96 ideas
| 19693 | 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. |
| 22611 | Metaphysics can criticise interpretations of science theories, and give good feedback [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics is capable of critical scrutiny of the way the empirical sciences make sense of their own theories, and can provide them with very useful feedback. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.9) | |
| A reaction: I agree with this, but I don't think it is the main job of metaphysics, which has its own agenda, using science as some of its raw material. |
| 8014 | Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes took his method from Galileo, of resolving any complex situation into its logically primitive, simple elements and then using the simple elements to show how the complex situation could be reconstructed. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: Reverse engineering of reality. This idea, wherever it comes from, strikes me as the key to the advance of human understanding. No one has yet improved on it as a method, in science or philosophy. Reconstruction needs the mechanism. |
| 1575 | 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 |
| 1589 | 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 |
| 8200 | 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'. |
| 4385 | 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? |
| 13282 | 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. |
| 22609 | Philosophers accepted first-order logic, because they took science to be descriptive, not explanatory [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: First-order predicate logic was accepted so easily by the philosophical community …because philosophy was already geared toward a neo-Humean view of both science and philosophy as primarily descriptive rather than explanatory. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.8) | |
| A reaction: The point, I think, is that explanatory thinking needs second-order logic, where the properties (or powers) are players in the game, and not just adjuncts of the catalogue of objects. I find this idea mind-expanding. (That's a good thing). |
| 4730 | 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. |
| 22629 | Basic processes are said to be either physical, or organic, or psychological [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Process philosophy is considered to include ideas of process as basically physical (Whitehead 1929), as basically organic (Bergson 1910), and as basically psychological (James 1890). | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: I take Whitehead to be the only serious contender here. |
| 22633 | Indirect realists are cautious about the manifest image, and prefer the scientific image [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: The indirect realist regards the manifest image with scepticism and contrasts it to the scientific image. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 8.13) | |
| A reaction: This is why indirect realism is the best view for a realist who largely accepts the authority of science, Philosophers can wallow in the manifest image all they like (and most of them seem to love it), but truth is in the scientific image. |
| 7559 | Every part of the universe is body, and non-body is not part of it [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The world is corporeal, that is to say, body...and every part of the universe is body, and that which is not body is no part of the universe. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], IV.46) | |
| A reaction: [Hobbes concedes existence to visible spirits, but not invisible ones]. This is the kind of remark which got Hobbes hated. It is also the sort of thing that makes him the best candidate for the 'first modern man'. |
| 22606 | Neo-Humeans say there are no substantial connections between anything [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Neo-Humean metaphysics holds the view that there are no substantial connections between anything in this world. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1) | |
| A reaction: A very illuminating comment. This exactly fits Lewis's great 'mosaic' of facts. The challenge is to say what 'substantial' relations there might be, but I'm quite happy to have a go at that. |
| 22631 | Properties are said to be categorical qualities or non-qualitative dispositions [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: It is said that that properties divide into two mutually exclusive types—non-dispositional qualities (sometimes called 'categorical properties’) vs. non-qualitative dispositions—of which the qualities are more fundamental than dispositions. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 8) | |
| A reaction: It is standardly understood that the qualitative categorical properties are more fundamental. Fans of powers (such as Ingthorsson and myself) either favour the dispositional properties, or reject the distinction. |
| 22632 | Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Is the negative charge of an electron a quality or power? It is clear that physics describes the nature of charge only in terms of what its bearer can do. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 8.06) | |
| A reaction: The point is that an electron has properties, even though it has no observable qualities. Ingthorsson says the scientific concept of qualities is entirely about what something can do, and ot how it is perceived. |
| 22627 | Compound objects are processes, insofar as change is essential to them [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Compound objects are to be considered processes, if by ‘process’ we mean any entity for which change is essential for its continued existence. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 7) | |
| A reaction: This doesn't seem to matter much, except to challenge those who say that reality consists of processes, and therefore not of substances. |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Most materialist ontologies of the past postulate that the world ultimately consists of smallest indivisible component parts that persist because they must; they are permanent. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Van Inwagen is notable for this view. Ingthorsson says the theory is to explain medium-sized change, while denying that anything comes to be out of nothing. Theology may lurk in the background. Simple persistance won't explain compound persistance. |
| 13276 | 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. |
| 13277 | 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. |
| 22612 | Endurance and perdurance just show the consequences of A or B series time [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Endurance and perdurance are not explanations, but are merely characterisations of persistance with the constraints imposed by either an A or a B view of time. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: This is 3-D asnd 4-D objects. A simple and illuminating observation. I love reading broad brush books that make all these simple connections between what seem isolated theories in philosophy. These links are the heart of the subject. |
| 22625 | Science suggests causal aspects of the constitution and persistance of objects [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: There are very obvious causal aspects to the constitution and continued existence of compound entities, especially in light of the scientific image of the world. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 6) | |
| A reaction: I like this a lot. He aims to explain constitution and persistance, rather than just describing or characterising them, and causal binding seems the obvious thought. There are still intermittent and distributed objects, like a dismantled clock. |
| 22620 | If causation involves production, that needs persisting objects [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: If causation involves production, then things must endure rather than perdure, because perdurance is incompatible with production, if creation ex nihilo is ruled out. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.10) | |
| A reaction: That is, objects must persist over time. Cannot an account of production be given in terms of time-sliceS (or whatever)? 3-D perdurantists obviously have an account of change. He says it also needs the A-series view of time. |
| 22636 | Every philosophical theory must be true in some possible world, so the ontology is hopeless [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds ontology appears to be plentiful enough to allow every philosophical theory to be true in some world or other, and that is why I cannot consider it an ontologically serious theory. It admits everything and forbids nothing | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: Nice. Be careful what you wish for. The theory would have to be consistent (unless we also accept impossible worlds). |
| 22638 | Worlds may differ in various respects, but no overall similarity of worlds is implied [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Even if possible worlds could differ in many different respects, there is no useful way to combine these different respects into one measure of overall comparative similarity. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 9.7) | |
| A reaction: [idea of Michael Moreau 2010] This is an objection to the use of 'close' possible worlds in causation theories. The idea is true in general of the concept of similarity. It makes sense of specific 'respects', but not really of two whole objects. |
| 5991 | 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. |
| 11239 | 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. |
| 2356 | Appearance and reality can be separated by mirrors and echoes [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: If colours or sounds were in the bodies or objects that cause them, they could not be severed from them, as by glasses, and in echoes by reflection, we see they are; where we know the thing we see is in one place, the appearance in another. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.01) |
| 23312 | 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. |
| 16111 | 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). |
| 2357 | Dreams must be false because they seem absurd, but dreams don't see waking as absurd [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Because waking I often observe the absurdity of dreams, but never dream of the absurdity of my waking thoughts, I am well satisfied that, being awake, I know I dream not, though when I dream I think myself awake. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.02) |
| 16971 | 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 |
| 11243 | 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. |
| 3320 | 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 |
| 12000 | 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. |
| 2358 | Freedom is absence of opposition to action; the idea of 'free will' is absurd [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: If a man should talk to me of a 'free-will', or any 'free' but free from being hindered by opposition, I should not say that he were in an error, but that his words were without a meaning, that is to say, absurd. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.05) |
| 6214 | Liberty and necessity are consistent, as when water freely flows, by necessity [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Liberty and necessity are consistent: as in the water, that hath not only liberty, but a necessity of descending by the channel. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], II.Ch.XI) | |
| A reaction: Hume asserts something similar (Idea 2223), but they both miss the point, which is that libertarians about water would have to believe it didn't need to follow gravity, but could refuse to flow. Freedom of will and freedom of action are quite different. |
| 23987 | The 'simple passions' are appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief [Hobbes, by Goldie] |
| Full Idea: For Hobbes the 'simple passions' were appetite, desire, love, aversion, hate, joy, and grief. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], I.6) by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 4 'Evidence' | |
| A reaction: This is the standard approach to emotions of Hobbes's time. Modern thinkers probably reject the idea that passions can be simple or basic. Rightly, I think. |
| 23300 | 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. |
| 11240 | 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. |
| 2362 | The will is just the last appetite before action [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: In deliberation, the last appetite or aversion immediately adhering to the action, or to the omission thereof, is that we call the Will. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06) | |
| A reaction: I share his caution about 'the will', but his observation strikes me as inaccurate. When I drink, my 'will' is not my thirst. I take the will to be a feature of my reason. I gave my thirst permission to indulge itself. The will is practical reason? |
| 2363 | Reason is usually general, but deliberation is of particulars [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Reasoning is in general words, but deliberation for the most part is of particulars. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06) |
| 6559 | 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! |
| 2360 | 'Good' is just what we desire, and 'Evil' what we hate [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Whatsoever is the object of any man's appetite or desire, that is it which he for his part calleth 'Good'; and the object of his hate or aversion 'Evil'. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06) | |
| A reaction: This meets the Frege-Geach Problem - that we can have these feelings while reading ancient history, but we can't possibly 'desire' any of that. This is better on evil than on good. |
| 2368 | Men's natural desires are no sin, and neither are their actions, until law makes it so [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The desires and other passions of man are in themselves no sin. No more are the actions that proceed from those passions, till they know a law that forbids them. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.13) | |
| A reaction: That is a pretty flat rejection of natural law, as you might expect from an empiricist. So prior to the first law-making, no one ever did anything wrong? Hm. |
| 2359 | Desire and love are the same, but in the desire the object is absent, and in love it is present [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Desire and love are the same thing, save that by desire we always signify the absence of the object, by love most commonly the presence of the same. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06) | |
| A reaction: Implausible reductivism from Hobbes. Plenty of counterexamples to this. You work it out! |
| 2370 | All voluntary acts aim at some good for the doer [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Of the voluntary acts of every man, the object is some good to himself. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) | |
| A reaction: Nonsense. You can only describe sacrificial acts for loved ones, such as children, in this way if this proposal is a tautology. Hobbes cannot know the truth of this claim. |
| 8015 | Hobbes wants a contract to found morality, but shared values are needed to make a contract [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes makes two incompatible demands of the original contract: he wishes it to be the foundation of all shared and common standards and rules; but he also wishes it to be a contract, which needs prior shared and common standards. | |
| From: comment on Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], Pt 1) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: At the very least, the participants in a contract must be committed to keeping it even when it is not convenient. But a common purpose seems to be needed too, which makes the contract itself intrinsically valuable. Similar objections to Kant. |
| 2371 | A contract is a mutual transfer of rights [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The mutual transferring of right is that which men call 'contract'. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 2372 | The person who performs first in a contract is said to 'merit' the return, and is owed it [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: He that performeth first in the case of a contract, is said to 'merit' that which he is to receive by the performance of the other, and he hath it as due. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 5337 | For Hobbes the Golden Rule concerns not doing things, whereas Jesus encourages active love [Hobbes, by Flanagan] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes put the Golden Rule as 'do NOT do to others what you would NOT want done to yourself'. Jesus's formulation encouraged active love. Most Westerners conceive their moral duty as not to do harm, rather than actively doing good. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Owen Flanagan - The Problem of the Soul p.20n | |
| A reaction: This idea probably runs very deep into western culture, where most people feel that they are being very morally good when they are sitting at home and not actually annoying anyone. Utilitarianism also offers a challenge to such complacency. |
| 2374 | In the violent state of nature, the merest suspicion is enough to justify breaking a contract [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: If a covenant is made with neither party performing presently, but trust one another, in the condition of mere nature (which is war between men) upon reasonable suspicion, it is void. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 8016 | Fear of sanctions is the only motive for acceptance of authority that Hobbes can think of [MacIntyre on Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes has such a limited view of human motives that he cannot provide any other explanation for the acceptance of authority than the fear of sanctions.. | |
| From: comment on Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], Pt 1) by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.10 | |
| A reaction: There are two alternative views - the conservative view that people naturally welcome and even need authority, because they need to be led; or the Aristotelian view that people are naturally communal, and authority is part of community life. |
| 2375 | Suspicion will not destroy a contract, if there is a common power to enforce it [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: If there be a common power set over both parties in a contract, with right and force sufficient to compel performance, a contract does not become void as soon as the parties are suspicious. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 2377 | No one who admitted to not keeping contracts could ever be accepted as a citizen [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: He therefore that breaketh his covenant, and consequently declareth that he thinks he may with reason do so, cannot be received into any society. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2379 | If there is a good reason for breaking a contract, the same reason should have stopped the making of it [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: If any fault of man be sufficient to discharge our covenant made, the same ought in reason to have been sufficient to have hindered the making of it. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2373 | The first performer in a contract is handing himself over to an enemy [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: He which performeth first in a contract, does but betray himself to his enemy. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 2382 | Someone who keeps all his contracts when others are breaking them is making himself a prey to others [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: He that should be modest and tractable, and perform all the promises, in such time and place where no man else should do so, should but make himself a prey to others. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2383 | Virtues are a means to peaceful, sociable and comfortable living [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The writers of moral philosophy, though they acknowledge the same virtues and vices, yet not seeing wherein consisted their goodness, nor that they come to be praised as the means of peaceable, sociable and comfortable living. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2376 | Injustice is the failure to keep a contract, and justice is the constant will to give what is owed [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The definition of 'injustice' is no other than the not performance of covenant….. and 'justice' is the constant will of giving to every man his own. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2367 | In time of war the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: In a time of war…. there is continual fear, and danger of violent death, and the life of man is solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.13) |
| 19764 | Hobbes attributed to savages the passions which arise in a law-bound society [Hobbes, by Rousseau] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes had wrongly injected into the savage man's concern for self-preservation the need to satisfy a multitude of passions which are the product of society and which have made laws necessary. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Jean-Jacques Rousseau - Discourse on the Origin of Inequality Part I | |
| A reaction: Hobbes's famous remark concerns a state of war, which is quite a sophisticated state of conflict between well formed social groups. Rousseau's savage is fairly solitary, so won't be involved in war. |
| 20566 | Hobbes says the people voluntarily give up their sovereignty, in a contract with a ruler [Hobbes, by Oksala] |
| Full Idea: While Hobbes had held that the people were the final source of political authority, he had argued that in entering the social contract they gave up their sovereignty by transferring all power to an absolute ruler. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Johanna Oksala - Political Philosophy: all that matters Ch.5 | |
| A reaction: Later the idea of 'inalienable' rights crept in. If you volunteer for exploitation or slavery, that still doesn't justify them. Sadism is presumably not justified by masochism. |
| 2366 | There is not enough difference between people for one to claim more benefit than another [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: The difference between man and man is not so considerable as that one man can thereupon claim to himself any benefit to which another may not pretend as well as he. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.13) |
| 20485 | Hobbes says people are roughly equal; Locke says there is no right to impose inequality [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes's principle of equality was a claim about the mental and physical capabilities of all people. For Locke it is a moral claim about rights: no person has a natural right to subordinate any other. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 1 'Locke' | |
| A reaction: There are obvious questions to ask about the claim that people are naturally equal. For the second one, does the lion have a natural right to subordinate the gazelle? Who cares! I'm inclined to be consequentialist about equality. |
| 2369 | If we seek peace and defend ourselves, we must compromise on our rights [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: From the first law of nature (that we seek peace, but also defend ourselves) comes the second: that a man be willing to lay down his rights to all things, and be contented with so much liberty against other men as he would allow other men against himself. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.14) |
| 20484 | We should obey the laws of nature, provided other people are also obeying them [Hobbes, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes's position is that we have a duty to obey the Laws of Nature when others around us are known (or can reasonably be expected) to be obeying them too, and so our compliance will not be exploited. | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 1 'Hobbes' | |
| A reaction: In particular, we should keep contracts. Hobbes doesn't seem fully committed to keeping facts and values separate. |
| 7573 | The legal positivism of Hobbes said law is just formal or procedural [Hobbes, by Jolley] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes was one of the first to propose the view known as 'legal positivism' - that the criterion for deciding whether a rule is a genuine law is entirely formal or procedural | |
| From: report of Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.7 | |
| A reaction: This was opposed to the tradition of natural law, deriving from Aquinas. It is part of a picture of values draining out of the world as science comes to dominate. The is/ought distinction is its culmination. Power replaces virtue, and Thrasymachus wins. |
| 2380 | Punishment should only be for reform or deterrence [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: We are forbidden to inflict punishment with any other design than for correction of the offender, or direction of others. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |
| 2361 | If fear of unknown powers is legal it is religion, if it is illegal it is superstition [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Fear of power invisible, feigned by the mind or imagined from tales publicly allowed, is religion; not allowed, is superstition. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.06) |
| 11150 | 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. |
| 3037 | 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 |
| 8660 | 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. |
| 12058 | 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. |
| 22605 | Humeans describe the surface of causation, while powers accounts aim at deeper explanations [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Humeans attempt to describe causation without any deeper ontological commitments, while powers based accounts attempt to explain why causation occurs in the way it is described. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1) | |
| A reaction: Exactly the view I have reached. The Humean view is correct but superficial. A perfect example of my allegiance to Explanatory Empiricism. |
| 22607 | Time and space are not causal, but they determine natural phenomena [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Time and space are significant determinants of natural phenomena, and yet are not (typically) regarded as causal determinants | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.4) | |
| A reaction: I like the word 'determinants'. Metaphysics largely concerns what determines what. I'm struggling to think of examples of this (which he does not give). Decay takes time, but isn't determined by time. Is a light cone a determinant? |
| 22608 | Casuation is the transmission of conserved quantities between causal processes [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Causal process theories state that causation needs to be understood in terms of causal processes and their interactions, in which conserved quantities are transmitted between causal processes. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.5) | |
| A reaction: Sounds a bit circular, but the idea of transmission of something is obviously the main point. I like this idea a lot (because it is so naturalistic), but rarely find it taken seriously. Energy is usually the quantity picked out. |
| 22621 | Causation as transfer only works for asymmetric interactions [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: The transference model of causation only works for asymmetric interactions. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.11) | |
| A reaction: This is usually the transfer of energy. I liked the theory until I read this. |
| 22614 | Interventionist causal theory says it gets a reliable result whenever you manipulate it [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: The core of agency and interventionist theories of causation is that c counts as the cause of e iff E reliably appears and disappears when you manipulate C. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: [C is the type of c; E is the type of e] James Woodward champions this view. Ingthorsson objects that the theory offers no explanation of the appearances and disappearances. You can't manipulate black holes… |
| 22639 | Causal events are always reciprocal, and there is no distinction of action and reaction [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: I accept the reciprocity of interactions, and abandon the Agent vs.Patient distinction, so we can no longer talk of the contribution of each as ontologically different types of cause. In interactions, neither action nor reaction can be separated. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 10.3) | |
| A reaction: His point is that we are misled by real world happenings, where one component is usually more powerful than the other (such as ball dropped onto a pillow). Modern science endorses his view. Mumford and Anjum seem to agree, and so do I. |
| 22615 | One effect cannot act on a second effect in causation, because the second doesn't yet exist [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Hobbes implies that a Kim-style event e1 existing at t1 cannot possibly act on an effect e2 at t2, because that effect does not exist until the Agent has worked its effect on the Patient to provoke a change, thus bringing the effect into existence. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 3.08) | |
| A reaction: [Hobbes Elements of Phil 1656 II.IX.1] Ingthorsson says that the Hobbes view is the traditional 'standard' view, that objects (and not events) are the causal relata. A strong objection to events as the causal relata. Realists need objects. |
| 22616 | Empiricists preferred events to objects as the relata, because they have observable motions [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: It is the empiricists' refusal to deal with anything other than observable events that motivated the shift in conception of efficient causation …to influence by an event on another event (one motion on another) rather than by an object on an object. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 3.10) | |
| A reaction: I suppose events supply the necessary activity, whereas objects seem to be too passive for the job - because that's how they look. Ingthorsson persuades that objects are the correct causal relata, for those of us who believe in powers. |
| 22617 | Science now says all actions are reciprocal, not unidirectional [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: It is now accepted as a fact of modern science that unidirectional actions do not exist, and that all interactions are instead thoroughly reciprocal. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 3.10) | |
| A reaction: Ingthorsson says this undermines the standard traditional view (Hobbes etc) of Agent and Patient, with A having active powers and P having passive powers. All influences are mutual, it seems. Passive powers are active structures? |
| 22619 | Causes are not agents; the whole interaction is the cause, and the changed compound is the effect [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: By abandoning the standard view that causes are ‘extrinsic motive Agents’, an idea from pre-Newtonian physics, we are free to conceive of the interaction as a whole as the cause, and the change in the compound whole of interacting things as the effect. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.06) | |
| A reaction: Ingthorsson persuasively presents this as the correct account, as understood by modern science. It is not cause-then-effect. It is kerfuffle, then aftermath. |
| 2364 | Causation is only observation of similar events following each other, with nothing visible in between [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: In knowing the meaning of 'causing', men can only observe and remember what they have seen to precede the like effect at some other time, without seeing between the antecedent and subsequent event any dependence or connexion at all. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.12) |
| 22635 | People only accept the counterfactual when they know the underlying cause [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: I doubt that anyone will accept any counterfactual as true unless they believe they know the underlying causality. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 9.3) | |
| A reaction: Correct. Almost any example will support it. Compare coincidences and true causes. |
| 22634 | Counterfactuals don't explain causation, but causation can explain counterfactuals [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: I cannot identify any prima facie reason to think that causation can be explained in counterfactual terms, but plenty to think that causation can explain counterfactuals. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 9.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it. Treating causation as counterfactual dependency is hopelessly superficial. What is the reality that is involved? He cites the second law of motion. |
| 22637 | Counterfactual theories are false in possible worlds where causation is actual [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: if there are worlds where there are causal powers and/or lawful connections, then they are worlds in which the counterfactual theory of causation is false, because there causes produce the effects, regardless of any possible world. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: A nice modern instance of turning the tables. Come to think of it, possible worlds theories are just asking for that. Are there possible worlds in which there are no other possible worlds? Or the possible worlds are inaccessible? |
| 22624 | A cause can fail to produce its normal effect, by prevention, pre-emption, finks or antidotes [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Counterexamples involving prevention and/or interference have come to be roughly divided into four main categories: (i) prevention, (ii) pre-emption, (iii) finks and (iv) antidotes. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 5.3) | |
| A reaction: These are the reasons why necessity is denied in causation. i) is in the initial circumstances, ii) is another cause getting there first, iii) is a defusing action in the agent, iv) is a defusing action in the patient. No necessity if one is possible. |
| 22622 | Any process can go backwards or forwards in time without violating the basic laws of physics [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Because it makes no difference to exchange the time variable t with its contrary -t, in the fundamental laws of physics, any process can be described as going either backwards or forwards in time, without violating those laws. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.13) | |
| A reaction: A few philosophers read a lot into this, but I don't. The inverse scenario may not breach the laws of physics, but it does involve time going backwards, which I think we can skip for now. Entropy would be interesting. Can information flow backwards? |
| 22618 | In modern physics the first and second laws of motion (unlike the third) fail at extremes [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: While the first and second laws of motion are known to fail in the domain of very fast-moving and massive objects (i.e. where relativity deviates from classical mechanics) as well as in the quantum realm, the third law is still assumed to hold good. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 4.04) | |
| A reaction: This implies a universal status for the third law (equal and opposite reactions), which the other two lack. Ingthorsson sees this as crucial for our understanding of causation. |
| 22630 | If particles have decay rates, they can't really be elementary, in the sense of indivisible [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: We may wonder whether the fact that physics has calculated (and for some, confirmed) the decay rate of elementary particles can be a reason to think that they cannot really be ‘elementary’ in the philosophical sense of ‘indivisible’. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: I don't think anything can ever conclusively be labelled as 'elementary', but this idea offers a reason for doubting whether a candidate particle is so basic. Does decay imply having parts? |
| 22610 | It is difficult to handle presentism in first-order logic [Ingthorsson] |
| Full Idea: Contemporary philosophers are not comfortable with presentism, because it is difficult to deal with presentism in the language of first-order predicate logic. | |
| From: R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 1.8) | |
| A reaction: Presumable that logic relies on objects which endure through time, or at least have a past. Second-order logic is better able to deal with processes, which only exist in the present, but nevertheless have an integral past and future. ? |
| 22729 | 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). |
| 2365 | Religion is built on ignorance and misinterpretation of what is unknown or frightening [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: In these four things - opinion of ghosts, ignorance of second causes, devotion towards what men fear, and taking of things casual for prognostics, consisteth the natural seed of religion. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.12) |
| 2378 | Belief in an afterlife is based on poorly founded gossip [Hobbes] |
| Full Idea: Knowledge of man's estate after death, and its rewards, is a belief grounded upon other men's sayings that they knew it supernaturally, or they knew those, that knew those, that knew others, that knew it supernaturally. | |
| From: Thomas Hobbes (Leviathan [1651], 1.15) |