Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reportatio', 'Thought and Responsibility' and 'The Source of Necessity'

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

---

8 ideas

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity

12432	Explanation of necessity must rest on something necessary or something contingent [Hale]
	Full Idea: The dilemma is that to give the ultimate source of any necessity, we must either appeal to something which could not have been otherwise (i.e. is itself necessary), or advert to something which could have been otherwise (i.e. is itself merely contingent).
	From: Bob Hale (The Source of Necessity [2002], p.301)
	A reaction: [Hale is summarising Blackburn's view, and going on to disagree with it] Hale looks for a third way, but Blackburn seems to face us with quite a plausible dilemma.

12434	Why is this necessary, and what is necessity in general; why is this necessary truth true, and why necessary? [Hale]
	Full Idea: We must distinguish between explaining particular necessities and explaining necessity in general; and we ought to distinguish between explaining, in regard to any necessary truth, why it is true, and explaining why it is necessary.
	From: Bob Hale (The Source of Necessity [2002], p.308)
	A reaction: Useful. The pluralist view I associate with Fine says we can explain types of necessity, but not necessity in general. If we seek truthmakers, there is a special case of what adds the necessity to the truth.

12435	The explanation of a necessity can be by a truth (which may only happen to be a necessary truth) [Hale]
	Full Idea: My claim is that there are non-transitive explanations of necessities, where what explains is indeed necessary, but what explains the necessity of the explanandum is not the explanation's necessity, but its truth simpliciter.
	From: Bob Hale (The Source of Necessity [2002], p.311)
	A reaction: The big idea is to avoid a regress of necessities. The actual truths he proposes are essentialist. An interesting proposal. It might depend on how one views essences (as giving identity, or causal power)

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 3. Necessity by Convention

12433	If necessity rests on linguistic conventions, those are contingent, so there is no necessity [Hale]
	Full Idea: If the alleged necessity, e,g, 2+2=4, really does depend upon a convention governing the use of the words in which we state it, and the existence of that convention is merely a contingent matter, then it can't after all be necessary.
	From: Bob Hale (The Source of Necessity [2002], p.302)
	A reaction: [Hale is citing Blackburn for this claim] Hale suggests replies, by keeping truth and meaning separate, and involving laws of logic. Blackburn clearly has a good point.

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 4. Necessity from Concepts

12436	Concept-identities explain how we know necessities, not why they are necessary [Hale]
	Full Idea: It seems to me that identity-relations among concepts have more to do with explaining how we know that vixens are female foxes etc., than with explaining why it is necessary, and, more generally, with explaining why some necessities are knowable a priori.
	From: Bob Hale (The Source of Necessity [2002], P.313)
	A reaction: Hale rejects the conceptual and conventional accounts of necessity, in favour of the essentialist view. This strikes me as a good suggestion of Hale's, since I agree with him about the essentialism.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility

20166	A man is a responsible agent to the extent he has an intention, and knows what he is doing [Hampshire]
	Full Idea: A man becomes more and more a free and responsible agent the more he at all times knows what he is doing, in every sense of this phrase, and the more he acts with a definite and clearly formed intention.
	From: Stuart Hampshire (Thought and Responsibility [1960], p.178), quoted by John Kekes - The Human Condition 07.1
	A reaction: Kekes quote this (along with Frankfurt, Hart etc) as the 'received view' of responsibility, which he attacks.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections

9111	God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good.
	From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
	A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God.

28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity

9112	We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom.
	From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii)
	A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism.