if they are things at all, then there is no place for them other than in the category of Substance. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 26.1) | |
| A reaction: It is tempting to say, based on Aristotle, that a substance is whatever 1) bears properties, and 2) endures in spite of change, but a crowd is a nice problem case, because it looks too disunited to be a 'substance'. |
| 16615 | Scholastics use 'substantia' for thick concrete entities, and for thin metaphysical ones [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Scholastic texts are rife with different senses of 'substantia', using the term to refer, among other things, both to thick concrete entities and to thin metaphysical ones. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 06.1) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau introduces 'thin' and 'thick' substance for this reason. I may adopt this. Without distinctions between thin and thick concepts of things we can get very muddled. I like the word to label something which is an 'entity'. |
| 16775 | For corpuscularians, a substance is just its integral parts [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: According to strict corpuscularianism the only real constituents of a substance are its integral parts. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 26.1) | |
| A reaction: An understandable reaction to the emptiness of Aristotelian substantial forms in science. It seems to leave out the structural principles that distinguish one arrangement of parts from another. See Koslicki on this. |
| 16769 | If clay survives destruction of the statue, the statue wasn't a substance, but a mere accident [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The unitarian view of substance says it cannot be divided. If the clay can survive the destruction of the statue, then that shows that the statue was not a substance at all, and that its shape (or whatever made it a statue) was merely a passing accident. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 25.3) | |
| A reaction: This seems to give the orthodox Aristotelian/Thomist reading, assuming that a substance only has one form, which unifies it. Since clay must have shape, and statues must have matter, I have never understood how there were two objects here. |
| 16602 | Corpuscularianism rejected not only form, but also the dependence of matter on form [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: What marks the rise of the corpuscularian movement is not just the rejection of form, but the rejection of matter as dependent on form. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 04.5) | |
| A reaction: The point was that matter required form to have any kind of actual existence, but now matter can stand on its own. |
| 16612 | Hylomorphism may not be a rival to science, but an abstract account of unity and endurance [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Hylomorphism admits of an alternative formulation, as an explanatory schema at a different level of analysis, not competing with corpuscular-mechanistic theory, but accounting for abstract features of the world - notably unity and endurance of substances. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 06.1) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau is clearly sympathetic. As a view of why normal objects have unity and persist over time it is almost the only decent theory around. Hawley, for example, struggles to explain how 'stages' of a thing are linked. Classical mereology is silly. |
| 16613 | Hylomorphism declined because scholastics made it into a testable physical theory [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Scholastics lost their grip on hylomorphism as a metaphysical theory, conceiving of it as a concrete, physical hypothesis about causal forces. Once form and matter were made subject to empirical research, their days were inevitably numbered. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 06.1) | |
| A reaction: Pasnau seems to make a sharp distinction between science, and a separate realm he labels 'metaphysical'. You can't keep causation out of Aristotelian hylomorphism. The defence is that it is at a higher level of generality than science. |
| 16747 | Scholastics made forms substantial, in a way unintended by Aristotle [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The conception of form as somehow substantial took on new life among scholastic Aristotelians, and was developed in ways that Aristotle himself never suggested. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.1) | |
| A reaction: This is music to we modern neo-Aristotelians, because scholasticism was rightly dumped in the 17th C, but we can go back and start again from what The Philosopher actually said. |
| 16759 | Scholastics began to see substantial form more as Aristotle's 'efficient' cause [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The whole scholastic conception of substantial form came to have more and more in common with an Aristotelian efficient cause. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.2) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle, of course, identified the form with the 'formal cause [aitia]', which is the shape of the statue, rather than the efficient cause, which is the sculptor. |
| 16748 | Aquinas says a substance has one form; Scotists say it has many forms [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Aquinas subscribes to the unitarian doctrine that a single substance has just a single substantial form, but authors like Scotus subscribe to a plurality of substantial forms. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.1) | |
| A reaction: The Scotists seem to think that qualities themselve can have forms. I take it that Aristotle would have agreed with Aquinas. |
| 16671 | Scholastic Quantity either gives a body parts, or spreads them out in a unified way [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: On one version of Quantity realism it is what makes a body have parts; on another version, it is what makes the body's parts be spread out in a continuous and unified way. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 14.1) |
| 16596 | A substratum can't be 'bare', because it has a job to do [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: A completely bare substratum seems not just incoherent but also unable to carry out the function for which it is intended - to be a substratum. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 03.3) |
| 16579 | There may be different types of substrate, or temporary substrates [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The substratum thesis says …perhaps there is a different subject for different kinds of changes, and perhaps what endures through one kind of change will be corrupted by another. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) |
| 16584 | If a substrate gives causal support for change, quite a lot of the ingredients must endure [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: When the substratum thesis is grounded on the idea that the ingredients must endure through the change, if they are to play a causal role, then it is natural to suppose that quite a lot of the ingredients must endure. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle sharply distinguishes alteration from substantial change, but as the substrate gets thinner, the boundary between those two would blur. |
| 16580 | A substrate may be 'prime matter', which endures through every change [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The 'conservation thesis' about substrates says that there is a single, most basic substrate that endures through every material change, something we call 'prime matter'. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) |
| 16749 | Aristotelians deny that all necessary properties are essential [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: For an Aristotelian not all necessary properties are essential; the essential properties are those that define a thing as what it is. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.1) | |
| A reaction: I take it as basic that whatever is essential is in some way important, whereas necessities can be trivial. |
| 16694 | Typical successive things are time and motion [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The standard scholastic examples of 'entia successiva' are time and motion. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 18.1) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle's examples of a day and the Games seem clearer, as time and motion do not count so clearly as 'things'. |
| 16583 | Weak ex nihilo says it all comes from something; strong version says the old must partly endure [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The weak ex nihilo principle says that everything comes from something, and the strong ex nihilo principle says that in everything new, something of the old must endure | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) |
| 4096 | Maybe beliefs don't need to be conscious, if you are not conscious of the beliefs guiding your actions [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The beliefs that are currently guiding your actions do not need to be in your stream of consciousness, which suggests that beliefs do not need to be conscious at all. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.31) | |
| A reaction: Too bold, I think. Presumably this would eliminate all the other propositional attitudes from consciousness. There would only be qualia left! |
| 4097 | Maybe there are two kinds of belief - 'de re' beliefs and 'de dicto' beliefs [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers have claimed that there are two kinds of belief, 'de re' belief and 'de dicto' belief. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.35) | |
| A reaction: Interesting, though it may only distinguish two objects of belief, not two types. Internalist and externalist views are implied. |
| 4093 | Many cases of knowing how can be expressed in propositional terms (like how to get somewhere) [Crane] |
| Full Idea: There are plenty of cases of knowing how to do something, where that knowledge can also be expressed - without remainder, as it were - in propositional terms (such as knowing how to get to the Albert Hall). | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.28) | |
| A reaction: Presumably all knowing how could be expressed propositionally by God. |
| 4108 | Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless, so which is it? [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Phenol-thio-urea tastes bitter to three-quarters of people, but to the rest it is tasteless. Is it really bitter, or really tasteless? | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.44) | |
| A reaction: A nice reinforcement of a classic Greek question. Good support for the primary/secondary distinction. Common sense, really. |
| 4105 | The traditional supports for the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The traditional examples used to support the sense datum theory were seeing double and specks before one's eyes. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.43) | |
| A reaction: Presumably, though, direct realists can move one eye, or having something wrong with a retina. |
| 4104 | One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine [Crane] |
| Full Idea: One can taste that the wine is sour, and one can also taste the sourness of the wine. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
| A reaction: …so sense data are optional? We create sense data by objectifying them, but animals just taste the wine, and are direct realists. Tasting the sourness seems to be a case of abstraction. |
| 4102 | The problems of perception disappear if it is a relation to an intentional state, not to an object or sense datum [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The solution to the problem of perception is to deny that it is related to real objects (things or sense-data); rather, perception is an intentional state (with a subject, mode and content), a relation to the intentional content. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
| A reaction: Not clear. This definition makes it sound like a propositional attitude. |
| 4101 | If we smell something we are aware of the smell separately, but we don't perceive a 'look' when we see [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Visual perception seems to differ from some of the other senses; when we become aware of burning toast, we become aware of the smell, ...but we don't see a garden by seeing a 'look' of the garden. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.40) | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Do blind people transfer this more direct perception to a different sense (e.g. the one they rely on most)? |
| 4109 | If perception is much richer than our powers of description, this suggests that it is non-conceptual [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The richness in information of perceptual experience outruns our modes of description of it, which has led some philosophers to claim that the content of perceptual experience is non-conceptual. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.45) | |
| A reaction: It certainly implies that it can't be entirely conceptual, but it still may be that in humans concepts are always involved. Not when I'm waking up in the morning, though. |
| 4103 | The adverbial theory of perceptions says it is the experiences which have properties, not the objects [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The Adverbial Theory of perception holds that the predicates which other theories take as picking out the properties of objects are really adverbs of the perceptual verb; ..instead of strange objects, we just have properties of experiences. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.42) | |
| A reaction: Promising. It fits secondary qualities all right, but what about primary? I 'see bluely', but can I 'see squarely'? |
| 4065 | Is knowledge just a state of mind, or does it also involve the existence of external things? [Crane] |
| Full Idea: It is controversial whether knowledge is a state of mind, or a composite state involving a thought about something, plus its existence. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Pinpoints the internalism/externalism problem. Knowledge is a special type of belief (but maybe belief with external links!). Tricky. I vote for internalism. |
| 16783 | Essences must explain, so we can infer them causally from the accidents [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Without the explanatory role of essence, the underlying epistemic picture would be jeopardised, because there would no longer be any causal route by which we might get from accidents to essence. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 27.5) | |
| A reaction: There is a slight whiff of circularity here. It could be that we are psychologically desperate for essences, and so we invent bogus causal routes from the accidents to get at them. Can we know there are essences awaiting us, on independent grounds? |
| 4092 | The core of the consciousness problem is the case of Mary, zombies, and the Hard Question [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The three arguments that have been used to articulate the problem of consciousness are the knowledge argument ('Mary'), the possibility of 'zombies' (creatures like us but lacking phenomenal consciousness), and the explanatory gap (the Hard Question). | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.26) | |
| A reaction: All of these push towards the implausible claim that there could never be a physical explanation of why we experience things. Zombies are impossible, in my opinion. |
| 4087 | Intentionalism does not require that all mental states be propositional attitudes [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Intentionalism (the doctrine that all mental states are intentional) need not be the thesis that all mental states are propositional attitudes. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.22) | |
| A reaction: This points to the requirement for an intentionalist to prove that so-called 'qualia' states are essentially intentional, which is not implausible. |
| 4095 | Object-directed attitudes like love are just as significant as propositional attitudes [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Love, hate, and the other object-directed attitudes have as much of a role in explaining behaviour as the propositional attitudes. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.34) | |
| A reaction: A good clarification of the range of intentional states. Objects seem to be external, where propositions are clearly internal. |
| 4106 | If someone removes their glasses the content of experience remains, but the quality changes [Crane] |
| Full Idea: There is a phenomenal difference between a short-sighted person wearing glasses and not; they do not judge that the world is different, but the properties of the experience (the qualia) have changed. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.43) | |
| A reaction: Could be challenged. If a notice becomes unreadable, that is more than the qualia changing. |
| 4089 | Pains have a region of the body as their intentional content, not some pain object [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The intentional object of a pain-state is a part or region of the body, not a pain-object. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.24) | |
| A reaction: Plausible. Has anyone ever suffered from pain without some sense of what part of the body is actually in pain? |
| 4090 | Weak intentionalism says qualia are extra properties; strong intentionalism says they are intentional [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Weak intentionalism says all mental states are intentional, but qualia are higher-order properties of these states. ..Strong intentionalists say the phenomenal character of a sensation consists purely in that state's intentionality. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.25) | |
| A reaction: The weak version sounds better. Asking 'how could a thought have a quality of experience just by being about something?' is a restatement of the traditional problem, which won't go away. The Hard Question. |
| 4107 | With inverted qualia a person's experiences would change, but their beliefs remain the same [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The right thing to say about inverted qualia is that the person's experiences are different from other people's, but their beliefs are the same. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 5.44) | |
| A reaction: Right - which reinforces the idea that all beliefs are the result of judgement, and none come directly from perception. |
| 4069 | Descartes did not think of minds as made of a substance, because they are not divisible [Crane] |
| Full Idea: It would be wrong to represent Descartes' view as the idea that bodies are made of one kind of stuff and minds of another; he did not think minds are made of stuff at all, because then they would be divisible. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: I'm not convinced. It could be an indivisible substance. Without a mental substance, Descartes may have to say the mind is an abstraction, perhaps a pattern of Platonic forms. |
| 4074 | Functionalism defines mental states by their causal properties, which rules out epiphenomenalism [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Functionalism holds that it is in the nature of certain mental states to have certain effects; therefore there can be no mental epiphenomena. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
| A reaction: I strongly resist the idea that a thing's identity is its function. Functionalism may not say that. Mind is an abstraction referring to a causal nexus of unknowable components. |
| 4091 | The problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The fundamental problems of misrepresentation and error have dogged physicalist reductions of intentionality. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.26) | |
| A reaction: If footprints or tree-rings are the model for reductions of intentionality, there doesn't seem much scope in them for giving false information, except by some freak event. |
| 4070 | Properties dualism says mental properties are distinct from physical, despite a single underlying substance [Crane] |
| Full Idea: According to property dualism, mental properties are distinct from physical properties, even though they are properties of one substance. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.10) | |
| A reaction: Two properties may be phenomenologically different (transparent and magnetic), but that doesn't put them in different ontological categories. |
| 4084 | Non-reductive physicalism seeks an explanation of supervenience, but emergentists accept it as basic [Crane] |
| Full Idea: While the non-reductive physicalist believes that mental/physical supervenience must be explained, the emergentist is willing to accept it as a fact of nature. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.18) | |
| A reaction: A good reason not to be an emergentist. No philosopher should abandon the principle of sufficient reason. |
| 4080 | If mental supervenes on the physical, then every physical cause will be accompanied by a mental one [Crane] |
| Full Idea: If the mental supervenes on the physical, then whenever a physical cause brings about some effect, a mental cause comes along for the ride. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.17) | |
| A reaction: This is why supervenience seems to imply epiphenomenalism. The very concept of supervenience is dubious. |
| 4085 | Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Physicalism may be the source of the mind-body problem, rather than its solution. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.19) | |
| A reaction: Certainly if the physical is seen as just a pile of atoms, it is hard to see how they could ever think (see idea 1909). |
| 4075 | Identity theory is either of particular events, or of properties, depending on your theory of causation [Crane] |
| Full Idea: If causation concerns events, then we have an identity theory of mental and physical events (particulars) [Davidson]. If causation is by properties, then it is mental and physical properties which are identical [Lewis and Armstrong]. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
| A reaction: Events are tokens, and properties are types. Tricky. Events are dynamic, but properties can be static. |
| 4073 | Overdetermination occurs if two events cause an effect, when each would have caused it alone [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Causal overdetermination is when an effect has more than one cause, and each event would have caused the effect if the other one had not done so. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.13) | |
| A reaction: Overdetermination is a symptom that an explanation is questionable, but it can occur. Two strong people can join to push over a light hatstand. |
| 4072 | The completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind [Crane] |
| Full Idea: I claim that the completeness of physics must be an essential component of any physicalist view of mind. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.12) | |
| A reaction: He does not convince me of this. The mind may be within physics, but why should we say a priori that no exceptions to physical law will ever be discovered. Crane is setting up straw men. |
| 4094 | Experience teaches us propositions, because we can reason about our phenomenal experience [Crane] |
| Full Idea: In experience we learn propositions, since someone can reason using the sentence 'Red looks like this' (e.g. 'If red looks like this, then either it looks like this to dogs or it doesn't'). | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 3.28) | |
| A reaction: The fact that we can create propositions about experiences doesn't prove that experience is inherently propositional. |
| 4100 | The Twin Earth argument depends on reference being determined by content, which may be false. [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The Twin Earth argument does not refute internalism, since it depends on the 'Content-Determines-Reference' principle, which internalists can reject. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 4.37) | |
| A reaction: The idea is that content should be understood in a context (e.g. on a particular planet). Indexicals count against a totally narrow view of content (Twins thinking 'I am here'). |
| 4067 | Broad content entails the existence of the object of the thought [Crane] |
| Full Idea: If a mental state is broad, then the existence of the mental state entails the existence of its object. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: Hence thinking of non-existent things like unicorns is problematic for externalists. However, externalists can think about numbers or Platonic ideals. |
| 4063 | In intensional contexts, truth depends on how extensions are conceived. [Crane] |
| Full Idea: Intensional contexts are those where truth or falsehood depends on the way the extensions are conceived. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: An important distinction for anyone defending an internalist view of concepts or of knowledge |
| 16609 | Atomists say causation is mechanical collisions, and all true qualities are microscopic [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The atomist view is that causation is limited to collisions among corpuscles (which is 'mechanism'), and the only bodily qualities are those found at the microcorpuscular level; sensible qualities are in fact sensations. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.4) | |
| A reaction: [Part of a full summary of atomism by Pasnau] |
| 16603 | In the 17th C matter became body, and was then studied by science [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In the seventeenth century, matter becomes body, and body becomes the object of natural science. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 04.5) |
| 16592 | Atomism is the commonest version of corpuscularianism, but isn't required by it [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Atomism is the most common version of corpuscular prime matter, but it is not the only option. Indeed, atomism neither entails nor is entailed by the combination of corpuscularianism and the substratum thesis. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 03.2) | |
| A reaction: The point is that the corpuscles may be endlessly divisible (which Lewis called 'gunk'). |
| 16750 | If there are just arrangements of corpuscles, where are the boundaries between substances? [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: If all there are corpuscles of various shapes and sizes, variously arranged, it is not easy to see how we might draw the boundary lines, at any given moment, between one substance and another. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.2) | |
| A reaction: We still have precisely that problem, and it leads to the nihilism about ordinary objects found in Unger, Van Inwagen and Merricks. I have so far found modern defences of ordinary objects unpersuasive. |
| 4071 | Causation can be seen in counterfactual terms, or as increased probability, or as energy flow [Crane] |
| Full Idea: A theory of causation might say 'If A had not existed, B would not have existed' (counterfactual theory), or 'B is more likely if A occurs' (probabilistic), or 'energy flows from A to B'. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.11) | |
| A reaction: As always, it is vital to separate epistemology from ontology. Energy won't cover agents. Whisper "Fire!" in a theatre. |
| 16722 | Scholastic causation is by changes in the primary qualities of hot, cold, wet, dry [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: There is a scholastic theory of causation. Of Aristotle's Four Causes, the main one is the 'formal' cause, and that consists of changes in the primary, elemental qualities, which are hot, cold, wet and dry. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 21.2) | |
| A reaction: [my summary] It is probably right to call this 'scholastic' rather than 'Aristotelian', as I take Aristotelian essence to run deeper than this, and involve principles as well as qualities. |
| 4076 | Causes are properties, not events, because properties are what make a difference in a situation [Crane] |
| Full Idea: My view is that causes are properties (not events); when we look for causes, we look for the aspect of a situation which made a difference, and aspects are properties or qualities. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 2.14) | |
| A reaction: He is talking about explanations, which may not be causes, or at least they have a different emphasis. Don't events 'make a difference'? Events are ontologically weird |
| 16760 | Substantial forms were a step towards scientific essentialism [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Substantial forms might well be viewed as an early step in the development of scientific essentialism. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.4) | |
| A reaction: This is the scholastic view of substantial forms, which is much more physical and causal, rather than Aristotle's more abstract view. The rejection of substantial forms led to the 'Humean' view of laws of nature. |
| 16581 | Scholastic authors agree that matter was created by God, out of nothing [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Authors from 1274 to 1671 unanimously endorse the Christian doctrine that matter was created by God, before which time there was no material world at all. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 02.5) |
| 4066 | It seems that 'exists' could sometimes be a predicate [Crane] |
| Full Idea: The view that 'exists' is never a predicate is not plausible. | |
| From: Tim Crane (Elements of Mind [2001], 1.7) | |
| A reaction: He doesn't enlarge. Russell says 'exists' is a quantifier. 'Your very existence offends me - I hope it is confiscated'. |
| 16642 | Transubstantion says accidents of bread and wine don't inhere in the substance [Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: Transubstantiation maintains that the accidents of the bread and wine endure after consecration without inhering in the substance. | |
| From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: It's a big puzzle to outsiders why softness and nice taste should have theological significance. If it is the body and blood of Christ, presumably a miracle has occurred, so normal theories don't apply. It is the key difficulty for scholastic metaphysics. |