Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Necessary Existents', 'Properties' and 'The Nature of Necessity'

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8 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties

18430	We accept properties because of type/tokens, reference, and quantification [Edwards]
	Full Idea: Three main reasons for thinking properties exist: the one-over-many argument (that a type can have many tokens), the reference argument (to understand predicates and singular terms), and the quantification argument (that we quantify over them).
	From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 1.1)
	A reaction: [Bits in brackets are compressions of his explanations]. I don't find any of these remotely persuasive. Why would we infer how the world is, simply from how we talk about or reason about the world? His first reason is the only interesting one.

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates

18432	Quineans say that predication is primitive and inexplicable [Edwards]
	Full Idea: The Quinean claims that the application of a predicate cannot, in principle, be explained - it is a 'primitive' fact.
	From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 4.4)
	A reaction: I am not clear what 'principle' could endorse this claim. There just seems to be a possible failure of all the usual attempts at explaining predication.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism

18437	Resemblance nominalism requires a second entity to explain 'the rose is crimson' [Edwards]
	Full Idea: For resemblance nominalism the sentence 'the rose is crimson' commits us to at least one other entity that the rose resembles in order for it to be crimson.
	From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.5.2)
	A reaction: If the theory really needs this, then it has just sunk without trace. It can't suddenly cease to be crimson when the last resembling entity disappears.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts

18434	That a whole is prior to its parts ('priority monism') is a view gaining in support [Edwards]
	Full Idea: The view of 'priority monism' - that the whole is prior to its parts - is controversial, but has been growing in support
	From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.4.4)
	A reaction: The simple and plausible thought is, I take it, that parts only count as parts when a whole comes into existence, so a whole is needed to generate parts. Thus the whole must be prior to the parts. Fine by me.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism

18383	Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
	Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
	A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation

11891	Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
	Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
	A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions

19216	Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson]
	Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist?
	From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions
	A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done?

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof

20704	A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
	Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
	A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.