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All the ideas for 'Natural Kinds', 'Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro' and 'Modality'

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40 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.
If infatuation with science leads to bad scientism, its rejection leads to obscurantism [Critchley]
     Full Idea: If what is mistaken in much contemporary philosophy is its infatuation with science, which leads to scientism, then the equally mistaken rejection of science leads to obscurantism.
     From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.1)
     A reaction: Clearly a balance has to be struck. I take philosophy to be a quite separate discipline from science, but it is crucial that philosophy respects the physical facts, and scientists are the experts there. Scientists are philosophers' most valued servants.
1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 1. Continental Philosophy
To meet the division in our life, try the Subject, Nature, Spirit, Will, Power, Praxis, Unconscious, or Being [Critchley]
     Full Idea: Against the Kantian division of a priori and empirical, Fichte offered activity of the subject, Schelling offered natural force, Hegel offered Spirit, Schopenhauer the Will, Nietzsche power, Marx praxis, Freud the unconscious, and Heidegger offered Being.
     From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001])
     A reaction: The whole of Continental Philosophy summarised in a sentence. Fichte and Schopenhauer seem to point to existentialism, Schelling gives evolutionary teleology, Marx abandons philosophy, the others are up the creek.
The French keep returning, to Hegel or Nietzsche or Marx [Critchley]
     Full Idea: French philosophy since the 1930s might be described as a series of returns: to Hegel (in Kojčve and early Sartre), to Nietzsche (in Foucault and Deleuze), or to Marx (in Althusser).
     From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], Ch.2)
     A reaction: An interesting map. The question might be why they return to those three, rather than (say) Hume or Leibniz. If the choice of which one you return to a matter of 'taste' (as Nietzsche would have it)?
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 1. On Reason
Consistency is modal, saying propositions are consistent if they could be true together [Melia]
     Full Idea: Consistency is a modal notion: a set of propositions is consistent iff all the members of the set could be true together.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6)
     A reaction: This shows why Kantian ethics, for example, needs a metaphysical underpinning. Maybe Kant should have believed in the reality of Leibnizian possible worlds? An account of reason requires an account of necessity and possibility.
4. Formal Logic / C. Predicate Calculus PC / 1. Predicate Calculus PC
Predicate logic has connectives, quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names and brackets [Melia]
     Full Idea: First-order predicate language has four connectives, two quantifiers, variables, predicates, equality, names, and brackets.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: Look up the reference for the details! The spirit of logic is seen in this basic framework, and the main interest is in the ontological commitment of the items on the list. The list is either known a priori, or it is merely conventional.
4. Formal Logic / D. Modal Logic ML / 1. Modal Logic
First-order predicate calculus is extensional logic, but quantified modal logic is intensional (hence dubious) [Melia]
     Full Idea: First-order predicate calculus is an extensional logic, while quantified modal logic is intensional (which has grave problems of interpretation, according to Quine).
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3)
     A reaction: The battle is over ontology. Quine wants the ontology to stick with the values of the variables (i.e. the items in the real world that are quantified over in the extension). The rival view arises from attempts to explain necessity and counterfactuals.
5. Theory of Logic / G. Quantification / 5. Second-Order Quantification
Second-order logic needs second-order variables and quantification into predicate position [Melia]
     Full Idea: Permitting quantification into predicate position and adding second-order variables leads to second-order logic.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: Often expressed by saying that we now quantify over predicates and relations, rather than just objects. Depends on your metaphysical commitments.
5. Theory of Logic / J. Model Theory in Logic / 1. Logical Models
If every model that makes premises true also makes conclusion true, the argument is valid [Melia]
     Full Idea: In first-order predicate calculus validity is defined thus: an argument is valid iff every model that makes the premises of the argument true also makes the conclusion of the argument true.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: See Melia Ch. 2 for an explanation of a 'model'. Traditional views of validity tend to say that if the premises are true the conclusion has to be true (necessarily), but this introduces the modal term 'necessarily', which is controversial.
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 / 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 / 8. Facts / a. Facts
No sort of plain language or levels of logic can express modal facts properly [Melia]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers say that modal facts cannot be expressed either by name/predicate language, or by first-order predicate calculus, or even by second-order logic.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: If 'possible' were a predicate, none of this paraphernalia would be needed. If possible worlds are accepted, then the quantifiers of first-order predicate calculus will do the job. If neither of these will do, there seems to be a problem.
Maybe names and predicates can capture any fact [Melia]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers think that any fact can be captured in a language containing only names and predicates.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: The problem case Melia is discussing is modal facts, such as 'x is possible'. It is hard to see how 'possible' could be an ordinary predicate, but then McGinn claims that 'existence' is, and that there are some predicates with unusual characters.
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.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects
The Identity of Indiscernibles is contentious for qualities, and trivial for non-qualities [Melia]
     Full Idea: If the Identity of Indiscernibles is referring to qualitative properties, such as 'being red' or 'having mass', it is contentious; if it is referring to non-qualitative properties, such as 'member of set s' or 'brother of a', it is true but trivial.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.3 n 11)
     A reaction: I would say 'false' rather than 'contentious'. No one has ever offered a way of distinguishing two electrons, but that doesn't mean there is just one (very busy) electron. The problem is that 'indiscernible' is only an epistemological concept.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
We may be sure that P is necessary, but is it necessarily necessary? [Melia]
     Full Idea: We may have fairly firm beliefs as to whether or not P is necessary, but many of us find ourselves at a complete loss when wondering whether or not P is necessarily necessary.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: I think it is questions like this which are pushing philosophy back towards some sort of rationalism. See Idea 3651, for example. A regress of necessities would be mad, so necessity must be taken as self-evident (in itself, though maybe not to us).
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
'De re' modality is about things themselves, 'de dicto' modality is about propositions [Melia]
     Full Idea: In cases of 'de re' modality, it is a particular thing that has the property essentially or accidentally; where the modality attaches to the proposition, it is 'de dicto' - it is the whole truth that all bachelors are unmarried that is necessary.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1)
     A reaction: This seems to me one of the most important distinctions in metaphysics (as practised by analytical philosophers, who like distinctions). The first type leads off into the ontology, the second type veers towards epistemology.
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
Sometimes we want to specify in what ways a thing is possible [Melia]
     Full Idea: Sometimes we want to count the ways in which something is possible, or say that there are many ways in which a certain thing is possible.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This is a basic fact about talk of 'possibility'. It is not an all-or-nothing property of a situation. There can be 'faint' possibilities of things. The proximity of some possible worlds, especially those sharing our natural laws, is one answer.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / a. Possible worlds
Possible worlds make it possible to define necessity and counterfactuals without new primitives [Melia]
     Full Idea: In modal logic the concepts of necessity and counterfactuals are not interdefinable, so the language needs two primitives to represent them, but with the machinery of possible worlds they are defined by what is the case in all worlds, or close worlds.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.1)
     A reaction: If your motivation is to reduce ontology to the barest of minimums (which it was for David Lewis) then it is paradoxical that the existence of possible worlds may be the way to achieve it. I doubt, though, whether a commitment to their reality is needed.
In possible worlds semantics the modal operators are treated as quantifiers [Melia]
     Full Idea: The central idea in possible worlds semantics is that the modal operators are treated as quantifiers.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: It seems an essential requirement of metaphysics that an account be given of possibility and necessity, and it is also a good dream to keep the ontology simple. Commitment to possible worlds is the bizarre outcome of this dream.
If possible worlds semantics is not realist about possible worlds, logic becomes merely formal [Melia]
     Full Idea: It has proved difficult to justify possible worlds semantics without accepting possible worlds. Without a secure metaphysical underpinning, the results in logic are in danger of having nothing more than a formal significance.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.2)
     A reaction: This makes nicely clear why Lewis's controversial modal realism has to be taken seriously. It appears that the key problem is truth, because that is needed to define validity, but you can't have truth without some sort of metaphysics.
Possible worlds could be real as mathematics, propositions, properties, or like books [Melia]
     Full Idea: One can be a realist about possible worlds without adopting Lewis's extreme views; they might be abstract or mathematical entities; they might be sets of propositions or maximal uninstantiated properties; they might be like books or pictures.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.6)
     A reaction: My intuition is that once you go down the road of realism about possible worlds, Lewis's full concrete realism looks at least as attractive as any of these options. You can discuss the 'average man' in an economic theory without realism.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / b. Worlds as fictions
The truth of propositions at possible worlds are implied by the world, just as in books [Melia]
     Full Idea: Propositions are true at possible worlds in much the same way as they are true at books: by being implied by the book.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.7)
     A reaction: An intriguing way to introduce the view that possible worlds should be seen as like books. The truth-makers of propositions about the actual world are items in it, but the truth-makers in novels (say) are the conditions of the whole work as united.
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 / 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.
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 5. Meaning as Verification
We accept unverifiable propositions because of simplicity, utility, explanation and plausibility [Melia]
     Full Idea: Many philosophers now concede that it is rational to accept a proposition not because we can directly verify it but because it is supported by considerations of simplicity, theoretical utility, explanatory power and/or intuitive plausibility.
     From: Joseph Melia (Modality [2003], Ch.5)
     A reaction: This suggests how the weakness of logical positivism may have led us to the concept of epistemic virtues (such as those listed), which are, of course, largely a matter of community consensus, just as the moral virtues are.
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'?
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Food first, then ethics [Critchley]
     Full Idea: Food first, then ethics.
     From: Simon Critchley (Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro [2001], 8857)
     A reaction: This is not a dismissal of philosophy, but a key fact which ethical philosophers must face up to. See Mr Doolittle's speech in Shaw's 'Pygmalion. It connects to the debate c.1610 about whether one is entitled to grab someone's plank to avoid drowning.
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 / 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.