45 ideas
9593 | Progress in philosophy is incremental, not an immature seeking after drama [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The incremental progress which I envisage for philosophy lacks the drama after which some philosophers still hanker, and that hankering is itself a symptom of the intellectual immaturity that helps hold philosophy back. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: This could stand as a motto for the whole current profession of analytical philosophy. It means that if anyone attempts to be dramatic they can make their own way out. They'll find Kripke out there, smoking behind the dustbins. |
9594 | Correspondence to the facts is a bad account of analytic truth [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Even if talk of truth as correspondence to the facts is metaphorical, it is a bad metaphor for analytic truth in a way that it is not for synthetic truth. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 3.1) | |
A reaction: A very simple and rather powerful point. Maybe the word 'truth' should be withheld from such cases. You might say that accepted analytic truths are 'conventional'. If that is wrong, then they correspond to natural facts at a high level of abstraction. |
22919 | A thing which makes no difference seems unlikely to exist [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: It is a powerful argument for something's non-existence that it would make absolutely no difference. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'Everything') | |
A reaction: Powerful, but not conclusive. Neutrinos don't seem to do much, so it isn't far from there to get a particle which does nothing. |
16050 | The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare] |
Full Idea: Characteristic of value-words is that they name 'supervenient' properties. If we are discussing whether a picture is a good picture, ..and there is another picture that is a replica of it, we cannot say 'they are alike, but one is good and the other not'. | |
From: Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952], 5.2) | |
A reaction: [compressed] Horgan says this is the passage which introduced 'supervenience' into contemporary discussions. I think the best simple word for it is that the goodness of the picture 'tracks' its physical characteristics. It also depend on them. |
9601 | The realist/anti-realist debate is notoriously obscure and fruitless [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The debate between realism and anti-realism has become notorious in the rest of philosophy for its obscurity, convolution, and lack of progress. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], After) | |
A reaction: I find this reassuring, because fairly early on I decided that this problem was not of great interest, and quietly tiptoed away. I take the central issue to be whether nature has 'joints', to which the answer appears to be 'yes'. End of story. |
9599 | There cannot be vague objects, so there may be no such thing as a mountain [Williamson] |
Full Idea: It is sometimes argued that if there is such a thing as a mountain it would be a vague object, but it is logically impossible for an object to be vague, so there is no such thing as a mountain. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 7.2) | |
A reaction: I don't take this to be a daft view. No one is denying the existence of the solid rock that is involved, but allowing such a vague object may be a slippery slope to the acceptance of almost anything as an 'object'. |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The constraints of common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], After) | |
A reaction: Wiliamson has described himself (in my hearing) as a 'rottweiller realist', but presumably the problem of vagueness interests a lot of people precisely because it pushes us away from common sense and classical logic. |
9598 | Modal thinking isn't a special intuition; it is part of ordinary counterfactual thinking [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The epistemology of metaphysical modality requires no dedicated faculty of intuition. It is simply a special case of the epistemology of counterfactual thinking, a kind of thinking tightly integrated with our thinking about the spatio-temporal world. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 5.6) | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be spot-on, though it puts the focus increasingly on the faculty of imagination, as arguably an even more extraordinary feature of brains than the much-vaunted normal consciousness. |
16536 | Williamson can't base metaphysical necessity on the psychology of causal counterfactuals [Lowe on Williamson] |
Full Idea: The psychological mechanism that Williamson proposes as the supposedly reliable source of our knowledge of necessities only seems applicable to counterfactuals that are distinctively causal, not metaphysical, in character. | |
From: comment on Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007]) by E.J. Lowe - What is the Source of Knowledge of Modal Truths? 5 | |
A reaction: My rough impression of Williamson's account is that it is correct but unilluminating. We have to assess necessities by counterfactual thinking, because nothing else is available (apart from evaluating the coherence of the findings). |
9596 | We scorn imagination as a test of possibility, forgetting its role in counterfactuals [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The epistemology of modality often focuses on (and pours scorn on) imagination or conceivability as a test of possibility, while ignoring the role of the imagination in the assessment of mundane counterfactuals. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 5.4) | |
A reaction: Good point. I've been guilty of this easy scorn myself. Williamson gives our modal capacities an evolutionary context. What is needed is well-informed imagination, rather than wild fantasy. |
9597 | There are 'armchair' truths which are not a priori, because experience was involved [Williamson] |
Full Idea: There is extensive 'armchair knowledge' in which experience plays no strictly evidential role, but it may not fit the stereotype of the a priori, because the contribution of experience was more than enabling, such as armchair truths about our environment. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 5.5) | |
A reaction: Once this point is conceded we have no idea where to draw the line. Does 'if it is red it can't be green' derive from experience? I think it might. |
9592 | Intuition is neither powerful nor vacuous, but reveals linguistic or conceptual competence [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Crude rationalists postulate a special knowledge-generating faculty of rational intuition. Crude empiricists regard intuition as an obscurantist term of folk psychology. Linguistic/conceptual philosophy says it reveals linguistic or conceptual competence. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], Intro) | |
A reaction: Kripke seems to think that it is the basis of logical competence. I would use it as a blank term for any insight in which we have considerable confidence, and yet are unable to articulate its basis; roughly, for rational thought that evades logic. |
20181 | When analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they present intuitions as their evidence [Williamson] |
Full Idea: 'Intuition' plays a major role in contemporary analytic philosophy's self-understanding. ...When contemporary analytic philosophers run out of arguments, they appeal to intuitions. ...Thus intuitions are presented as our evidence in philosophy. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], p.214-5), quoted by Herman Cappelen - Philosophy without Intuitions 01.1 | |
A reaction: Williamson says we must investigate this 'scandal', but Cappelen's book says analytic philosophy does not rely on intuition. |
22926 | In addition to causal explanations, they can also be inferential, or definitional, or purposive [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Not all explanations are causal. We can explain some things by showing what follows logically from what, or what is required by the definition of a term, or in terms of purpose. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
A reaction: Would these fully qualify as 'explanations'? You don't explain the sea by saying that 'wet' is part of its definition. |
9595 | You might know that the word 'gob' meant 'mouth', but not be competent to use it [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Someone who acquires the word 'gob' just by being reliably told that it is synonymous with 'mouth' knows what 'gob' means without being fully competent to use it. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 4.7) | |
A reaction: Not exactly an argument against meaning-as-use, but a very nice cautionary example to show that 'knowing the meaning' of a word may be a rather limited, and dangerous, achievement. |
22932 | We don't just describe a time as 'now' from a private viewpoint, but as a fact about the world [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: In describing a time as 'now' one is not merely describing the world from one's own point of view, but describing the world as it is. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: If we accept this view (which implies absolute time, and the A-series view), then 'now' is not an indexical, in the way that 'I' and 'here' are indexicals. |
2855 | In primary evaluative words like 'ought' prescription is constant but description can vary [Hare, by Hooker,B] |
Full Idea: Hare says words are secondarily evaluative (e.g. 'soft-hearted') if prescriptive meaning varies but description is constant; primarily evaluative words ('good', 'right', 'ought') are the opposite, with the descriptive content varying. | |
From: report of Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952]) by Brad W. Hooker - Prescriptivism p.640 | |
A reaction: I would have thought that the prescriptive meaning of the evaluative word could at least vary in strength. You really, really ought to do that. |
9600 | If languages are intertranslatable, and cognition is innate, then cultures are all similar [Williamson] |
Full Idea: Given empirical evidence for the approximate intertranslatability of all human languages, and a universal innate basis of human cognition, we may wonder how 'other' any human culture really is. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], 8.1) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a fairly accurate account of the situation. In recent centuries people seem to have been over-impressed by superficial differences in cultural behaviour, but we increasingly see the underlying identity. |
22927 | The logical properties of causation are asymmetry, transitivity and irreflexivity [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The usual logical properties of the causal relation are asymmetry (one-way), transitivity and irreflexivity (no self-causing). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Great') | |
A reaction: If two balls rebound off each other, that is only asymmetric if we split the action into two parts, which may be a fiction. Does a bomb cause its own destruction? |
22922 | We can identify unoccupied points in space, so they must exist [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If the midpoint on a line between the chair and the window is five feet from the end of the bookcase. This can be true, but if no object occupies that midpoint, then unoccupied points exist | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
A reaction: We can also locate perfect circles (running through fairy rings, or the rings of Saturn), so they must also exist. But then we can also locate the Loch Ness monster. Hm. |
22924 | If spatial points exist, then they must be stationary, by definition [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If there are such things as points in space, independently of any other object, then these points are by definition stationary (since to be stationary is to stay in the same place, and a point is a place). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Search') | |
A reaction: So what happens if the whole universe moves ten metres to the left? Is the universe defined by the objects in it (which vary), or by the space that contains them? Why can't a location move, even if that is by definition undetectable? |
22923 | Absolute space explains actual and potential positions, and geometrical truths [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Absolutists say space plays a number of roles. It is what we refer to when we talk of positions. It makes other things possible (by moving into unoccupied positions). And it explains geometrical truths. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Redundancy') | |
A reaction: I am persuaded by these, and am happy to treat space (and time) as a primitive of metaphysics. |
22928 | For relationists moving an object beyond the edge of space creates new space [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: For the relationist, if Archytas goes to the edge of space and extends his arm, he is creating a new spatial relation between objects, and thus extending space, which is, after all, just the collection of thos relations. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'beyond') | |
A reaction: The obvious point is what are you moving your arm into? And how can some movements be in space, while others create new space? It's a bad theory. |
22931 | We distinguish time from space, because it passes, and it has a unique present moment [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The most characteristic features of time, which distinguish it from space, are the fact that time passes, and the fact that the present is in some sense unique | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: The B-series view tries to avoid passing time and present moments. I suspect that modern proponents of the B-series mainly want to unifying their view of time with Einstein's, to give us a scientific space-time. |
22917 | Since nothing occurs in a temporal vacuum, there is no way to measure its length [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Since, by definition, nothing happens in a temporal vacuum, there is no possible means of determining its length. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 02 'without change') | |
A reaction: This is offered a part of a dubious proof that a temporal vacuum is impossible. I like Shoemaker's three worlds thought experiment, which tests this idea to the limit. |
22921 | Temporal vacuums would be unexperienced, unmeasured, and unending [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Three arguments that a temporal vacuum is impossible: we can't experience it, we can't measure it, and it would have no reason to ever terminate. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 03 'Lessons') | |
A reaction: [summarised] The first two reasons are unimpressive. The interiors of black holes are off limits for us. The arrival of time into a timeless situation may actually have occurred, but be beyond our understanding. |
22934 | Time can't speed up or slow down, so it doesn't seem to be a 'process' [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Processes can speed up or slow down, but surely the passage of time is not something that can speed up or slow down? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Mystery') | |
A reaction: If something is a process we can ask 'process of what?', but the only answer seems to be that it's a process of processing. So it is that which makes processes possible (and so, as I keep saying) it is best viewed as a primitive. |
22938 | To say that the past causes the present needs them both to be equally real [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The causal connection between the past and the present seems to require that the past is as real as the present. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
A reaction: Cause and effect need to conjoin in space, but their subsequent separation doesn't seem to be a problem. The idea that causes and their effects must be eternally compresent is an absurdity. |
22939 | The B-series doesn't seem to allow change [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: How can anything change in a B-universe? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
A reaction: It seems that change needs time to move on. A timeless series of varying states doesn't seem to be the same thing as change. B-seriesers must be tempted to deny change, and yet nothing seems more obvious to us than change. |
22940 | If the B-universe is eternal, why am I trapped in a changing moment of it? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: What in the B-universe determines my temporal perspective? I can move around in space at will, but I have no choice over where I am in time. What time I am is something that changes, and again I have no control over that | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'Second') | |
A reaction: The B-series always has to be asserted from the point of view of eternity (e.g. by Einstein). Yet an omniscient mind would still see each of us trapped in our transient moments, so that is part of eternal reality. |
22947 | An ordered series can be undirected, but time favours moving from earlier to later [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: A series can be ordered without being directed (such as the series of integers), …but the passage of time indicates a preferred direction, moving from earlier to later events, and never the other way around. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Hidden') | |
A reaction: I wonder what 'preferred' means here? It is not just memory versus anticipation. The saddest words in the English language are 'Too late!'. It is absurd to say that being too late is an illusion. |
22952 | If time's arrow is causal, how can there be non-simultaneous events that are causally unconnected? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: An objection to the Causal analysis of time's arrow is that it is surely possible for non-simultaneous events to be causally unconnected. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Seeds') | |
A reaction: I suppose the events could be linked causally by intermediaries. If reality is a vast causal nexus, everything leads to everything else, in some remote way. It's still a good objections, though. |
22951 | If time's arrow is psychological then different minds can impose different orders on events [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If the Psychological account of time's arrow is correct …then there is nothing to prevent different minds from imposing different orders on the world. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'The mind's') | |
A reaction: All we need is for two people to disagree about the order of some past events. The idea that we are psychologically creating time's arrow when everyone feels they are its victims strikes me as a particularly silly theory. |
22948 | There are Thermodynamic, Psychological and Causal arrows of time [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The three most significant arrows of time are the Thermodynamic (the direction from order to disorder), the Psychological (from perceptions of events to memories), and the Causal (from cause to effect). | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: It would be nice if one of these explained the other two. Le Poidevin rejects the Psychological arrow, and seems to favour the Causal. Since I favour taking time as a primitive, I'm inclined to think that the arrow is included in the deal. |
22949 | Presumably if time's arrow is thermodynamic then time ends when entropy is complete [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: One consequence of the Thermodynamic analysis of time's arrow is that a universe in which things are as disordered as they could be would exhibit no direction of time at all, because there would be no more significant changes in entropy. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: And presumably time would gradually fizzle out, rather than ending abruptly. If entropy then went into reverse, there would be no time interval between the end and the new beginning. Entropy can vary locally, so it has to be universal. |
22950 | If time is thermodynamic then entropy is necessary - but the theory says it is probable [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The Second Law of Thermodynamics says it is overwhelmingly probable that entropy will increase. This leaves the door open for occasional isolated instances of decrease. But the thermodynamic arrow makes the increase a necessity. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'Three') | |
A reaction: Le Poidevin sees this as a clincher against the thermodynamic explanation of the arrow. I'm now sure how the Second Law can even be stated without explicit or implicit reference to time. |
22953 | Time's arrow is not causal if there is no temporal gap between cause and effect [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If there is no temporal gap between cause and effect, then the causal analysis of time's arrow is doomed. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 12 'simultaneous') | |
A reaction: A number of recent commentators have rejected the sharp distinction between cause and effect, seeing it as a unified process (which takes time to occur). |
22943 | Instantaneous motion is an intrinsic disposition to be elsewhere [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Being in motion at a particular time can be an intrinsic property of an object, as a disposition to be elsewhere than the place it is. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: This needs an ontology which includes unrealised dispositions. People trapped in boring meetings have a disposition to be elsewhere, but they are stuck. I think 'power' is a better word here than 'disposition'. The disposition isn't just for 'elsewhere'. |
22945 | The dynamic view of motion says it is primitive, and not reducible to objects, properties and times [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: According to the dynamic account of motion, an object's being in motion is a primitive event, not further analysable in terms of objects, properties and times. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Zeno') | |
A reaction: [The rival view is 'static'] Physics suggests that motion may be indefinable, but acceleration can be given a reductive account. If time and space are taken as primitive (which seems sensible to me), then making motion also primitive is a bit greedy. |
22937 | If the present could have diverse pasts, then past truths can't have present truthmakers [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: If any number of pasts are compatible with the present state of affairs, and it is only the present state of affairs which can make true or false statements about the past, then no statement about the past is either true or false. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 08 'First') | |
A reaction: He suggests an explosion which could have had innumerable different causes. The explosion could have had different origins, but not sure that the whole of present reality could. Presentists certainly have problems with truthmakers for the past. |
22925 | The present is the past/future boundary, so the first moment of time was not present [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The present is the boundary between past and future, therefore if there was a first moment of time, it could not have been present - because there can be no past at the beginning of time. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 05 'Limits') | |
A reaction: How about at the start of a race the athletes cannot be running. How about 'all moments of time have preceding moments - apart from the first moment'? |
22944 | The primitive parts of time are intervals, not instants [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Intervals of time can be viewed as primitive, and not decomposable into a series of instants. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: Given that instants are nothing, and intervals are something, the latter are clearly the better candidates to be the parts of time. Is there a smallest interval? |
22942 | If time is infinitely divisible, then the present must be infinitely short [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Assuming time to be infinitely divisible, the present can have no duration at all, for if it did, we could divide it into parts, and some parts would be earlier than others. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'in present') | |
A reaction: I quite like Aristotle's view that things only have parts when you actually divide them. In modern physics fields don't seem to be infinitely divisible. It's a puzzle, though, innit? |
22946 | The multiverse is distinct time-series, as well as spaces [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: The multiverse is not just a collection of distinct spaces, it is also a collection of distinct time-series. | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 11 'Objections') | |
A reaction: This boggles the imagination even more than distinct spatial universes. |
22941 | How could a timeless God know what time it is? So could God be both timeless and omniscient? [Le Poidevin] |
Full Idea: Could a timeless being now know what the time was? If so, does this show that there must be something wrong with the idea of God as both timeless and omniscient? | |
From: Robin Le Poidevin (Travels in Four Dimensions [2003], 09 'Questions') | |
A reaction: This is a potential contradiction between the perfections of a supreme God which I had not noticed before. Leibniz tried to refute such objections, but not very successfully, I think. |