58 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. |
| 16440 | I don't think Lewis's cost-benefit reflective equilibrium approach offers enough guidance [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Lewis articulated and made fashionable the cost-benefit reflective equilibrium methodology, but I have my reservations as it does not offer much guidance. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker suggests that this approach has 'run amok' in Lewis's case, giving reality to possible worlds. He spends much effort on showing the 'benefits' of a profoundly implausible view. The same can be said of 4D Perdurantism. |
| 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? |
| 16468 | Non-S5 can talk of contingent or necessary necessities [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: One can make sense of necessary versus contingent necessities in a non-S5 modal semantics. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3 n17) | |
| A reaction: In S5 □φ → □□φ, so all necessities are necessary. Does it make any sense to say 'I suppose this might have been necessarily true'? |
| 16449 | In modal set theory, sets only exist in a possible world if that world contains all of its members [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: One principle of modal set theory should be uncontroversial: a set exists in a given possible world if and only if all of its members exist at that world. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.4) | |
| A reaction: Does this mean there can be no set containing all of my ancestors and future descendants? In no world can we coexist. |
| 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. |
| 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. |
| 16464 | We regiment to get semantic structure, for evaluating arguments, and understanding complexities [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The point of regimentation is to give a perspicuous representation of the semantic structure of an expression, making it easier to evaluate the validity of arguments and to interpret complex statements. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This is an authoritative summary from an expert of why all philosophers must take an interest in logical form. |
| 16465 | In 'S was F or some other than S was F', the disjuncts need S, but the whole disjunction doesn't [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: In 'either Socrates was a philosopher or someone other than Socrates was a philosopher', both propositions expressed by the disjuncts depend for their existence on the existence of Socrates, but the whole disjunction does not. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: Nice example, just the sort of thing we pay philosophers to come up with. He is claiming that propositions can exist in possible worlds in which the individuals mentioned do not exist. |
| 16434 | Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers deny there could have been anything other than what in fact exists, or that anything that exists could have failed to exist. This is developed in very different ways by Wittgenstein (in 'Tractatus'), Lewis and Williamson. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: This could come in various strengths. A weak version would say that, empirically, that all talk of what doesn't exist is vacuous. A strong necessity (Williamson?) that totally rules out other possible existence is a very odd view. |
| 16439 | A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A nominalist definition of existence is 'having spatio-temporal location'. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: This would evidently be physicalist as well as nominalist. Presumably it fits the 'mosaic' of reality Lewis refers to. I find this view sympathetic. A process of abstraction is required to get the rest of the stuff we talk about. |
| 10502 | We can rise by degrees through abstraction, with higher levels representing more things [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: I can start with a triangle, and rise by degrees to all straight-lined figures and to extension itself. The lower degree will include the higher degree. Since the higher degree is less determinate, it can represent more things. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This attempts to explain the generalising ability of abstraction cited in Idea 10501. If you take a complex object and eliminate features one by one, it can only 'represent' more particulars; it could hardly represent fewer. |
| 16443 | Properties are modal, involving possible situations where they are exemplified [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I take properties and relations to be modal notions. Properties are to be understood in terms of what it would be for them to be exemplified, which means understanding them in terms of a range of possible situations. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I can't make head or tail of a property as anything other than a feature of some entity. Treating properties as a 'range of situations' is just as baffling to me as treating them as sets of objects. |
| 16471 | I accept a hierarchy of properties of properties of properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I myself am prepared to accept higher-order properties and relations. There is the property of being Socrates, …and the property of being the property of being Socrates, ..and so on. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Elsewhere I have quoted such a hierarchy of vacuous properties as an absurdity that arises if all predicates are treated as properties. Logicians can live with such stuff, given their set hierarchy and so on, but in science and life this is a nonsense. |
| 16452 | Dispositions have modal properties, of which properties things would have counterfactually [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Dispositional properties deserve special mention since they seem to be properties that have modal consequences - consequences for what properties the individuals that instantiate them would have in counterfactual circumstances. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be the key idea in trying to understand modality, but Stalnaker makes this point and then moves swiftly on, because it is so far away from his possible worlds models, in which he has invested a lifetime. |
| 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. |
| 16467 | 'Socrates is essentially human' seems to say nothing could be Socrates if it was not human [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It seems natural to paraphrase the claim that Socrates is essentially human as the claim that nothing could be Socrates if it was not human. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: In ordinary speech it would be emphasising how very human Socrates was (in comparison with Frege, for example). By this token Socrates essentially breathes oxygen, but that is hardly part of his essence. |
| 16453 | The bundle theory makes the identity of indiscernibles a necessity, since the thing is the properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: On the bundle theory, the identity of indiscernibles (for 'individuals') is a necessary truth, since an individual is just the co-instantiation of all the properties represented by a point in the space of properties. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: So much the worse for the bundle theory, I presume. Leibniz did not, I think, hold a bundle theory, but his belief in the identity of indiscernibles seems to have had a theologicial underpinning. |
| 16466 | Strong necessity is always true; weak necessity is cannot be false [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Prior had a strong and a weak reading of necessity, where strong necessity is truth in all possible worlds, while weak necessity is falsity in no possible world. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: [K.Fine 2005:Ch.9 is also cited] The point of the weak one is that in some worlds there might not exist the proposition which is the candidate for truth or falsehood. |
| 16438 | Necessity and possibility are fundamental, and there can be no reductive analysis of them [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: My view is that if there were a nonmodal analysis of the modal concepts, that would be a sure sign that we were on the wrong track. Necessity and possibility are fundamental concepts, like truth and existence. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: The mystery of modality is tied up with the mystery of time (which is a very big mystery indeed). You get a nice clear grip on the here and now, but time and motion whisk you away to something else. Modality concerns the something else. |
| 16436 | Modal concepts are central to the actual world, and shouldn't need extravagant metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Modal concepts are central to our understanding of the world - the actual world - and understanding them should not require extravagant metaphysical commitments. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) | |
| A reaction: I agree. Personally I think powers and dispositions do the job nicely. You just have to embrace Leibniz's emphasis on the active nature of reality, and the implausible metaphysics starts to recede. |
| 16433 | Given actualism, how can there be possible individuals, other than the actual ones? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: My main focus is on how, on an actualist interpretation of possible worlds as ways a world might be, one is to account for the possibility that there be individuals other than those that actually exist. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], Pref) | |
| A reaction: The obvious thought would be that they are constructions from components of actual individuals, such as the chimaera, or fictional characters. We need some psychology here, which is not Stalnaker's style. |
| 16437 | Possible worlds are properties [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Possible worlds are (to a first approximation) properties. [p.12] They are properties of the total universe. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1) |
| 16444 | Possible worlds don't reduce modality, they regiment it to reveal its structure [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It is not reduction (of modality) but regimentation that the possible-worlds framework provides - a procedure for representing modal discourse, using primitive modal notions, in a way that helps reveal its structure. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I think this is exactly my view. All discussion of the ontology of possible worlds is irrelevant. They no more exist than variables in logic exist. They're good when they clarify, but dubious when they over-simplify. |
| 16445 | I think of worlds as cells (rather than points) in logical space [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I prefer to think of the possible worlds not as points in logical space but as cells of a relatively fine-grained partition of logical space - a partition that makes all the distinctions we need. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Since he regards possible worlds as simply a means of regimenting our understanding of modality, he can think of possible worlds in any way that suits him. I find it hard work tuning in to his vision. |
| 16454 | Modal properties depend on the choice of a counterpart, which is unconstrained by metaphysics [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Things have modal properties only relative to the choice of a counterpart relation, and the choice between alternative counterpart relations is not constrained by the metaphysics. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3.6) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker is sympathetic to counterparts, but this strikes me as a powerful objection to the theory. I take the modal properties of something to be fixed by its actuality. |
| 16450 | Anti-haecceitism says there is no more to an individual than meeting some qualitative conditions [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: The anti-haecceitist strategy holds that a purely qualitative characterisation of a possible world would be a complete characterisation; there is, on this view, nothing to being a particular individual other than meeting certain qualitative conditions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 3) | |
| A reaction: Not quite the same as the bundle theory of objects, which says the objects are the qualities. This is about individuation, not about ontology (I think). I don't like anti-haecceitism, but I also don't like haecceitism. Hmm. |
| 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. |
| 18258 | We can only know the exterior world via our ideas [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: We can have knowledge of what is outside us only through the mediation of ideas in us. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], p.63), quoted by J. Alberto Coffa - The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap 1 'Conc' |
| 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). |
| 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. |
| 16784 | Forms make things distinct and explain the properties, by pure form, or arrangement of parts [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: The form is what renders a thing such and distinguishes it from others, whether it is a being really distinct from the matter, according to the Schools, or whether it is only the arrangement of the parts. By this form one must explain its properties. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], III.18 p240), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 27.6 | |
| A reaction: If we ask 'what explains the properties of this thing' it is hard to avoid coming up with something that might be called the 'form'. Note that they allow either substantial or corpuscularian forms. It is hard to disagree with the idea. |
| 10499 | We know by abstraction because we only understand composite things a part at a time [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: The mind cannot perfectly understand things that are even slightly composite unless it considers them a part at a time. ...This is generally called knowing by abstraction. (..the human body, for example). | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: This adds the interesting thought that the mind is forced to abstract, rather than abstraction being a luxury extra feature. Knowledge through analysis is knowledge by abstraction. Also a nice linking of abstraction to epistemology. |
| 10501 | A triangle diagram is about all triangles, if some features are ignored [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: If I draw an equilateral triangle on a piece of paper, ..I shall have an idea of only a single triangle. But if I ignore all the particular circumstances and focus on the three equal lines, I will be able to represent all equilateral triangles. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] They observed that we grasp composites through their parts, and now that we can grasp generalisations through particulars, both achieved by the psychological act of abstraction, thus showing its epistemological power. |
| 10500 | No one denies that a line has width, but we can just attend to its length [Arnauld,A/Nicole,P] |
| Full Idea: Geometers by no means assume that there are lines without width or surfaces without depth. They only think it is possible to consider the length without paying attention to the width. We can measure the length of a path without its width. | |
| From: Arnauld / Nicole (Logic (Port-Royal Art of Thinking) [1662], I.5) | |
| A reaction: A nice example which makes the point indubitable. The modern 'rigorous' account of abstraction that starts with Frege seems to require more than one object, in order to derive abstractions like direction or number. Path widths are not comparatives. |
| 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. |
| 16474 | How can we know what we are thinking, if content depends on something we don't know? [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: How can we know what we ourselves are thinking if the very existence of the content of our thought may depend on facts of which we are ignorant? | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 5) | |
| A reaction: This has always been my main doubt about externalism. I may defer to experts about what I intend by an 'elm' (Putnam's example), but what I mean by elm is thereby a fuzzy tall tree with indeterminate leaves. I don't know the meaning of 'elm'! |
| 16461 | We still lack an agreed semantics for quantifiers in natural language [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: We still do not know how to give a direct semantics for the quantifiers of a natural language; that is something that we still do not know how to do (or at least how it is done remains controversial). | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 4) | |
| A reaction: I am struck by how rapidly the domain of quantification changes, even in mid-sentence, in the course of an ordinary conversation. This is decided almost entirely by context, not by pure ('direct'?) semantics. |
| 16448 | Possible world semantics may not reduce modality, but it can explain it [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: Most theorists agree that possible worlds semantics cannot provide an analysis of modal concepts which is an eliminative reduction, but it can still provide an explanation of the meanings of modal expressions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: Stalnaker cites Kit Fine for the view that there is no reduction of modality, which Fine takes to be primitive. Stalnaker defends the semantics, while denying the reduction which Lewis thought possible. |
| 16442 | I take propositions to be truth conditions [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: I will defend the view that propositions are truth conditions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds close to the Russellian view, which I take to equate propositions (roughly) with facts or states of affairs. But are 'truth conditions' in the world or in the head? |
| 16447 | A theory of propositions at least needs primitive properties of consistency and of truth [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: A minimal theory of propositions can make do with just two primitive properties: a property of consistency applied to sets of propositions, and a property of truth applied to propositions. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: I would have thought a minimal theory would need some account of what a proposition is supposed to be (since there seems to be very little agreement about that). Stalnaker goes on to sketch a theory. |
| 16446 | Propositions presumably don't exist if the things they refer to don't exist [Stalnaker] |
| Full Idea: It seems plausible that singular propositions are object-dependent in the sense that the proposition would not exist if the individual did not. It is also plausible that some objects exist contingently, and there are singular propositions about them. | |
| From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This replies to the view that possible worlds are maximal sets of propositions, and so must exist for the worlds to exist; e.g. Lowe 1999:248. That is yet another commonplace of contemporary philosophy which I find utterly bewildering. |
| 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. |
| 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! |
| 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. |
| 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). |