24 ideas
| 14255 | We understand things through their dependency relations [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We understand a defined object (what it is) through the objects on which it depends. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
| A reaction: This places dependency relations right at the heart of our understanding of the world, and hence shifts traditional metaphysics away from existence and identity. The notion of explanation is missing from Fine's account. |
| 14250 | Metaphysics deals with the existence of things and with the nature of things [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics has two main areas of concern: one is with the nature of things, with what they are; and the other is with the existence of things, with whether they are. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
| A reaction: This paper is part of a movement which has shifted metaphysics to a third target - how things relate to one another. The possibility that this third aim should be the main one seems quite plausible to me. |
| 14259 | Maybe two objects might require simultaneous real definitions, as with two simultaneous terms [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: In Wooster as the witless bachelor and Jeeves as the crafty manservant, and one valet to the other, we will have the counterpart, within the framework of real definition, to the simultaneous definition of two terms. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
| A reaction: This is wonderful grist to the mill of scientific essentialism, which endeavours to produce an understanding through explanation of the complex interactions of nature. |
| 5745 | Quine says quantified modal logic creates nonsense, bad ontology, and false essentialism [Melia on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine charges quantified modal systems of logic with giving rise to unintended sense or nonsense, committing us to an incomprehensible ontology, and entailing an implausible or unsustainable Aristotelian essentialism. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice summary. Personally I like essentialism in accounts of science (see Nature|Laws of Nature|Essentialism), so would like to save it in metaphysics. Possible worlds ontology may be very surprising, rather than 'incomprehensible'. |
| 8789 | Various strategies try to deal with the ontological commitments of second-order logic [Hale/Wright on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine said higher-order logic is 'set theory in sheep's clothing', and there is concern about the ontology that is involved. One approach is to deny quantificational ontological commitments, or say that the entities involved are first-order objects. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by B Hale / C Wright - Logicism in the 21st Century 8 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] The second strategy is from Boolos. This question seems to be right at the heart of the strategy of exploring our ontology through the study of our logic. |
| 16966 | Philosophers tend to distinguish broad 'being' from narrower 'existence' - but I reject that [Quine] |
| Full Idea: It has been fairly common in philosophy early and late to distinguish between being, as the broadest concept, and existence, as narrower. This is no distinction of mine; I mean 'exist' to cover all there is. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.100) | |
| A reaction: I sort of agree with Quine, but 'being' has a role in philosophy that is not required in science and daily life, as the name of the central problem of ontology, which probably has to be broken down before any progress can happen. |
| 14253 | An object's 'being' isn't existence; there's more to an object than existence, and its nature doesn't include existence [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It seems wrong to identify the 'being' of an object, its being what it is, with its existence. In one respect existence is too weak; for there is more to an object than mere existence; also too strong, for an object's nature need not include existence. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
| A reaction: The word 'being' has been shockingly woolly, from Parmenides to Heidegger, but if you identify it with a thing's 'nature' that strikes me as much clearer (even if a little misty). |
| 16965 | All we have of general existence is what existential quantifiers express [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Existence is what existential quantification expresses. …It is unreasonable to ask for an explication of (general) existence in simpler terms. …We may still ask what counts as evidence for existential quantifications. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.97) | |
| A reaction: This has been orthodoxy for the last 60 years, with philosophers talking of 'quantifying over' instead of 'exists'. But are we allowed second-order logic, and plural quantification, and vague domains? |
| 14261 | There is 'weak' dependence in one definition, and 'strong' dependence in all the definitions [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: An object 'weakly' depends upon another if it is ineliminably involved in one of its definitions; and it 'strongly' depends upon the other if it is ineliminably involved in all of its definitions. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
| A reaction: It is important to remember that a definition can be very long, and not just what might go into a dictionary. |
| 14251 | A natural modal account of dependence says x depends on y if y must exist when x does [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A natural account of dependence in terms of modality and existence is that one thing x will depend on another thing y just in case it is necessary that y exists if x exists (or in the symbolism of modal logic, □(Ex→Ey). | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
| A reaction: He is going to criticise this view (which he traces back to Aristotle and Husserl). It immediately seems possible that there might be counterexamples. x might depend on y, but not necessarily depend on y. Necessities may not produce dependence. |
| 14257 | An object depends on another if the second cannot be eliminated from the first's definition [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The objects upon which a given object depends, according to the present account, are those which must figure in any of the logically equivalent definitions of the object. They will, in a sense, be ineliminable. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
| A reaction: This is Fine's main proposal for the dependency relationship, with a context of Aristotelian essences understood as definitions. Sounds pretty good to me. |
| 14254 | Dependency is the real counterpart of one term defining another [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The notion of one object depending upon another is the real counterpart to the nominal notion of one term being definable in terms of another. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
| A reaction: This begins to fill out the Aristotelian picture very nicely, since definitions are right at the centre of the nature of things (though a much more transitional part of the story than Fine seems to think). |
| 16963 | Existence is implied by the quantifiers, not by the constants [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In the quantification '(∃)(x=a)', it is the existential quantifier, not the 'a' itself, which carries the existential import. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.94) | |
| A reaction: The Fregean idea seems to be that the criterion of existence is participation in an equality, but here the equality seems not more than assigning a name. Why can't I quantify over 'sakes', in 'for the sake of the children'? |
| 16964 | Theories are committed to objects of which some of its predicates must be true [Quine] |
| Full Idea: Another way of saying what objects a theory requires is to say that they are the objects that some of the predicates of the theory have to be true of, in order for the theory to be true. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.95) | |
| A reaction: The other was for the objects to be needed by the bound variables of the theory. This is the first-order approach, that predication is a commitment to an object. So what of predicates which have no application? |
| 4216 | Express a theory in first-order predicate logic; its ontology is the types of bound variable needed for truth [Quine, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: According to Quine, we find the ontological commitments of a theory by expressing it in first-order predicate logic, then determining what kind of entities must be admitted as bound variables if the theory is true. | |
| From: report of Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by E.J. Lowe - A Survey of Metaphysics p.216 | |
| A reaction: To me this is horribly wrong. The ontological commitments of our language is not the same as ontology. What are the ontological commitments of a pocket calculator? |
| 18966 | Ontological commitment of theories only arise if they are classically quantified [Quine] |
| Full Idea: I hold that the question of the ontological commitment of a theory does not properly arise except as that theory is expressed in classical quantificational form. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.106) | |
| A reaction: He is attacking substitutional quantification for its failure to commit. I smell circularity. If it must be quantified in the first-order classical manner, that restricts your ontology to objects before you've even started. Chicken/egg. |
| 14490 | You can be implicitly committed to something without quantifying over it [Thomasson on Quine] |
| Full Idea: Quine's test for ontological commitment ignores the fact that there are often implicit commitments to certain kinds of entities even where we are not yet quantifying over them. | |
| From: comment on Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 09.4 | |
| A reaction: Put this with the obvious problem (of which Quine is aware) that we don't quantify over 'sakes' in 'for the sake of the children', and quantification and commitment have been rather clearly pulled apart. |
| 16961 | In formal terms, a category is the range of some style of variables [Quine] |
| Full Idea: In terms of formalized quantification theory, each category comprises the range of some distinctive style of variable. | |
| From: Willard Quine (Existence and Quantification [1966], p.92) | |
| A reaction: I add this for those who dream of formalising everything, but be warned that even Quine thought it of little help in deciding on the categories. Presumably there would be some variable that ranged across tigers. |
| 14252 | We should understand identity in terms of the propositions it renders true [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We should understand the identity or being of an object in terms of the propositions rendered true by its identity rather than the other way round. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], I) | |
| A reaction: Behind this is an essentialist view of identity, rather than one connected with necessary properties. |
| 14256 | How do we distinguish basic from derived esssences? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: How and where are we to draw the line between what is basic to the essence and what is derived? | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], II) | |
| A reaction: He calls the basic essence 'constitutive' and the rest the 'consequential' essence. This question is obviously very challenging for the essentialist. See Idea 22. |
| 14258 | Maybe some things have essential relationships as well as essential properties [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is natural to suppose, in the case of such objects as Wooster and Jeeves, that in addition to possessing constitutive essential properties they will also enter into constitutive essential relationships. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
| A reaction: I like this. If we are going to have scientific essences as structures of intrinsic powers, then the relationships between the parts of the essence must also be essential. That is the whole point - that the powers dictate the relationships. |
| 14260 | An object only essentially has a property if that property follows from every definition of the object [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: We can say that an object essentially has a certain property if its having that property follows from every definition of the object, while an object will definitively have a given property if its having that property follows from some definition of it. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Ontological Dependence [1995], III) | |
| A reaction: Presumably that will be every accurate definition. This nicely allows for the fact that at least nominal definitions may not be unique, and there is even room for real definitions not to be fully determinate (thus, how far should they extend?). |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |