Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Roots of Reference', 'Psychophysical supervenience' and 'Commentary on Sentences'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 4. Intrinsic Properties

15456	Extrinsic properties, unlike intrinsics, imply the existence of a separate object [Kim, by Lewis]
	Full Idea: Kim suggest that 'extrinsic' properties are those that imply 'accompaniment' (coexisting with some wholly distinct contingent object), whereas 'intrinsic' properties are compatible with 'loneliness' (being un-accompanied).
	From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Psychophysical supervenience [1982], 9th pg) by David Lewis - Extrinsic Properties II
	A reaction: The aim of Kim and Lewis is to get the ontological commitment down to a minimum - in this case just to objects (and mysterious 'implications'!). I like nominalism, but you can't just deny properties. 'Loneliness' is extrinsic!

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

16643	Accidents always remain suited to a subject [Bonaventura]
	Full Idea: An accident's aptitudinal relationship to a subject is essential, and this is never taken away from accidents….for it is true to say that they are suited to a subject.
	From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], IV.12.1.1.1c)
	A reaction: This is the compromise view that allows accidents to be separated, for Transubstantiation, while acknowledging that we identify them with their subjects.

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived

14296	Dispositions are physical states of mechanism; when known, these replace the old disposition term [Quine]
	Full Idea: Each disposition, in my view, is a physical state or mechanism. ...In some cases nowadays we understand the physical details and set them forth explicitly in terms of the arrangement and interaction of small bodies. This replaces the old disposition.
	From: Willard Quine (The Roots of Reference [1990], p.11), quoted by Stephen Mumford - Dispositions 01.3
	A reaction: A challenge to the dispositions and powers view of nature, one which rests on the 'categorical' structural properties, rather than the 'hypothetical' dispositions. But can we define a mechanism without mentioning its powers?

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things

16696	Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura]
	Full Idea: Everything successive reduces to something permanent.
	From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], II.2.1.1.3 ad 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2
	A reaction: Avicenna first took successive entities seriously, but Bonaventure and Aquinas seem to have rejected them, or given reductive accounts of them. It resembles modern actualists versus modal realists.