Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'On the Notion of Cause', 'Dispositions and Powers' and 'Letters to De Vries'

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23 ideas

1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
8378 Philosophers usually learn science from each other, not from science [Russell]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 1. Nature of Properties
23708 Humeans see properties as having no more essential features and relations than their distinctness [Friend/Kimpton-Nye, by PG]
23709 Dispositions are what individuate properties, and they constitute their essence [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
23707 Powers are properties which necessitate dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
23714 Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
23711 A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23712 Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
23698 Dispositions have directed behaviour which occurs if triggered [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23699 'Masked' dispositions fail to react because something intervenes [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23700 A disposition is 'altered' when the stimulus reverses the disposition [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23701 A disposition is 'mimicked' if a different cause produces that effect from that stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23702 A 'trick' can look like a stimulus for a disposition which will happen without it [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23703 Some dispositions manifest themselves without a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
23704 We could analyse dispositions as 'possibilities', with no mention of a stimulus [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
4869 Experience does not teach us any essences of things [Spinoza]
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
8375 'Necessary' is a predicate of a propositional function, saying it is true for all values of its argument [Russell]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / e. Against possible worlds
23710 Dispositionalism says modality is in the powers of this world, not outsourced to possible worlds [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 7. Eliminating causation
4396 The law of causality is a source of confusion, and should be dropped from philosophy [Russell]
8376 If causes are contiguous with events, only the last bit is relevant, or the event's timing is baffling [Russell]
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / a. Constant conjunction
8380 Striking a match causes its igniting, even if it sometimes doesn't work [Russell]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
8379 In causal laws, 'events' must recur, so they have to be universals, not particulars [Russell]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 6. Laws as Numerical
8381 The constancy of scientific laws rests on differential equations, not on cause and effect [Russell]
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 7. Strictness of Laws
23706 Hume's Dictum says no connections are necessary - so mass and spacetime warping could separate [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]