7 ideas
13795 | Properties only have identity in the context of their contraries [Elder] |
Full Idea: The very being, the identity, of any property consists at least in part in its contrasting as it does with its own proper contraries. | |
From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 2.4) | |
A reaction: See Elder for the details of this, but the idea that properties can only be individuated contextually sounds promising. |
13798 | Maybe we should give up the statue [Elder] |
Full Idea: Some contemporary metaphysicians infer that one of the objects must go, namely, the statue. | |
From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 7.2) | |
A reaction: [He cites Zimmerman 1995] This looks like a recipe for creating a vast gulf between philosophers and the rest of the population. If it is right, it makes the true ontology completely useless in understanding our daily lives. |
13797 | The loss of an essential property means the end of an existence [Elder] |
Full Idea: The loss of any essential property must amount to the end of an existence. | |
From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 3) | |
A reaction: This is orthodoxy for essentialists, and I presume that Aristotle would agree, but I have a problem with the essence of a great athlete, who then grows old. Must we say that they lose their identity-as-an-athlete? |
13794 | Essential properties by nature occur in clusters or packages [Elder] |
Full Idea: Essential properties by nature occur in clusters or packages. | |
From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 2.2) | |
A reaction: Elder proposes this as his test for the essentialness of a property - his Test of Flanking Uniformities. A nice idea. |
13796 | Essential properties are bound together, and would be lost together [Elder] |
Full Idea: The properties of any essential nature are bound together....[122] so any case in which one of our envisioned familiar objects loses one of its essential properties will be a case in which it loses several. | |
From: Crawford L. Elder (Real Natures and Familiar Objects [2004], 3) | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly good generalisation rather than a necessary truth. Is there a natural selection for properties, so that only the properties which are able to bind to others to form teams are able to survive and flourish? |
3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
21131 | Democracy is competition for support of the people, guided by self-interest on all sides [Posner] |
Full Idea: Democratic politics is a competition among self-interested politicians, constituting a ruling class, for the support of the people, also assumed to be self-interested, and none too interested or well informed about politics. | |
From: Richard Posner (Law, Pragmatism and Democracy [2003], p.144), quoted by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 05 | |
A reaction: This articulates the 'competitive' view of democracy, as simply a technique for establishing legitimacy. Posner is also an economist, and they also assume that everyone is wholly self-interested, which may be why they are so frequently wrong. |