22 ideas
16943 | 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. |
16949 | 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) |
17462 | A single object must not be counted twice, which needs knowledge of distinctness (negative identity) [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: One requirement for a successful count is that double counting should be avoided: a single object should not be counted twice. ...but that is to make a knowledgeable judgement of distinctness - to resolve a question of identity in the negative. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (Concepts and Counting [2002], III) | |
A reaction: He also notes later (p.65) that you must count all and only the right things. |
17461 | Some 'how many?' answers are not predications of a concept, like 'how many gallons?' [Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: We hit trouble if we hear answers to some 'How many?' questions as predications about concepts. The correct answer to 'how many gallons of water are in the tank?' may be 'ten', but that doesn''t mean ten things instantiate 'gallon of water in the tank'. | |
From: Ian Rumfitt (Concepts and Counting [2002], I) | |
A reaction: Rumfitt makes the point that a huge number of things instantiate that concept in a ten gallon tank of water. No problem, says Rumfitt, because Frege wouldn't have counted that as a statement of number. |
16939 | 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. |
16948 | 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'. |
16945 | 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. |
16944 | 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. |
16940 | 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. |
16941 | 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. |
16933 | 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. |
16934 | 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. |
16938 | 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! |
8486 | 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. |
16947 | 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. |
15788 | Syntax and semantics are indeterminate, and modern 'semantics' is a bogus subject [Quine, by Lycan] |
Full Idea: Quine has argued tirelessly that syntax and 'semantics' are indeterminate, and linguistic semantics of the sort that is currently in favor is a pseudoscience and a pipe dream. | |
From: report of Willard Quine (Methodological Reflections on Current Linguistic Theory [1972]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 02 | |
A reaction: I think the defence of such things is that they may not integrate into science very well (or even integrate at all), but semantics is intended to integrate into philosophy, and is motivated by philosophical concerns. Quine may be right! |
16932 | 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'? |
7375 | 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. |
16935 | 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. |
16936 | 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. |
16937 | 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. |
16942 | 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. |