Combining Texts

All the ideas for '', 'Immortality of the Soul' and 'In Defense of Essentialism'

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14 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 1. Overview of Logic

11211	If a sound conclusion comes from two errors that cancel out, the path of the argument must matter [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: If a designated conclusion follows from the premisses, but the argument involves two howlers which cancel each other out, then the moral is that the path an argument takes from premisses to conclusion does matter to its logical evaluation.
	From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], II)
	A reaction: The drift of this is that our view of logic should be a little closer to the reasoning of ordinary language, and we should rely a little less on purely formal accounts.

5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 2. Logical Connectives / a. Logical connectives

11210	Standardly 'and' and 'but' are held to have the same sense by having the same truth table [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: If 'and' and 'but' really are alike in sense, in what might that likeness consist? Some philosophers of classical logic will reply that they share a sense by virtue of sharing a truth table.
	From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000])
	A reaction: This is the standard view which Rumfitt sets out to challenge.

11212	The sense of a connective comes from primitively obvious rules of inference [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: A connective will possess the sense that it has by virtue of its competent users' finding certain rules of inference involving it to be primitively obvious.
	From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], III)
	A reaction: Rumfitt cites Peacocke as endorsing this view, which characterises the logical connectives by their rules of usage rather than by their pure semantic value.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind

14193	'Substance theorists' take modal properties as primitive, without structure, just falling under a sortal [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: Some deep essentialists resist the need to explain the structure under de re modal properties, taking them as primitive. One version (which we can call 'substance theory') takes them to fall under a sortal concept, with no further explanation.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
	A reaction: A very helpful identification of what Wiggins stands for, and why I disagree with him. The whole point of essences is to provide a notion that fits in with sciences, which means they must have an explanatory role, which needs structures.

14195	If an object's sort determines its properties, we need to ask what determines its sort [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: If the substance essentialist holds that the sort an object belongs to determines its de re modal properties (rather than the other way round), then he needs to give an (ontological, not conceptual) explanation of what determines an object's sort.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
	A reaction: See Idea 14193 for 'substance essentialism'. I find it quite incredible that anyone could think that a thing's sort could determine its properties, rather than the other way round. Even if sortals are conventional, they are not arbitrary.

14196	Substance essentialism says an object is multiple, as falling under various different sortals [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: The explanation of material constitution given by substance essentialism is that there are multiple objects. A person is essentially human-shaped (falling under the human sort), while their hunk of tissue is accidentally human-shaped (as tissue).
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §1)
	A reaction: At this point sortal essentialism begins to look crazy. Persons are dubious examples (with sneaky dualism involved). A bronze statue is essentially harder to dent than a clay one, because of its bronze. If you remake it of clay, it isn't the same statue.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / b. Sums of parts

14198	Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would allow things with incompatible properties [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: Absolutely unrestricted qualitative composition would imply that objects with incompatible properties and objects such as winged pigs or golden mountains were actual.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §5)
	A reaction: Note that this is 'qualitative' composition, and not composition of parts. The objection seems to rule out unrestricted qualitative composition, since you could hardly combine squareness with roundness.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 2. Types of Essence

14190	Deep essentialist objects have intrinsic properties that fix their nature; the shallow version makes it contextual [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: Essentialism says that objects have their properties essentially. 'Deep' essentialists take the (nontrivial) essential properties of an object to determine its nature. 'Shallow' essentialists substitute context-dependent truths for the independent ones.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
	A reaction: If the deep essence determines a things nature, we should not need to say 'nontrivial'. This is my bete noire, the confusion of essential properties with necessary ones, where necessary properties (or predicates, at least) can indeed be trivial.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier

14191	Deep essentialists say essences constrain how things could change; modal profiles fix natures [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: The deep essentialist holds that most objects have essential properties such that there are many ways they could not be, or many changes through which they could not persist. Objects' modal profiles characterize their natures.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
	A reaction: This is the view I like, especially the last bit. If your modal profile doesn't determine your nature, then what does? Think of how you sum up a person at a funeral. Your modal profile is determined by dispositions and powers.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

14192	Essentialism must deal with charges of arbitrariness, and failure to reduce de re modality [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: Two objections to deep essentialism are that it falters when faced with a skeptical objection concerning arbitrariness, and the need for a reductive account of de re modality.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
	A reaction: An immediate response to the second objection might be to say that modal facts about things are not reducible. The charge of arbitrariness (i.e. total arbitrariness, not just a bit of uncertainty) is the main thing a theory of essences must deal with.

14197	An object's modal properties don't determine its possibilities [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: I reject the view that an object's de re modal properties determine its relations to possibilia.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], §3)
	A reaction: You'll have to read Paul to see why, but I flat disagree with her on this. The whole point of accepting such properties is to determine the modal profile of the thing, and hence see how it can fit into and behave in the world.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds

14189	'Modal realists' believe in many concrete worlds, 'actualists' in just this world, 'ersatzists' in abstract other worlds [Paul,LA]
	Full Idea: A 'modal realist' believes that there are many concrete worlds, while the 'actualist' believes in only one concrete world, the actual world. The 'ersatzist' is an actualist who takes nonactual possible worlds and their contents to be abstracta.
	From: L.A. Paul (In Defense of Essentialism [2006], Intro)
	A reaction: My view is something like that modal realism is wrong, and actualism is right, and possible worlds (if they really are that useful) are convenient abstract fictions, constructed (if we have any sense) out of the real possibilities in the actual world.

19. Language / F. Communication / 3. Denial

11214	We learn 'not' along with affirmation, by learning to either affirm or deny a sentence [Rumfitt]
	Full Idea: The standard view is that affirming not-A is more complex than affirming the atomic sentence A itself, with the latter determining its sense. But we could learn 'not' directly, by learning at once how to either affirm A or reject A.
	From: Ian Rumfitt ("Yes" and "No" [2000], IV)
	A reaction: [compressed] This seems fairly anti-Fregean in spirit, because it looks at the psychology of how we learn 'not' as a way of clarifying what we mean by it, rather than just looking at its logical behaviour (and thus giving it a secondary role).

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / c. Angels

16689	The schools said spirits lack extension, and wonder how many could dance on a needle's point [More,H]
	Full Idea: Many, not without reason, laugh at those ridiculous fancies of the schools, that rashly take away all extensions from spirits, whether souls or angels, and then dispute how many of them booted and spurred may dance on a needle's point at once.
	From: Henry More (Immortality of the Soul [1659], III.2.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 17.3
	A reaction: This famous idea originated with William Chillingworth. More's version is the classic one. Pasnau cites Aquinas Summa 1a 52.3 as discussing the actual question (and says this couldn't happen).