8 ideas
18758 | Validity is provable, but invalidity isn't, because the model is infinite [Church, by McGee] |
Full Idea: Church showed that logic has a proof procedure, but no decision procedure. If an argument is invalid, there is a model with true premises and false conclusion, but the model will typically be infinite, so there is no way to display it concretely. | |
From: report of Alonzo Church (A Note on the entscheidungsproblem [1936]) by Vann McGee - Logical Consequence 5 |
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. |
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? |
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. |
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…? |
6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |