10 ideas
| 16052 | 'Superdupervenience' is supervenience that has a robustly materialistic explanation [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: The idea of a ontological supervenience that is robustly explainable in a materialistically explainable way I hereby dub 'superdupervenience'. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §4) | |
| A reaction: [He credits William Lycan with the actual word] His assumption prior to this introduction is that mere supervenience just adds a new mystery. I take supervenience to be an observation of 'tracking', which presumably needs to be explained. |
| 16053 | 'Global' supervenience is facts tracking varying physical facts in every possible world [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: The idea of 'global supervenience' is standardly expressed as 'there are no two physically possible worlds which are exactly alike in all physical respects but different in some other respect'. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5) | |
| A reaction: [Jaegwon Kim is the source of this concept] The 'local' view will be that they do indeed track, but they could, in principle, come apart. A zombie might be a case of them possibly coming apart. Zombies are silly. |
| 16056 | Don't just observe supervenience - explain it! [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Although the task of explaining supervenience has been little appreciated and little discussed in the philosophical literature, it is time for that to change. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8) | |
| A reaction: I would offer a strong addition to this: be absolutely sure that you are dealing with two distinct things in the supervenience relationship, before you waste time trying to explain how they relate to one another. |
| 16054 | Physicalism needs more than global supervenience on the physical [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Global supervenience seems too weak to capture the physical facts determining all the facts. …There could be two spatio-temporal regions alike in all physical respects, but different in some intrinsic non-physical respect. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §5) | |
| A reaction: I.e. there might be two physically identical regions, but one contains angels and the other doesn't (so the extra fact isn't tracking the physical facts). Physicalism I take to be the simple denial of the angels. Supervenience is an explanandum. |
| 16055 | Materialism requires that physics be causally complete [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Any broadly materialistic metaphysical position needs to claim that physics is causally complete. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §6) | |
| A reaction: Since 'physics' is a human creation, I presume he means that physical reality is causally complete. The interaction problem that faced Descartes seems crucial - how could something utterly non-physical effect a physical change? |
| 16057 | Instrumentalism normally says some discourse is useful, but not genuinely true [Horgan,T] |
| Full Idea: Instrumentalist views typically attribute utility to the given body of discourse, but deny that it expresses genuine truths. | |
| From: Terence Horgan (From Supervenience to Superdupervenience [1993], §8) | |
| A reaction: To me it is obvious to ask why anything could have a high level of utility (especially in accounts of the external physical world) without being true. Falsehoods may sometimes (though I doubt it) be handy in human life, but useful in chemistry…? |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 20420 | The emotion expressed is non-conscious, but feels oppressive until expression relieves it [Collingwood] |
| Full Idea: The emotion expressed is one of whose nature the person feeling it is no longer conscious. As unexpressed, he feels it in a helpless and oppressed way; as expressed, the oppression has vanished. His mind is somehow lightened and eased. | |
| From: R.G. Collingwood (The Principles of Art [1938], p.110), quoted by Gary Kemp - Croce and Collingwood 1 | |
| A reaction: It sounds like the regular smoking of cigarettes. This is Collingwood answer the doubts I felt about Idea 20419. I would have thought the desire of Picasso was to create another painting, but not to express yet another new oppressive feeling. |
| 20421 | Art exists ideally, purely as experiences in the mind of the perceiver [Collingwood, by Kemp] |
| Full Idea: For Collingwood (and Croce) the work of art is an ideal object; …they are things that exist only in the mind, that is, only when one perceives. …The physical work exists to make this experience available. | |
| From: report of R.G. Collingwood (The Principles of Art [1938]) by Gary Kemp - Croce and Collingwood 2 | |
| A reaction: This means that the paintings in a gallery cease to be works of art when the gallery is shut, which sounds odd. I suppose 'work of art' is ambiguous, between the experience (right) and the facilitator of the experience (wrong). |
| 20406 | Art clarifies the artist's mind and feelings, thus leading to self-knowledge [Collingwood, by Davies,S] |
| Full Idea: Collingwood suggests art should be thought of not as product or artifact but as an act or process of expression through which the artist clarifies her initially vague emotions and states of mind. As such, it is a source of self-knowledge. | |
| From: report of R.G. Collingwood (The Principles of Art [1938], Ch.6) by Stephen Davies - The Philosophy of Art (2nd ed) 8.4 | |
| A reaction: I might believe this of writing novels, but not much else. |