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All the ideas for 'Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness'', 'Natural Kinds' and 'The Principles of Human Knowledge'

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57 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
Philosophy is continuous with science, and has no external vantage point [Quine]
     Full Idea: I see philosophy not as an a priori propaedeutic or groundwork for science, but as continuous with science. I see philosophy and science as in the same boat. …There is no external vantage point, no first philosophy.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126)
     A reaction: Philosophy is generalisation. Science holds the upper hand, because it settles the subject-matter to be generalised.
3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 3. Correspondence Truth critique
An idea can only be like another idea [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: An idea can be like nothing but an idea.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §08), quoted by Michael Potter - The Rise of Analytic Philosophy 1879-1930 43 'Mean'
     A reaction: I take this to be relevant to the correspondence theory, but also to be one of Berkeley's best observations. We understand ideas, but we can't map them onto the world (because they are not maps!). ...But then how is one idea like another? Hm.
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 2. Geometry
Klein summarised geometry as grouped together by transformations [Quine]
     Full Idea: Felix Klein's so-called 'Erlangerprogramm' in geometry involved characterizing the various branches of geometry by what transformations were irrelevant to each.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.137)
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence
Abstract ideas are impossible [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: We have, I think, shown the impossibility of Abstract Ideas.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §21)
     A reaction: He achieves this by an attack on universals, offering the nominalist view that there are only particulars. There seems to be a middle ground, where universals don't actually exist, but there are settled conventional abstraction, beyond particulars.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
Mass terms just concern spread, but other terms involve both spread and individuation [Quine]
     Full Idea: 'Yellow' and 'water' are mass terms, concerned only with spread; 'apple' and 'square' are terms of divided reference, concerned with both spread and individuation.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.124)
     A reaction: Would you like some apple? Pass me that water. It is helpful to see that it is a requirement of 'individuation' that is missing from terms for stuff.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Berkeley does believe in trees, but is confused about what trees are [Berkeley, by Cameron]
     Full Idea: I think that we should consider Berkeley as believing in trees; we should simply claim that he has false beliefs about what trees are.
     From: report of George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Ross P. Cameron - Truthmakers, Realism and Ontology 'Realism'
     A reaction: I can be realist about spots before my eyes, or a ringing in my ears, but be (quite sensibly) unsure about what they are, so Cameron's suggestion sounds plausible.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
Once we know the mechanism of a disposition, we can eliminate 'similarity' [Quine]
     Full Idea: Once we can legitimize a disposition term by defining the relevant similarity standard, we are apt to know the mechanism of the disposition, and so by-pass the similarity.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.135)
     A reaction: I love mechanisms, but can we characterise mechanisms without mentioning powers and dispositions? Quine's dream is to eliminate 'similarity'.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / d. Dispositions as occurrent
We judge things to be soluble if they are the same kind as, or similar to, things that do dissolve [Quine]
     Full Idea: Intuitively, what qualifies a thing as soluble though it never gets into water is that it is of the same kind as the things that actually did or will dissolve; it is similar to them.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.130)
     A reaction: If you can judge that the similar things 'will' dissolve, you can cut to the chase and judge that this thing will dissolve.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / b. Nominalism about universals
Universals do not have single meaning, but attach to many different particulars [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: There is no such thing as one precise and definite signification annexed to any general name, they all signifying indifferently a great number of particular ideas.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §18)
     A reaction: The term 'red' may be assigned to a range of colours, but we also recognise the precision of 'that red'. For 'electron', or 'three', or 'straight', the particulars are indistinguishable.
No one will think of abstractions if they only have particular ideas [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: He that knows he has no other than particular ideas, will not puzzle himself in vain to find out and conceive the abstract idea annexed to any name.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §24)
     A reaction: A nice point against universals. Maybe gods only think in particulars. One particular on its own could never suggest a universal. How are you going to spot patterns if you don't think in universals? Maths needs patterns.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Universals do not have any intrinsic properties, but only relations to particulars [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: Universality, so far as I can comprehend it, does not consist in the absolute, positive nature or conception of anything, but in the relation it bears to the particulars signified or represented by it.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §15)
     A reaction: I always think it is a basic principle in philosophy that some sort of essence must precede relations (and functions). What is it about universals that enables them to have a relation to particulars?
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
Material substance is just general existence which can have properties [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The most accurate philosophers have no other meaning annexed to 'material substance' but the idea of being in general, together with the relative notion of its supporting accidents.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §17)
     A reaction: This is part of the attack on Aristotle's concept of 'substance', and is a nice way of dissolving the concept. 'Substance' will never reappear in physics, but modern philosopher have returned to it, as possibly inescapable in metaphysics.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
A die has no distinct subject, but is merely a name for its modes or accidents [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: To me a die seems to be nothing distinct from those things which are termed its modes or accidents. And to say a die is hard, extended and square is not to attribute those qualities to a distinct subject, but only an explication of the word 'die'.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], n 49)
     A reaction: This is apparently a reaction to Locke, and a final rejection of the medieval idea of a 'substance'. Unfortunately it leaves Berkeley with a 'bundle' view of objects (a typical empiricist account), which is even worse.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 2. Phenomenalism
Perception is existence for my table, but also possible perception, by me or a spirit [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The table I write on I say exists, that is, I see and feel it; and if I were out of my study I should say it existed - meaning thereby that if I was in my study I might perceive it, or that some other spirit actually does perceive it.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §3)
     A reaction: Berkeley is always (understandably) labelled as an 'idealist', but this seems to be what we call 'phenomenalism', because it allows possible experiences as well as actual ones. See Ideas 5170 and 6522.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / c. Empirical idealism
The only substance is spirit, or that which perceives [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: It is evident that there is not any other Substance than spirit, or that which perceives.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §7)
     A reaction: Weird. To say that this is 'evident' seems to be begging the question. Why should he assume that there is nothing more to reality than his perception of it? He seems strangely unimaginative.
The 'esse' of objects is 'percipi', and they can only exist in minds [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The absolute existence of unthinking things with no relation to their being perceived is unintelligible to me; their 'esse' is 'percipi', nor is it possible they should have any existence out of the minds or thinking things which perceive them.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §3)
     A reaction: "Esse est percipi" (to be is to be perceived) is the well-known slogan associated with Berkeley. I cannot see how Berkeley can assert that the separate existence of things is impossible. He is the classic confuser of epistemology and ontology.
When I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but in another mind [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: When I shut my eyes, the things I saw may still exist, but it must be in another mind.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §90)
     A reaction: This strikes me as ridiculous. What kind of theory says that a table goes out of existence when someone forgets to look at it for a moment, but is then recreated in identical form? Epistemology is not ontology.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
No one can, by abstraction, conceive extension and motion of bodies without sensible qualities [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: I desire any one to reflect and try whether he can, by any abstraction of thought, conceive the extension and motion of a body without any sensible qualities.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §10)
     A reaction: The rather geometrical view of objects found in Descartes and Russell is an attempt to do this. I don't think the fact that we can't really achieve it matters much. We divide primary from secondary qualities in our understanding, not in experience.
Motion is in the mind, since swifter ideas produce an appearance of slower motion [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: Is it not reasonable to say that motion is not without the mind, since if the succession of ideas in the mind become swifter the motion, it is acknowledged, shall appear slower without any alteration in any external object.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §14)
     A reaction: An intriguing argument, based on what is now the principle of slow-motion photography. Fast minds slow down movement, like great tennis players. By what right does Berkeley say that the external subject is unaltered?
Figure and extension seem just as dependent on the observer as heat and cold [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: If heat and cold are only affections of the mind (since the same body seems cold to one hand and warm to the other), why may we not argue that figure and extension also appear different to the same eye at different stations?
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §14)
     A reaction: If the assessment of the qualities of an object is entirely a matter of our experiences of it, there is no denying Berkeley on this. However, judgement goes beyond experience, into speculations, inferences, and explanations.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
Berkeley's idealism resulted from fear of scepticism in representative realism [Robinson,H on Berkeley]
     Full Idea: It was fear of scepticism based upon representative realism that motivated Berkeley's idealism.
     From: comment on George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Howard Robinson - Perception II.1
     A reaction: Personally I side with Russell, who accepts representative realism, and also accepts that some degree of scepticism is unavoidable, but without getting excited about it. The key to everything is to be a 'fallibilist' about knowledge.
12. Knowledge Sources / D. Empiricism / 1. Empiricism
Knowledge is of ideas from senses, or ideas of the mind, or operations on sensations [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The objects of knowledge are either ideas imprinted on the senses, or passions and operations of the mind, or ideas (formed by memory and imagination) compounding, dividing or barely representing the original perceptions.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §1)
     A reaction: This is the germ of Hume's 'associations' (Idea 2189). There is not much room here for synthetic a priori knowledge, as the a priori part seems to merely know the mind. Most of Russell's epistemology is contained in the last part of the sentence.
14. Science / A. Basis of Science / 3. Experiment
Science is common sense, with a sophisticated method [Quine]
     Full Idea: Sciences differ from common sense only in the degree of methodological sophistication.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.129)
     A reaction: Science is normal thinking about the world, but it is teamwork, with the bar set very high.
14. Science / C. Induction / 1. Induction
Induction is just more of the same: animal expectations [Quine]
     Full Idea: Induction is essentially only more of the same: animal expectation or habit formation.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125)
     A reaction: My working definition of induction is 'learning from experience', but that doesn't disagree with Quine. Lipton has a richer account of different types of induction. Quine's point is that it rests on resemblance.
Induction relies on similar effects following from each cause [Quine]
     Full Idea: Induction expresses our hopes that similar causes will have similar effects.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.125)
     A reaction: Some top philosophers are also top teachers, and Quine was one of them, in his writings. He boils it down for the layman. Once again, he is pointing to the fundamental role of the similarity relation.
14. Science / C. Induction / 5. Paradoxes of Induction / a. Grue problem
Grue is a puzzle because the notions of similarity and kind are dubious in science [Quine]
     Full Idea: What makes Goodman's example a puzzle is the dubious scientific standing of a general notion of similarity, or of kind.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116)
     A reaction: Illuminating. It might be best expressed as revealing a problem with sortal terms, as employed by Geach, or by Wiggins. Grue is a bit silly, but sortals are subject to convention and culture. 'Natural' properties seem needed.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / a. Other minds
Berkeley's idealism gives no grounds for believing in other minds [Reid on Berkeley]
     Full Idea: I can find no principle in Berkeley's system, which affords me even probable ground to conclude that there are other intelligent beings, like myself.
     From: comment on George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Thomas Reid - Essays on Intellectual Powers 2: Senses 10
     A reaction: I agree, which means that Berkeley's position seems to entail solipsism, unless God is the Cartesian deus ex machina who rescues him from this wall of ignorance.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / c. Knowing other minds
I know other minds by ideas which are referred by me to other agents, as their effects [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The knowledge I have of other spirits is not immediate, as is the knowledge of my ideas; but depending on the intervention of ideas, by me referred to agents or spirits distinct from myself, as effects or concomitant signs.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §145)
     A reaction: This strikes me as gross intellectual dishonesty, since the argument Berkeley uses to assert other minds could equally be used to assert the existence of tables ('by me referred to agents distinct from myself, as effects'). Be a solipsist or a realist.
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 7. Animal Minds
If animals have ideas, and are not machines, they must have some reason [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: If the brutes have any ideas at all, and are not bare machines (as some would have them), we cannot deny them to have some reason.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §11)
     A reaction: It seems possible to imagine a low level of mind, where a few ideas (or concepts) float around, but hardly anything worth the name of reason. However, a Darwinian view suggests that concepts must bestow an advantage, so the two go together.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / e. Cause of consciousness
Consciousness is reductively explained either by how it represents, or how it is represented [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The two main competitors for reductive theories of consciousness are the representational theory (conscious if it represents in the right way), and higher-order monitoring (conscious if it is represented in the right way).
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], Intro)
     A reaction: Presumably there are also neuroscientists hunting for physical functions which might generate consciousness. The two mentioned here are rivals at one level of discourse. Both views may be simplistic, if complex teams of activities are involved.
Experiences can be represented consciously or unconsciously, so representation won't explain consciousness [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: On the assumption that any environmental feature can be represented either consciously or unconsciously, it is unclear how the mere representation of such a feature can render the representing state conscious.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: The authors are rejecting simple representation as the key, in favour of a distinctive sort of self-representation. I'm inclined to think that consciousness results from multiple co-ordinated layers of representation etc., which has no simple account.
Red tomato experiences are conscious if the state represents the tomato and itself [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The self-representational theory of consciousness says that when one has a conscious experience as of a red tomato, one is in an internal state that represents both a red tomato and itself.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: This seems to be avoiding the concept of 'higher-order', and yet that seems the only way to describe it - thought steps outside of itself, generating a level of meta-thought. I think that's the way to go. Philosophy is about-fifth level.
How is self-representation possible, does it produce a regress, and is experience like that? [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: The difficulties with a self-representational view of consciousness are how self-representation of mental states could be possible, whether it leads to an infinite regress, and whether it can capture the actual phenomenology of experience.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §3)
     A reaction: [compressed] All of these objections strike me as persuasive, especially the first one. I'm not sure I know what self-representation is. Mirrors externally represent, and they can't represent themselves. Two mirrors together achieve something..
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / f. Higher-order thought
Unfortunately, higher-order representations could involve error [Kriegel/Williford]
     Full Idea: A problem for explaining consciousness by higher-order representations is that, like their first-order counterparts, they can misrepresent; there could be a subjective impression of being in a conscious state without actually being in any conscious state.
     From: U Kriegel / K Williford (Intro to 'Self-Representational Consciousness' [2006], §1)
     A reaction: It sounds plausible that this is a logical possibility, but how do you assess whether it is an actual or natural possibility? Are we saying that higher-order representations are judgments, which could be true or false? Hm.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Berkeley replaced intentionality with an anti-abstractionist imagist theory of thought [Berkeley, by Robinson,H]
     Full Idea: By Berkeley - with his anti-abstractionism and imagist theory of thought - the classical sense-datum conception was firmly established, and intentionality had disappeared as an intrinsic property, not only of perceptual states, but of all mental contents.
     From: report of George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710]) by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.6
     A reaction: Intentionality was originally a medieval concept, and was revived by Brentano in the late nineteenth century. Nowadays intentionality is taken for granted, but I still suspect that we could drop it, and talk of nothing but brain states caused by reality.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
The mind creates abstract ideas by considering qualities separated from their objects [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: We are told that the mind being able to consider each quality of things singly, or abstracted from those other qualities with which it is united, does by that means frame to itself abstract ideas.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §7)
     A reaction: A helpful explanation of 'abstract' ideas. Berkeley gives colour and movement as examples. Fodor suggests that abstraction is the key strategy in empiricist epistemology. The difficulty is to decide whether the qualities are natural or conventional.
I can only combine particulars in imagination; I can't create 'abstract' ideas [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: Whether others can abstract their ideas, they best can tell. For myself, I find I have a faculty of imagining, or representing to myself, only the idea of those particular things I have perceived, and of compounding and dividing them.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], 10)
     A reaction: He is admitting mixing experiences, but always particulars, never abstract. His examples are 'man' and 'motion'. Compare Aristotle Idea 9067. Berkeley is, I think, trapped in a false imagistic view of thought. My image of Plato blurs young and old.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 7. Seeing Resemblance
General terms depend on similarities among things [Quine]
     Full Idea: The usual general term, whether a common noun or a verb or an adjective, owes its generality to some resemblance among the things referred to.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.116)
     A reaction: Quine has a nice analysis of the basic role of similarity in a huge amount of supposedly strict scientific thought.
To learn yellow by observation, must we be told to look at the colour? [Quine]
     Full Idea: According to the 'respects' view, our learning of yellow by ostension would have depended on our first having been told or somehow apprised that it was going to be a question of color.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.122)
     A reaction: Quine suggests there is just one notion of similarity, and respects can be 'abstracted' afterwards. Even the ontologically ruthless Quine admits psychological abstraction!
Standards of similarity are innate, and the spacing of qualities such as colours can be mapped [Quine]
     Full Idea: A standard of similarity is in some sense innate. The spacing of qualities (such as red, pink and blue) can be explored and mapped in the laboratory by experiments. They are needed for all learning.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.123)
     A reaction: This reasserts Hume's original point in more scientific terms. It is one of the undeniable facts about our perceptions of qualities and properties, no matter how platonist your view of universals may be.
Similarity is just interchangeability in the cosmic machine [Quine]
     Full Idea: Things are similar to the extent that they are interchangeable parts of the cosmic machine.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.134)
     A reaction: This is a major idea for Quine, because it is a means to gradually eliminate the fuzzy ideas of 'resemblance' or 'similarity' or 'natural kind' from science. I love it! Two tigers are same insofar as they are substitutable.
16. Persons / D. Continuity of the Self / 7. Self and Thinking
Ideas are perceived by the mind, soul or self [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The thing which knows or perceives ideas is what I call mind, spirit, soul or myself.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §2)
     A reaction: The interest here is in making no distinction between 'mind' and 'self', which seems to ally Berkeley with Locke's view of personal identity, as continuity of consciousness. The addition of 'soul' tries to connect Locke to Christian thought.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
Language is presumably for communication, and names stand for ideas [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: It is a received opinion that language has no other end but the communicating our ideas, and that every significant name stands for an idea.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §19)
     A reaction: This attitude to language has been widely discredited, partly by the observation that 'idea' is very ambiguous, and partly by the fans of meaning-as-use. Truth conditions seem to be ideas, and so are speaker's intentions.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 3. Predicates
Projectible predicates can be universalised about the kind to which they refer [Quine]
     Full Idea: 'Projectible' predicates are predicates F and G whose shared instances all do count, for whatever reason, towards confirmation of 'All F are G'. ….A projectible predicate is one that is true of all and only the things of a kind.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.115-6)
     A reaction: Both Quine and Goodman are infuriatingly brief about the introduction of this concept. 'Red' is true of all ripe tomatoes, but not 'only' of them. Hardly any predicates are true only of one kind. Is that a scholastic 'proprium'?
19. Language / D. Propositions / 4. Mental Propositions
I can't really go wrong if I stick to wordless thought [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: So long as I confine my thoughts to my own ideas divested of words, I do not see how I can easily be mistaken.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], Intro §22)
     A reaction: I think it was one of the great errors of twentieth century philosophy to say that Berkeley cannot do this, because thought needs language. Personally I think language lags along behind most our thinking, tidying up the mess. I believe in propositions.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / a. Early Modern matter
No one can explain how matter affects mind, so matter is redundant in philosophy [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: How matter should operate on a spirit, or produce any idea in it, is what no philosopher will pretend to explain; it is therefore evident there can be no use of matter in natural philosophy.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §50)
     A reaction: An intriguing argument for idealism, which starts in Cartesian dualism, but then discards the physical world because of the notorious interaction problem. Of course, if he had thought that matter and spirit were one (Spinoza) the problem vanishes.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 1. Natural Kinds
Quine probably regrets natural kinds now being treated as essences [Quine, by Dennett]
     Full Idea: The concept of natural kinds was reintroduced by Quine, who may now regret the way it has become a stand-in for the dubious but covertly popular concept of essences.
     From: report of Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969]) by Daniel C. Dennett - Consciousness Explained 12.2 n2
     A reaction: He is right that Quine would regret it, and he is right that we can't assume that there are necessary essences just because there seem to be stable natural kinds, but personally I am an essentialist, so I'm not that bothered.
If similarity has no degrees, kinds cannot be contained within one another [Quine]
     Full Idea: If similarity has no degrees there is no containing of kinds within broader kinds. If colored things are a kind, they are similar, but red things are too narrow for a kind. If red things are a kind, colored things are not similar, and it's too broad.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.118)
     A reaction: [compressed] I'm on Quine's side with this. We glibly talk of 'kinds', but the criteria for sorting things into kinds seems to be a mess. Quine goes on to offer a better account than the (diadic, yes-no) one rejected here.
Comparative similarity allows the kind 'colored' to contain the kind 'red' [Quine]
     Full Idea: With the triadic relation of comparative similarity, kinds can contain one another, as well as overlapping. Red and colored things can both count as kinds. Colored things all resemble one another, even though less than red things do.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.119)
     A reaction: [compressed] Quine claims that comparative similarity is necessary for kinds - that there be some 'foil' in a similarity - that A is more like C than B is.
26. Natural Theory / B. Natural Kinds / 3. Knowing Kinds
You can't base kinds just on resemblance, because chains of resemblance are a muddle [Quine]
     Full Idea: If kinds are based on similarity, this has the Imperfect Community problem. Red round, red wooden and round wooden things all resemble one another somehow. There may be nothing outside the set resembling them, so it meets the definition of kind.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.120)
     A reaction: [ref. to Goodman 'Structure' 2nd 163- , which attacks Carnap on this] This suggests an invocation of Wittgenstein's family resemblance, which won't be much help for natural kinds.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
We discover natural behaviour by observing settled laws of nature, not necessary connections [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: That food nourishes, sleep refreshes, and fire warms us; all this we know, not by discovering any necessary connexion between our ideas, but only by the observation of the settled laws of nature.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §31)
     A reaction: Hume is famous for this idea, but it is found in Hobbes too (Idea 2364), and is the standard empiricist view of causation. The word 'settled' I take to imply that the laws are contingent, because they could become unsettled at any time.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / a. Regularity theory
It is hard to see how regularities could be explained [Quine]
     Full Idea: Why there have been regularities is an obscure question, for it is hard to see what would count as an answer.
     From: Willard Quine (Natural Kinds [1969], p.126)
     A reaction: This is the standard pessimism of the 20th century Humeans, but it strikes me as comparable to the pessimism about science found in Locke and Hume. Regularities are explained all the time by scientists, though the lowest level may be hopeless.
The laws of nature are mental regularities which we learn by experience [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: The set rules or established methods wherein the Mind we depend on excites in us the ideas of sense, are called the 'laws of nature'; and these we learn by experience, which teaches us that such and such ideas are attended with certain other ideas.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], 33)
     A reaction: He observes that the ideas of sense are more regular than other mental events, and attributes the rules to an Author. He is giving the standard empirical Humean view, with his own quirky idealist slant.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / e. Anti scientific essentialism
If properties and qualities arise from an inward essence, we will remain ignorant of nature [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: An inducement to pronouncing ourselves ignorant of the nature of things is the opinion that everything includes within itself the cause of its properties; or that there is in each object an inward essence which is the source whence its qualities flow.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §102)
     A reaction: This remains a good objection to essentialism - that while it remains quite a plausible picture of how nature operates, it makes the task of understanding nature hopeless. We can grasp imposed regular laws, but not secret inner essences.
27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 1. Relativity / a. Special relativity
All motion is relative, so a single body cannot move [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: There cannot be any motion other than relative; …if there was one only body in being it could not possibly move.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §112)
     A reaction: This seems to agree with with Leibniz in denying the Newton-Clarke idea of absolute space. See Idea 2100. Suppose there were two bodies racing towards one another, when one of them suddenly vanished?
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / c. Idealist time
I cannot imagine time apart from the flow of ideas in my mind [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: Whenever I attempt to frame a simple idea of time, abstracted from the succession of ideas in my mind, which flows uniformly and is participated in by all beings, I am lost and embrangled in inextricable difficulties.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §98)
     A reaction: 'Embrangled'! A nice statement of the idealist view of time, as entirely mental. I know what he means. However, surely he can manage to imagine a movement which continues when he shuts he eyes? Try blinking during a horse race.
29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 3. Problem of Evil / a. Problem of Evil
Particular evils are really good when linked to the whole system of beings [Berkeley]
     Full Idea: Those particular things which, considered in themselves, appear to be evil, have the nature of good, when considered as linked with the whole system of beings.
     From: George Berkeley (The Principles of Human Knowledge [1710], §153)
     A reaction: This wildly contradicts the rest of Berkeley's philosophy, which is strictly empiricist, and rests wholly on actual experience. What experience does he have of the 'whole system of beings', and its making evil into actual good?