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All the ideas for 'works', 'From an Ontological Point of View' and 'Critique of Practical Reason'

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113 ideas

1. Philosophy / A. Wisdom / 1. Nature of Wisdom
There is practical wisdom (for action), and theoretical wisdom (for deep understanding) [Aristotle, by Whitcomb]
     Full Idea: Aristotle takes wisdom to come in two forms, the practical and the theoretical, the former of which is good judgement about how to act, and the latter of which is deep knowledge or understanding.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Dennis Whitcomb - Wisdom Intro
     A reaction: The interesting question is then whether the two are connected. One might be thoroughly 'sensible' about action, without counting as 'wise', which seems to require a broader view of what is being done. Whitcomb endorses Aristotle on this idea.
Wisdom is knowing the highest good, and conforming the will to it [Kant]
     Full Idea: Wisdom, theoretically regarded, means the knowledge of the highest good and, practically, the conformability of the will to the highest good.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: This seems a narrow account of wisdom, focusing entirely on goodness rather than truth. A mind that valued nothing but understood everything would have a considerable degree of wisdom, in the normal use of that word.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined
What fills me with awe are the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me [Kant]
     Full Idea: Two things fill the mind with ever new and increasing wonder and awe, the oftener and the more steadily we reflect on them: the starry heavens above me and the moral law within me.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Concl)
     A reaction: I am beginning to think that the two major issues of all philosophy are ontology and metaethics, and Kant is close to agreeing with me. He certainly wasn't implying that astronomy was a key aspect of philosophy.
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / e. Philosophy as reason
Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher [Kant]
     Full Idea: Consistency is the highest obligation of a philosopher and yet the most rarely found.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§3)
     A reaction: I agree with this, and it also strikes me as the single most important principle of Kant's philosophy, which is the key to his whole moral theory.
1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science
Metaphysics is just a priori universal principles of physics [Kant]
     Full Idea: Metaphysics only contains the pure a priori principles of physics in their universal import.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
     A reaction: 'Universal' seems to imply 'necessary'. If you thought that no a priori universal principles were possible, you would be left with physics. I quite like the definition, except that I think there would still be metaphysics even if there were no physics.
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 5. Linguistic Analysis
If you begin philosophy with language, you find yourself trapped in it [Heil]
     Full Idea: If you start with language and try to work your way outwards, you will never get outside language.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Pref)
     A reaction: This voices my pessimism about the linguistic approach to philosophy (and I don't just mean analysis of ordinary language), though I wonder if the career of (say) John Searle is a counterexample.
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 2. Logos
For Aristotle logos is essentially the ability to talk rationally about questions of value [Roochnik on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle logos is the ability to speak rationally about, with the hope of attaining knowledge, questions of value.
     From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.26
2. Reason / A. Nature of Reason / 4. Aims of Reason
Aristotle is the supreme optimist about the ability of logos to explain nature [Roochnik on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Aristotle is the great theoretician who articulates a vision of a world in which natural and stable structures can be rationally discovered. His is the most optimistic and richest view of the possibilities of logos
     From: comment on Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.95
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
A theory with few fundamental principles might still posit a lot of entities [Heil]
     Full Idea: It could well turn out that a simpler theory - a theory with fewer fundamental principles - posits more entities than a more complex competitor.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.6)
     A reaction: See also Idea 4036. The point here is that you can't simply translate Ockham as 'keep it simple', as there are different types of simplicity. The best theory will negotiate a balance between entities and principles.
Parsimony does not imply the world is simple, but that our theories should try to be [Heil]
     Full Idea: A commitment to parsimony is not a commitment to a conception of the world as simple. The idea, rather, is that we should not complicate our theories about the world unnecessarily.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.6)
     A reaction: In other words, Ockham's Razor is about us, not about the world. It would be absurd to make the a priori assumption that the world has to be simple. Are we, though, creating bad theories by insisting that they should be simple?
2. Reason / D. Definition / 4. Real Definition
Aristotelian definitions aim to give the essential properties of the thing defined [Aristotle, by Quine]
     Full Idea: A real definition, according to the Aristotelian tradition, gives the essence of the kind of thing defined. Man is defined as a rational animal, and thus rationality and animality are of the essence of each of us.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Vagaries of Definition p.51
     A reaction: Compare Idea 4385. Personally I prefer the Aristotelian approach, but we may have to say 'We cannot identify the essence of x, and so x cannot be defined'. Compare 'his mood was hard to define' with 'his mood was hostile'.
2. Reason / D. Definition / 5. Genus and Differentia
Aristotelian definition involves first stating the genus, then the differentia of the thing [Aristotle, by Urmson]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle, to give a definition one must first state the genus and then the differentia of the kind of thing to be defined.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by J.O. Urmson - Aristotle's Doctrine of the Mean p.157
     A reaction: Presumably a modern definition would just be a list of properties, but Aristotle seeks the substance. How does he define a genus? - by placing it in a further genus?
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 4. Truthmaker Necessitarianism
The view that truth making is entailment is misguided and misleading [Heil]
     Full Idea: I argue that the widely held view that truth making is to be understood as entailment is misguided in principle and potentially misleading.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: If reality was just one particle, what would entail the truths about it? Suppose something appears to be self-evident true about reality, but no one can think of any entailments to derive it? Do we assume a priori that they are possible?
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 8. Critique of Set Theory
God does not create the world, and then add the classes [Heil]
     Full Idea: It is hard to see classes as an 'addition of being'; God does not create the world, and then add the classes.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4 n6)
     A reaction: This seems right. We may be tempted into believing in the reality of classes when considering maths, but it seems utterly implausible when considering trees or cows.
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12
     A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit.
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 1. Logical Form
For Aristotle, the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected a substance-accident structure of reality [Aristotle, by O'Grady]
     Full Idea: Aristotle apparently believed that the subject-predicate structure of Greek reflected the substance-accident nature of reality.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Paul O'Grady - Relativism Ch.4
     A reaction: We need not assume that Aristotle is wrong. It is a chicken-and-egg. There is something obvious about subject-predicate language, if one assumes that unified objects are part of nature, and not just conventional.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality [Heil]
     Full Idea: The reductionist programme dispenses with levels of reality.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.3)
     A reaction: Fodor, for example, claims that certain causal laws only operate at high levels of reality. I agree with Heil's idea - the notion that there are different realities around here that don't connect properly to one another is philosopher's madness.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality
There are levels of organisation, complexity, description and explanation, but not of reality [Heil]
     Full Idea: We should accept levels of organisation, levels of complexity, levels of description, and levels of explanation, but not the levels of reality favoured by many anti-reductionists. The world is then ontologically, but not analytically, reductive.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: This sounds right to me. The crunch questions seem to be whether the boundaries at higher levels of organisation exist lower down, and whether the causal laws of the higher levels can be translated without remainder into lower level laws.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
Realism says some of our concepts 'cut nature at the joints' [Heil]
     Full Idea: Realism is sometimes said to involve a commitment to the idea that certain of our concepts, those with respect to which we are realists, 'carve reality at the joints'.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.11)
     A reaction: Clearly not all concepts cut nature at the joints (e.g. we have concepts of things we know to be imaginary). Personally I am committed to this view of realism. I try very hard to use concepts that cut accurately; why shouldn't I sometimes succeed?
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Anti-realists who reduce reality to language must explain the existence of language [Heil]
     Full Idea: Anti-realist philosophers, and those who hope to reduce metaphysics to (or replace it with) the philosophy of language, owe the rest of us an account of the ontology of language.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.6)
     A reaction: A nice turning-the-tables question. In all accounts of relativism, x is usually said to be relative to y. You haven't got proper relativism if you haven't relativised both x and y. But relativised them to what? Nietzsche's 'perspectivism' (Idea 4420)?
7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism
Concepts don't carve up the world, which has endless overlooked or ignored divisions [Heil]
     Full Idea: Concepts do not 'carve up' the world; the world already contains endless divisions, most of which we remain oblivious to or ignore.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 05.3)
     A reaction: Concepts could still carve up the world, without ever aspiring to do a complete job. We carve up the aspects that interest us, but the majority of the carving is in response to natural divisions, not whimsical conventions.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 9. Qualities
I think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers who accept that properties are intrinsic features of objects regard them as pure powers, pure dispositionalities; I prefer to think of properties as simultaneously dispositional and qualitative.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: I am uneasy about 'qualitative' as a category, and am inclined to reduce it to being a dispositional power to cause primary and secondary qualities in observers. Roughness is only a power, not a quality, if there are no observers.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
A predicate applies truly if it picks out a real property of objects [Heil]
     Full Idea: When a predicate applies truly to an object, it does so in virtue of designating a property possessed by that object and by every object to which the predicate truly applies (or would apply).
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.3)
     A reaction: I am sympathetic to Heil's aim of shifting our attention from arbitrary predicates to natural properties, but it won't avoid Fodor's problem (Idea 7014) that all kinds of whimsical predicates will apply 'truly', but fail to pick out anything significant.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
A theory of universals says similarity is identity of parts; for modes, similarity is primitive [Heil]
     Full Idea: The friend of universals has an account of similarity relations as relations of identity and partial identity; the friend of modes must regard similarity relations as primitive and irreducible.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.5)
     A reaction: We always seem to be able to ask 'in what respect' a similarity occurs. If similarity is 'primitive and irreducible', we should not be able to analyse and explain a similarity, yet we seem able to. I conclude that Heil is wrong.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 3. Powers as Derived
Powers or dispositions are usually seen as caused by lower-level qualities [Heil]
     Full Idea: The modern default position on dispositionality is that powers or dispositions are higher-level properties objects possess by virtue of those objects' possession of lower-level qualitative (categorical) properties.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 09.2)
     A reaction: The new idea which is being floated by Heil, and which I prefer, is that dispositions or powers are basic. A 'quality' is a much more dubious entity than a power.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / a. Dispositions
Are a property's dispositions built in, or contingently added? [Heil]
     Full Idea: There is a dispute over whether a property's dispositionality is built into the property or whether it is a contingent add-on.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 09.4)
     A reaction: Put that way, the idea that it is built in seems much more plausible. If it is an add-on, an explanation of why that disposition is added to that particular property seems required. If it is built in, it seems legitimate to accept it as a brute fact.
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 2. Need for Universals
Universals explain one-over-many relations, and similar qualities, and similar behaviour [Heil]
     Full Idea: Universals can explain the one-over-many problem, and easily explain similarity relations between objects, and explain the similar behaviour of similar objects.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.1)
     A reaction: A useful summary. If you accept it, you seem to be faced with a choice between Plato (who has universals existing independently of particulars) and Armstrong (who makes them real, but existing only in particulars).
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / d. Forms critiques
How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil]
     Full Idea: Imagine a pair of worlds, one in which there are the universals and their instances and one in which there are just the instances (a world of modes). How would the absence of universals make itself felt?
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.7)
     A reaction: A nice question for Plato, very much in the spirit of Aristotle's string of questions. Compare 'suppose the physics remained, but someone removed the laws'. Either chaos ensues, or you realise they were redundant. Same with Forms.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Similarity among modes will explain everthing universals were for [Heil]
     Full Idea: My contention is that similarity among modes can do the job universals are conventionally postulated to do.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: See Idea 4441 for Russell's nice objection to this view. The very process by which we observes similarities (as assess their degrees) needs to be explained by any adequate theory of properties or universals.
Similar objects have similar properties; properties are directly similar [Heil]
     Full Idea: Objects are similar by virtue of possessing similar properties; properties, in contrast, are not similar in virtue of anything.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.2)
     A reaction: I am not sure if I can understand the concept of similarity if there is no answer to the question 'In what respect?' I suppose David Hume is happy to take resemblance as given and basic, but it could be defined as 'sharing identical properties'.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 5. Class Nominalism
Objects join sets because of properties; the property is not bestowed by set membership [Heil]
     Full Idea: The set of red objects is the set of objects possessing a property: being red. Objects are members of the set in virtue of possessing this property; they do not possess the property in virtue of belonging to the set.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 12.2)
     A reaction: This seems to be a very effective denial of the claim that universals are sets. However, if 'being a Londoner' counts as a property, you can only have it by joining the London set. Being tall is more fundamental than being a Londoner.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Trope theorists usually see objects as 'bundles' of tropes [Heil]
     Full Idea: Philosophers identifying themselves as trope theorists have, by and large, accepted some form of the 'bundle theory' of objects: an object is a bundle of compresent tropes.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: This view eliminates anything called 'matter' or 'substance' or a 'bare particular'. I think I agree with Heil that this doesn't give a coherent picture, as properties seem to be 'of' something, and bundles always raise the question of what unites them.
Objects are substances, which are objects considered as the bearer of properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: I think of objects as substances, and a substance is an object considered as a bearer of properties.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.2)
     A reaction: This is an area of philosophy I always find disconcerting, where an account of how we should see objects seems to have no connection at all to what physicists report about objects. 'Considered as' seems to make substances entirely conventional.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
Maybe there is only one substance, space-time or a quantum field [Heil]
     Full Idea: It would seem distinctly possible that there is but a single substance: space-time or some all-encompassing quantum field.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 05.2)
     A reaction: This would at least meet my concern that philosophers' 'substances' don't seem to connect to what physicists talk about. I wonder if anyone knows what a 'quantum field' is? The clash between relativity and quantum theory is being alluded to.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / e. Substance critique
Rather than 'substance' I use 'objects', which have properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: I prefer the more colloquial 'object' to the traditional term 'substance'. An object can be regarded as a possessor of properties: as something that is red, spherical and pungent, for instance.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 15.3)
     A reaction: A nice move, but it seems to beg the question of 'what is it that has the properties?' Objects and substances do two different jobs in our ontology. Heil is just refusing to discuss what it is that has properties.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
Statues and bronze lumps have discernible differences, so can't be identical [Heil]
     Full Idea: Applications of the principle of the indiscernibility of identicals apparently obliges us to distinguish the statue and the lump of bronze making it up.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 16.3)
     A reaction: In other words, statues and lumps of bronze have different properties. It is a moot point, though, whether there are any discernible differences between that statue at time t and its constituting lump of bronze at time t.
Do we reduce statues to bronze, or eliminate statues, or allow statues and bronze? [Heil]
     Full Idea: Must we choose between reductionism (the statue is the lump of bronze), eliminativism (there are no statues, only statue-shaped lumps of bronze), and a commitment to coincident objects?
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 16.5)
     A reaction: (Heil goes on to offer his own view). Coincident objects sounds the least plausible view. Modern statues are only statues if we see them that way, but a tree is definitely a tree. Trenton Merricks is good on eliminativism.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6
     A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier
The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5
     A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact.
10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity
Necessity cannot be extracted from an empirical proposition [Kant]
     Full Idea: It is a clear contradiction to try to extract necessity from an empirical proposition.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Pref)
     A reaction: This is precisely the idea which Kripke challenged, claiming that the necessary essences of natural kinds such as gold have to be discovered empirically. All my intuitions are with Kant (and Hume) on this, but it is a complex issue…
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 1. Knowledge
For Aristotle, knowledge is of causes, and is theoretical, practical or productive [Aristotle, by Code]
     Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that in general we have knowledge or understanding when we grasp causes, and he distinguishes three fundamental types of knowledge - theoretical, practical and productive.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Alan D. Code - Aristotle
     A reaction: Productive knowledge we tend to label as 'knowing how'. The centrality of causes for knowledge would get Aristotle nowadays labelled as a 'naturalist'. It is hard to disagree with his three types, though they may overlap.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 1. Nature of the A Priori
The notion of a priori truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: The notion of a priori truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 11240.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / a. Qualities in perception
Properties don't possess ways they are, because that just is the property [Heil]
     Full Idea: Objects possess properties, but I am sceptical of the idea that properties possess properties; just as a property is a way some object is, a property of a property would be a way a property is, but that is just the property itself.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 12.1)
     A reaction: This is quite a good defence of the idea that properties are qualities as well as dispositions. However, if we make the qualities of properties into secondary qualities, and the dispositions into primary qualities, the absurdity melts away.
If properties were qualities without dispositions, they would be undetectable [Heil]
     Full Idea: A pure quality, a property altogether lacking in dispositionality, would be undetectable and would, in one obvious sense, make no difference to its possessor.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.4)
     A reaction: This seems to be a very forceful and simple reason why we cannot view properties simply as qualities of things. Heil wants properties to be dispositions and qualities; personally I would vote for them just being dispositions or powers.
Can we distinguish the way a property is from the property? [Heil]
     Full Idea: It is not clear to me that we easily distinguish ways a property is from the property itself.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.6)
     A reaction: To defend properties as qualities, he is confusing ontology and epistemology. Presumably he means by 'ways a property is' what I would prefer to call 'ways a property seems to be'. I don't believe a smell is simply what it seems to be.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / b. Primary/secondary
Objects only have secondary qualities because they have primary qualities [Heil]
     Full Idea: Secondary qualities are not distinct from primary qualities: an object's possession of a given secondary quality is a matter of its possession of certain complex primary qualities.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.3)
     A reaction: The bottom line here is that, if essentialism is right, colours are not properties at all (see Idea 5456). Heil wants to subsume secondary properties within primary properties. I think we should sharply distinguish them.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Secondary qualities are just primary qualities considered in the light of their effect on us [Heil]
     Full Idea: Secondary qualities are just ordinary properties - roughly, Locke's primary qualities - considered in the light of their effects on us.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.10)
     A reaction: Unconvincing. If they only acquire their ontological status as primary qualities if they have to be considered in relation to something (us), then that is not a primary quality.
Colours aren't surface properties, because of radiant sources and the colour of the sky [Heil]
     Full Idea: Theories that take colours to be properties of the surfaces of objects have difficulty accounting for a host of phenomena including coloured light emitted by radiant sources and so-called film colours (the colour of the sky, for instance).
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.4)
     A reaction: Personally I never thought that colours might be actual properties of surfaces, but it is nice to have spelled out a couple of instances that make it very implausible. Neon and sodium lights I take to be examples of the first case.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / e. Primary/secondary critique
Treating colour as light radiation has the implausible result that tomatoes are not red [Heil]
     Full Idea: Theories that tie colours to features of light radiation deal with radiant and diffused colours, but yield implausible results for objects; tomatoes are not red, on such a view, but merely reflect red light.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 17.4)
     A reaction: I see absolutely no problem with the philosophical denial that tomatoes are actually red, while continuing to use 'red' of tomatoes in the normal way. When we analyse our processes of knowledge acquisition, we must give up 'common sense'.
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Aristotle is a rationalist, but reason is slowly acquired through perception and experience [Aristotle, by Frede,M]
     Full Idea: Aristotle is a rationalist …but reason for him is a disposition which we only acquire over time. Its acquisition is made possible primarily by perception and experience.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Rationalism p.173
     A reaction: I would describe this process as the gradual acquisition of the skill of objectivity, which needs the right knowledge and concepts to evaluate new experiences.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 2. Intuition
Aristotle wants to fit common intuitions, and therefore uses language as a guide [Aristotle, by Gill,ML]
     Full Idea: Since Aristotle generally prefers a metaphysical theory that accords with common intuitions, he frequently relies on facts about language to guide his metaphysical claims.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.5
     A reaction: I approve of his procedure. I take intuition to be largely rational justifications too complex for us to enunciate fully, and language embodies folk intuitions in its concepts (especially if the concepts occur in many languages).
13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 6. Relativism Critique
If the world is just texts or social constructs, what are texts and social constructs? [Heil]
     Full Idea: For those who regard the world as text or a social construct, are texts and social constructs real entities? If they are, what are they?
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.6)
     A reaction: A nice turn-the-tables question. The oldest attacks of all on scepticism and relativism consist of showing that the positions themselves rest on knowledge or truth. Nietzsche may be the best model for relativists. E.g. Idea 4420.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 1. Scientific Theory
Plato says sciences are unified around Forms; Aristotle says they're unified around substance [Aristotle, by Moravcsik]
     Full Idea: Plato's unity of science principle states that all - legitimate - sciences are ultimately about the Forms. Aristotle's principle states that all sciences must be, ultimately, about substances, or aspects of substances.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], 1) by Julius Moravcsik - Aristotle on Adequate Explanations 1
If the world is theory-dependent, the theories themselves can't be theory-dependent [Heil]
     Full Idea: If the world is somehow theory-dependent, this implies, on pain of a regress, that theories are not theory-dependent.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 06.4)
     A reaction: I am not sure where this puts the ontology of theories, but this is a nice question, of a type which never seems to occur to your more simple-minded relativist.
14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science
Science is sometimes said to classify powers, neglecting qualities [Heil]
     Full Idea: The sciences are sometimes said to be in the business of identifying and classifying powers; the mass of an electron, its spin and charge, could be regarded as powers possessed by the electron; science is silent on an electron's qualities.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.2)
     A reaction: Heil raises the possibility that qualities are real, despite the silence of science; he wants colour to be a real quality. I like the simpler version of science. Qualities are the mental effects of powers; there exist substances, powers and effects.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 1. Explanation / a. Explanation
Aristotelian explanations are facts, while modern explanations depend on human conceptions [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: For Aristotle things which explain (the explanantia) are facts, which should not be associated with the modern view that says explanations are dependent on how we conceive and describe the world (where causes are independent of us).
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 2.1
     A reaction: There must be some room in modern thought for the Aristotelian view, if some sort of robust scientific realism is being maintained against the highly linguistic view of philosophy found in the twentieth century.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / a. Types of explanation
Aristotle's standard analysis of species and genus involves specifying things in terms of something more general [Aristotle, by Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: The standard Aristotelian doctrine of species and genus in the theory of anything whatever involves specifying what the thing is in terms of something more general.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.10
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
One form of explanation is by decomposition [Heil]
     Full Idea: One form of explanation is by decomposition.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 19.8)
     A reaction: This is a fancy word for taking it apart, presumably to see how it works, which implies a functional explanation, rather than to see what it is made of, which seeks an ontological explanation. Simply 'decomposing' something wouldn't in itself explain.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / k. Explanations by essence
Aristotle regularly says that essential properties explain other significant properties [Aristotle, by Kung]
     Full Idea: The view that essential properties are those in virtue of which other significant properties of the subjects under investigation can be explained is encountered repeatedly in Aristotle's work.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Joan Kung - Aristotle on Essence and Explanation IV
     A reaction: What does 'significant' mean here? I take it that the significant properties are the ones which explain the role, function and powers of the object.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality [Heil]
     Full Idea: Dispositionality provides the grounding for intentionality.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: This is a view with which I am sympathetic, though I am not sure if it explains anything. It would be necessary to identify a disposition of basic matter that could be built up into the disposition of a brain to think about things.
Intentionality now has internalist (intrinsic to thinkers) and externalist (environment or community) views [Heil]
     Full Idea: Nowadays philosophers concerned with intentionality divide into two camps. Internalists epitomise a traditional approach to thought, as intrinsic features of thinkers; externalists say it depends on contextual factors (environment or community).
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.2)
     A reaction: This is basic to understanding modern debates (those that grow out of Putnam's Twin Earth). Externalism is fashionable, but I am reluctant to shake off my quaint internalism. Start by separating strict and literal meaning from speaker's meaning.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / c. Explaining qualia
Qualia are not extra appendages, but intrinsic ingredients of material states and processes [Heil]
     Full Idea: Properties of conscious experience, the so-called qualia, are not dangling appendages to material states and processes but intrinsic ingredients of those states and processes.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: Personally I am inclined to the view that qualia are intrinsic to the processes and NOT to the 'states'. Heil must be right, though. I am sure qualia are not just epiphenomena - they are too useful.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 7. Zombies
Philosophers' zombies aim to show consciousness is over and above the physical world [Heil]
     Full Idea: Philosophers' zombies (invented by Robert Kirk) differ from the zombies of folklore; they are intended to make clear the idea that consciousness is an addition of being, something 'over and above' the physical world.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.1 n1)
     A reaction: The famous defender of zombies is David Chalmers. You can't believe in zombies if you believe (as I do) that 'the physical entails the mental'. Could there be redness without something that is red? If consciousness is extra, what is conscious?
Zombies are based on the idea that consciousness relates contingently to the physical [Heil]
     Full Idea: The possibility of zombies is founded on the idea that consciousness is related contingently to physical states and processes.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.3)
     A reaction: The question is, how do you decide whether the relationship is contingent or necessary? Hence the interest in whether conceivability entails possibility. Kripke attacks the idea of contingent identity, pointing towards necessity, and away from zombies.
Functionalists deny zombies, since identity of functional state means identity of mental state [Heil]
     Full Idea: Functionalists deny that zombies are possible since states of mind (including conscious states) are purely functional states. If two agents are in the same functional state, regardless of qualitative difference, they are in the same mental state.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.5)
     A reaction: In its 'brief' form this idea begins to smell of tautology. Only the right sort of functional state would entail a mental state, and how else can that functional state be defined, apart from its leading to a mental state?
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 1. Functionalism
Functionalists say objects can be the same in disposition but differ in quality [Heil]
     Full Idea: A central tenet of functionalism is that objects can be dispositionally indiscernible but differ qualitatively as much as you please.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 11.3)
     A reaction: This refers to the multiple realisability of functions. Presumably we reconcile essentialism with the functionalist view by saying that dispositions result from combinations of qualities. A unique combination of qualities will necessitate a disposition.
17. Mind and Body / C. Functionalism / 8. Functionalism critique
Functionalism cannot explain consciousness just by functional organisation [Heil]
     Full Idea: Functionalism has been widely criticized on the grounds that it is implausible to think that functional organization alone could suffice for conscious experience.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 20.2)
     A reaction: He cites Block's 'Chinese Mind' as an example. The obvious reply is that you can't explain consciousness with a lump of meat, or with behaviour, or with an anomalous property, or even with a non-physical substance.
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 6. Mysterianism
The 'explanatory gap' is used to say consciousness is inexplicable, at least with current concepts [Heil]
     Full Idea: The expression 'explanatory gap' was coined by Joseph Levine in 1983. McGinn and Chalmers have invoked it in defence of the view that consciousness is physically inexplicable, and Nagel that it is inexplicable given existing conceptual resources.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 19.8 n14)
     A reaction: Coining a few concepts isn't going to help, but discovering more about the brain might. With computer simulations we will 'see' more of the physical end of thought. Psychologists may break thought down into physically more manageable components.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
If a car is a higher-level entity, distinct from its parts, how could it ever do anything? [Heil]
     Full Idea: If we regard a Volvo car as a higher-level entity with its own independent reality, something distinct from its constituents (arranged in particular ways and variously connected to other things), we render mysterious how Volvos could do anything at all.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 02.3)
     A reaction: This seems to me perhaps the key reason why we have to be reductionists. The so-called 'bridge laws' from mind to brain are not just needed to explain the mind, they are also essential to show how a mind would cause behaviour.
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 7. Anti-Physicalism / b. Multiple realisability
Multiple realisability is actually one predicate applying to a diverse range of properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: Cases of multiple realisability are typically cases in which some predicate ('is red', 'is in pain') applies to an object in virtue of that object's possession of any of a diverse range of properties.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 14.8)
     A reaction: If the properties are diverse, why does one predicate apply to them? I take it that in the case of the pain, the predicate is ambiguous in applying to the behaviour or the phenomenal property. Same behaviour is possible with many qualia.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial'
     A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived.
18. Thought / C. Content / 6. Broad Content
Externalism is causal-historical, or social, or biological [Heil]
     Full Idea: Some externalists focus on causal-historical connections, others emphasise social matters (especially thinkers' linguistic communities), still others focus on biological function.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.5 n6)
     A reaction: Helpful. The social view strikes me as the one to take most seriously (allowing for contextual views of justification, and for the social role of experts). The problem is to combine the social view with realism and a robust view of truth.
18. Thought / C. Content / 7. Narrow Content
Intentionality is based in dispositions, which are intrinsic to agents, suggesting internalism [Heil]
     Full Idea: I suggest that intentionality is grounded in the dispositionalities of agents. Dispositions are intrinsic to agents, so this places me on the side of the internalists and against the externalists.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 18.4)
     A reaction: I think this is a key idea, and the right view. The key question is whether we see intentionality as active or passive. The externalist view seems to see the brain as a passive organ which the world manipulates. If the brain is active, what is it doing?
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 2. Meaning as Mental
The Picture Theory claims we can read reality from our ways of speaking about it [Heil]
     Full Idea: The theory of language which I designate the 'Picture Theory' says that language pictures reality in roughly the sense that we can 'read off' features of reality from our ways of speaking about it.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 03.2)
     A reaction: Heil, quite rightly, attacks this view very strongly. I think of it as the great twentieth century philosophical heresy, that leads to shocking views like relativism and anti-realism.
19. Language / D. Propositions / 2. Abstract Propositions / b. Propositions as possible worlds
If propositions are states of affairs or sets of possible worlds, these lack truth values [Heil]
     Full Idea: When pressed, philosophers will describe propositions as states of affairs or sets of possible worlds. But wait! Neither sets of possible worlds nor states of affairs - electrons being negatively charged, for instance - have truth values.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], Intro)
     A reaction: I'm not sure that I see a problem. A pure proposition, expressed as, say "there is a giraffe on the roof" only acquires a truth value at the point where you assert it or believe it. There IS a possible world where there is a giraffe on the roof.
19. Language / E. Analyticity / 2. Analytic Truths
The notion of analytic truth is absent in Aristotle [Aristotle, by Politis]
     Full Idea: The notion of analytic truth is conspicuously absent in Aristotle.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.5
     A reaction: Cf. Idea 11239.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / a. Will to Act
Can pure reason determine the will, or are empirical conditions relevant? [Kant]
     Full Idea: This is the first question: Is pure reason sufficient of itself to determine the will, or is it only as empirically conditioned that it can do so?
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], Intro)
     A reaction: This seems to be the core question of intellectualism, which goes back to Socrates. You can only accept the question if you accept the concept of 'pure' reason. Values seem to be needed for action, as well as empirical circumstances.
The will is the faculty of purposes, which guide desires according to principles [Kant]
     Full Idea: The will could be defined as the faculty of purposes, since they are always determining grounds of the faculty of desire according to principles.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
     A reaction: Do animals have wills? Kant implies that you can only have a will if you have principles. Compare Hobbes' rather less elevated definition of the will (Idea 2362).
20. Action / C. Motives for Action / 3. Acting on Reason / a. Practical reason
The sole objects of practical reason are the good and the evil [Kant]
     Full Idea: The sole objects of a practical reason are thus those of the good and the evil.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
     A reaction: Of course, you may aim to achieve x because it is good, while I judge x to be evil.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / b. Rational ethics
Only human reason can confer value on our choices [Kant, by Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: Kant argues that only human reason is in a position to confer value on the objects of human choice.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant'
     A reaction: If the source of value is humans, then it is not immediately clear why it is only our reason that does the conferring. What is the status of a choice on which reason fails to confer value? The idea is that reason, unlike desire, has intrinsic value.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature
Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal [Aristotle, by Fogelin]
     Full Idea: To the best of my knowledge (and somewhat to my surprise), Aristotle never actually says that man is a rational animal; however, he all but says it.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1
     A reaction: When I read this I thought that this database would prove Fogelin wrong, but it actually supports him, as I can't find it in Aristotle either. Descartes refers to it in Med.Two. In Idea 5133 Aristotle does say that man is a 'social being'. But 22586!
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
People cannot come to morality through feeling, because morality must not be sensuous [Kant]
     Full Idea: In the subject there is no antecedent feeling tending to morality; that is impossible, because all feeling is sensuous, and the drives of the moral disposition must be free from every sensuous condition.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III)
     A reaction: I'm not quite clear (even after reading Kant) why moral drives 'must' be free of sensuousness. Aristotle gives a much better account, when he tells us that the sensuous drives must be trained in the right way, and must be in harmony with the reason.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value
Kant may rate two things as finally valuable: having a good will, and deserving happiness [Orsi on Kant]
     Full Idea: In some interpretations it appears that for Kant two things are finally valuable: good will (unconditionally), and deserved happiness (conditionally on the value of good will).
     From: comment on Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Francesco Orsi - Value Theory 2.2
     A reaction: It doesn't sound difficult to reconcile these two. Just ask 'what is required of someone to deserve happiness?'.
An autonomous agent has dignity [Würde], which has absolute worth [Kant, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: For Kant, there is something about beings that can act autonomously that is itself of 'absolute worth', which Kant calls the 'dignity' [Würde] of each such agent.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 02
     A reaction: This answers my puzzle about where Kant's fundamental values come from. Surely wicked actions can be autonomous? Autonomous actions aren't thereby good actions. A 'good' will, course, whatever that is. Rational? My problem with existentialist ethics.
The good will is unconditionally good, because it is the only possible source of value [Kant, by Korsgaard]
     Full Idea: Kant argues that the good will is unconditionally good because it is the only thing able to be a source of value.
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788]) by Christine M. Korsgaard - Aristotle and Kant on the Source of Value 8 'Kant'
     A reaction: The obvious worry is the circularity of resting a theory of value on identifying a 'good' will as its source.
Good or evil cannot be a thing, but only a maxim of action, making the person good or evil [Kant]
     Full Idea: If something is held to be absolutely good or evil in all respects and without qualification, it could not be a thing but only the manner of acting, i.e., it could only be the maxim of the will, and consequently the acting person himself is good or evil.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
     A reaction: It goes on to deny that pain is intrinsically evil, but his reason for the claim is not clear. Nevetheless, I think he is right. This remark is an important bridge between Enlightenment concerns with law and Greek concerns with character.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 1. Goodness / g. Consequentialism
Morality involves duty and respect for law, not love of the outcome [Kant]
     Full Idea: All the morality of actions may be placed in their necessity from duty and from respect for the law, and not from love for or leaning toward that which the action is to produce.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III)
     A reaction: Kant tries to reject consequentialism, but you cannot assess your duty or the universal law without an assessment of probable consequences, and we could never choose between laws if we did not already see value in the outcome.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / a. Nature of happiness
Our happiness is all that matters, not as a sensation, but as satisfaction with our whole existence [Kant]
     Full Idea: Our happiness is the only thing of importance, provided this is judged, as reason requires, not according to transitory sensation but according to the influence which this contingency has on our whole existence and our satisfaction with it.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
     A reaction: This is closer to the Greek eudaimonia than to the modern conception of happiness, which is largely just a feeling. Kant's view seems more like a private judgement on your whole life, where the Greek idea seems more public and objective.
Happiness is the condition of a rational being for whom everything goes as they wish [Kant]
     Full Idea: Happiness is the condition of a rational being in the world with whom everything goes according to his wish and will.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: For such a sophisticated and rational philosopher this seems a rather crude notion. Reluctant alcoholics don't fit. Bradley has a much better definition (Idea 5655).
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 2. Happiness / c. Value of happiness
Morality is not about making ourselves happy, but about being worthy of happiness [Kant]
     Full Idea: Morality is not properly the doctrine of how we should make ourselves happy, but how we should become worthy of happiness.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: Whatever else you think of Kant's moral theory, this remark is a clarion call we can all recognise. Suppose we all somehow ended up in a state of maximal happiness by systematically betraying one another.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 1. Virtue Theory / a. Nature of virtue
The highest worth for human beings lies in dispositions, not just actions [Kant]
     Full Idea: The highest worth which human beings can and should procure for themselves lies in dispositions and not in actions only.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.II)
     A reaction: This leaves the problem of the well-meaning fool, who has wonderful dispositions but poor judgement. What Kant is describing here is better known as virtue. See Idea 58.
Virtue is the supreme state of our pursuit of happiness, and so is supreme good [Kant]
     Full Idea: Virtue (as the worthiness to be happy) is the supreme condition of whatever appears to us to be desirable and thus of all our pursuit of happiness and, consequently, the supreme good.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II)
     A reaction: Thus Kant can claim to be a virtue theorist, but giving us a very different account of how virtue arises. He emphasises elsewhere (Idea 6197) that the supreme good must be in the will, not in the outcome. 'Virtue' is here a rather thin concept.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / c. Motivation for virtue
Moral law is holy, and the best we can do is achieve virtue through respect for the law [Kant]
     Full Idea: The moral law is holy (unyielding), although all the moral perfection to which man can attain is still only virtue, that is, a rightful disposition arising from respect for the law.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: In comparison with Aristotle's view of virtue this is very passive and external. Aristotle doesn't need laws for virtue, he needs inner harmony and a grasp of what has high value.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability
No one would lend money unless a universal law made it secure, even after death [Kant]
     Full Idea: If my maxim is 'augment my property by all safe means', I can't make that a law allowing me to keep a dead man's loan, because no one would make a loan if that were the moral law.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§4)
     A reaction: This is a simple illustration of Kant's strategy and it shows clearly how, for all his talk of 'pure reason', his moral law is strongly guided by consequences, and that these can only judged by prior values - for example, that loans are a good thing.
Universality determines the will, and hence extends self-love into altruism [Kant]
     Full Idea: The form of universality is itself the determining ground of the will, …and from this limitation alone, and not from the addition of any exernal drive, the concept of obligation arises to extend the maxim of self-love also to the happiness of others.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§8)
     A reaction: This is the heroic and optimistic part of Kant's philosophy, the attempt to derive altruism from pure reason. The claim seems to be that maxims don't motivate until they have been universalised. I fear that only altruism could add such motivation.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 5. Persons as Ends
Everyone (even God) must treat rational beings as ends in themselves, and not just as means [Kant]
     Full Idea: In the order of ends, man (and every rational being) is an end in himself, i.e., he is never to be used merely as a means for someone (even for God) without at the same time being himself an end.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: The worry here is that Kant has set up an exam that you have to pass before you can be treated as a moral end. Animals and the ecosystem will fail the exam, and even some human beings will be borderline cases. We should respect everything.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty
A holy will is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law [Kant]
     Full Idea: A holy will is one which is incapable of any maxims which conflict with the moral law
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.§7)
     A reaction: If such a will is 'incapable' of conflicting with moral law, it will not need to think or assess before action. This means that Kant's moral ideal can ultimately exclude the free-thinking intellect. Kant is describing a state of true Aristotelian virtue.
Reason cannot solve the problem of why a law should motivate the will [Kant]
     Full Idea: How a law in itself can be the direct motive of the will (which is the essence of morality) is an insoluble problem for the human reason.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.III)
     A reaction: If that is the great man's final word, then it is tempting to switch to an empirical moral theory, such as that of Hobbes or Hume or E.O. Wilson, which starts from what motivations are available, and builds morality up from that.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / a. Aims of education
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain an idea without accepting it.
     From: Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE])
     A reaction: The epigraph on a David Chalmers website. A wonderful remark, and it should be on the wall of every beginners' philosophy class. However, while it is in the spirit of Aristotle, it appears to be a misattribution with no ancient provenance.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Aristotle said the educated were superior to the uneducated as the living are to the dead [Aristotle, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Aristotle was asked how much educated men were superior to those uneducated; "As much," he said, "as the living are to the dead."
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 05.1.11
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 4. Suicide
A permanent natural order could not universalise a rule permitting suicide [Kant]
     Full Idea: The maxim of freely disposing of my life could not hold as a universal law of nature, …because no one could choose to end his life, for such an arrangement could not constitute a permanent natural order.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.1.1.I)
     A reaction: This sort of claim brings out the advantanges of Aristotelian 'particularism' (expounded by Dancy). Obviously universal suicide isn't promising, but no one wants that. A few suicides in extreme cases will have no effect at all on the natural order.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend]
     Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3
     A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / a. Greek matter
Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2
     A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / b. Nomological causation
The standard view is that causal sequences are backed by laws, and between particular events [Heil]
     Full Idea: The notion that every causal sequence if backed by a law, like the idea that causation is a relation among particular events, forms a part of philosophy's Humean heritage.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 04.3)
     A reaction: This nicely pinpoints a view that needs to come under attack. I take the view that there are no 'laws' - other than the regularities in behaviour that result from the interaction of essential dispositional properties. Essences don't need laws.
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements
The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: I am sympathetic to the idea that the real properties are 'sparse'; ...but if, in counting kinds of property, we include complex properties as well as simple properties, the image of sparseness evaporates.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4)
     A reaction: This seems right to me, and invites the obvious question of which are the sparse real properties. Presumably we let the physicists tell us that, though Heil wants to include qualities like phenomenal colour, which physicists ignore.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
Obligation does not rest on the existence of God, but on the autonomy of reason [Kant]
     Full Idea: It is not to be understood that the assumption of the existence of God is necessary as a ground for all obligation in general (for this rests, as has been shown, solely on the autonomy of reason itself).
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: This shows that Kant agrees with Plato about the Euthyphro Question - that is, they both think that morality is logically and naturally prior to any gods. I agree. Why would we admire or worship or obey gods if we didn't think they were good?
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument
We have to postulate something outside nature which makes happiness coincide with morality [Kant]
     Full Idea: The existence must be postulated of a cause of the whole of nature, itself distinct from nature, which contains the ground of the exact coincidence of happiness with morality.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V)
     A reaction: I can see that we need a concept of how happiness could be made proportional to morality, but I can't make sense of the assumption that it is actually possible, and hence something must exist that would achieve it.
Belief in justice requires belief in a place for justice (heaven), a time (eternity), and a cause (God) [Kant, by PG]
     Full Idea: To believe in justice in an unjust world, you have to believe in a place of perfect justice (heaven), a time for perfect justice (eternity), and a cause of perfect justice (God).
     From: report of Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.V) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: Compare Boethius in Idea 5765. I can see that we might need to grasp the ideals of eternal justice in order to understand morality, but belief in their genuine possibility, or even actuality, doesn't seem to follow.
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / a. Cosmological Proof
To know if this world must have been created by God, we would need to know all other possible worlds [Kant]
     Full Idea: We can't infer the existence of God from knowledge of this world, because we should have to know all possible worlds in order to compare them - in short, we should have to be omniscient - in order to say that it is possible only through a God.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
     A reaction: A nice remark, but not wholly convincing. This argument would block all attempts to work out necessities a priori, such as those of maths and logic. Must we know all possible worlds intimately to know that 2+2 is always 4?
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / c. Teleological Proof critique
Using God to explain nature is referring to something inconceivable to explain what is in front of you [Kant]
     Full Idea: To have recourse to God in explaining the arrangements of nature is not a physical explanation but a confession that one has come to the end of philosophy, since one assumes something of which one has no concept to conceive what is before one's eyes.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
     A reaction: Hume had many objections to the design argument, some of them positively sarcastic, but none as ruthless as this, since Kant (here) seems to find God to be a totally empty concept, and hence a complete non-starter as explanation for anything.
From our limited knowledge we can infer great virtues in God, but not ultimate ones [Kant]
     Full Idea: Since we know only a small part of the world, and cannot compare it with all possible worlds, we can infer from the order, design and magnitude to a wise, beneficent and powerful Author, but not that He is all-knowing, all-good, and all-powerful.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
     A reaction: This is very much in the spirit of David Hume, who inferred from the flaws in the world that God did not seem to be entirely competent. Hume is also more imaginative, in seeing that God might be a committee, or a hired workman.
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
In all naturalistic concepts of God, if you remove the human qualities there is nothing left [Kant]
     Full Idea: One can confidently challenge all pretended natural theologians to cite one single definitive attribute of their object, of which one could not irrefutably show that, when everything anthropomorphic is removed, only the word remains.
     From: Immanuel Kant (Critique of Practical Reason [1788], I.II.II.VI)
     A reaction: This idea derives from Hume's very empiricist view of our understanding of God (Idea 2185), but Kant is (remarkably) more hostile than Hume, because he actually implies that most people's concept of God is totally vacuous.
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 2. Greek Polytheism
The concepts of gods arose from observing the soul, and the cosmos [Aristotle, by Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Aristotle said that the conception of gods arose among mankind from two originating causes, namely from events which concern the soul and from celestial phenomena.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE], Frag 10) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.20
     A reaction: The cosmos suggests order, and possible creation. What do events of the soul suggest? It doesn't seem to be its non-physical nature, because Aristotle is more of a functionalist. Puzzling. (It says later that gods are like the soul).