Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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Facts | Brandom | I 466ff Def Deflationism: denies that content in concepts can be explained with truth conditions and compliance with the facts, properties and objects (VsCorrespondence theory). >Deflationism. Fact: "making true": misleading: it is not the fact that p makes true that p. >Truthmakers. I 469 E.g. It is not the fact that the Persians were defeated by the Greeks at Plataea, which makes that the Greeks defeated the Persians at Plataea. Facts: if facts are to be explained, the explanation does not need to refer back to something normative: The planetary orbits would also be elliptical without beings that set standards. --- Rorty VI 179 ff Whether a statement is true does not depend on whether somebody makes it. But our linguistic practices could not be what they are, if the facts were different. However, the non-linguistic facts could be essentially as they are, even if our linguistic practices were completely different. Form of thought. Definition Fact/Brandom, "something assertible" (neologism by Brandom: "claimable"). - There is the act of asserting and there is "the asserted" - facts are not the "true asserted" but the assertible. - Facts make assertions true. However, inferentially. RortyVsBrandom: It is as if I, like Moliere, refer to "the soporific power" as inferential in order to make it seem to be above suspicion. --- Brandom I 476 Fact/Brandom: no contrast between how things are and what we can say and think - Facts are (the content of) true assertions and thoughts - Wittgenstein: we don not stop opinionating when we are facing the facts. I 477 Wittgenstein: Facts are connected and structured by the objects and their properties. I 866 Negative Fact/Brandom: there is no mystery -> distinction between normative and non-normative expressions. - Also > conditional facts > modal facts - realm of facts and norms are not opposites - the normative is part of the factual. >Norms. --- Seel2 III 149 Def Fact/Brandom: Content of true assertions - Assertions/Brandom: obtain their content through the use of concepts in the context of the sentences uttered in each case. So the concept of fact can only be analysed together with the concept of assertion. However, this conceptual dependency is not genetic - the world is the epitome of all the facts, no matter when and with what success thoughts about the world are created. "There was a time when nobody used concepts, because there was no discursive practice - but there was never a time when there were no facts - Seel: therefore, neither concepts nor facts depend on the existence of thinking beings - at the same time, the theory of discursive practice appears to be a theory of the fundamental structure of the world - Seel: KantVsBrandom: Warns just of that - (in the case of Hegel in vain). KantVsBrandom/KantVsHegel: false: Conclusion from thinking to being. >Thinking, >Being. |
Bra I R. Brandom Making it exlicit. Reasoning, Representing, and Discursive Commitment, Cambridge/MA 1994 German Edition: Expressive Vernunft Frankfurt 2000 Bra II R. Brandom Articulating reasons. An Introduction to Inferentialism, Cambridge/MA 2001 German Edition: Begründen und Begreifen Frankfurt 2001 Rorty I Richard Rorty Philosophy and the Mirror of Nature, Princeton/NJ 1979 German Edition: Der Spiegel der Natur Frankfurt 1997 Rorty II Richard Rorty Philosophie & die Zukunft Frankfurt 2000 Rorty II (b) Richard Rorty "Habermas, Derrida and the Functions of Philosophy", in: R. Rorty, Truth and Progress. Philosophical Papers III, Cambridge/MA 1998 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (c) Richard Rorty Analytic and Conversational Philosophy Conference fee "Philosophy and the other hgumanities", Stanford Humanities Center 1998 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (d) Richard Rorty Justice as a Larger Loyalty, in: Ronald Bontekoe/Marietta Stepanians (eds.) Justice and Democracy. Cross-cultural Perspectives, University of Hawaii 1997 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (e) Richard Rorty Spinoza, Pragmatismus und die Liebe zur Weisheit, Revised Spinoza Lecture April 1997, University of Amsterdam In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (f) Richard Rorty "Sein, das verstanden werden kann, ist Sprache", keynote lecture for Gadamer’ s 100th birthday, University of Heidelberg In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty II (g) Richard Rorty "Wild Orchids and Trotzky", in: Wild Orchids and Trotzky: Messages form American Universities ed. Mark Edmundson, New York 1993 In Philosophie & die Zukunft, Frankfurt/M. 2000 Rorty III Richard Rorty Contingency, Irony, and solidarity, Chambridge/MA 1989 German Edition: Kontingenz, Ironie und Solidarität Frankfurt 1992 Rorty IV (a) Richard Rorty "is Philosophy a Natural Kind?", in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 46-62 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (b) Richard Rorty "Non-Reductive Physicalism" in: R. Rorty, Objectivity, Relativism, and Truth. Philosophical Papers Vol. I, Cambridge/Ma 1991, pp. 113-125 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (c) Richard Rorty "Heidegger, Kundera and Dickens" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 66-82 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty IV (d) Richard Rorty "Deconstruction and Circumvention" in: R. Rorty, Essays on Heidegger and Others. Philosophical Papers Vol. 2, Cambridge/MA 1991, pp. 85-106 In Eine Kultur ohne Zentrum, Stuttgart 1993 Rorty V (a) R. Rorty "Solidarity of Objectivity", Howison Lecture, University of California, Berkeley, January 1983 In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1998 Rorty V (b) Richard Rorty "Freud and Moral Reflection", Edith Weigert Lecture, Forum on Psychiatry and the Humanities, Washington School of Psychiatry, Oct. 19th 1984 In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1988 Rorty V (c) Richard Rorty The Priority of Democracy to Philosophy, in: John P. Reeder & Gene Outka (eds.), Prospects for a Common Morality. Princeton University Press. pp. 254-278 (1992) In Solidarität oder Objektivität?, Stuttgart 1988 Rorty VI Richard Rorty Truth and Progress, Cambridge/MA 1998 German Edition: Wahrheit und Fortschritt Frankfurt 2000 |
Metaphysical Possibility | Lewis | Schwarz I 184 Metaphysically possible/Lewis/Schwarz. E.g. traveling faster than light - but: if I said yesterday that it was impossible, I said something true - (> context dependency). --- Schwarz I 227f Strong need/Chalmers/Schwarz: thesis: there are substantial modal truths - E.g. Kripke is essentially human - E.g. pain is essentially the same as XY - Important argument: knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to identify these modal facts - LewisVs: Something that is a possibility is not contingent. >Metaphysically possible. |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Metaphysics | Inwagen | Schwarz I 27 Metaphysics/being/essential/van InwagenVsLewis/StalnakerVsLewis: knowing about contingent facts about the current situation would in principle not be sufficient to know all a posteriori necessities: Def strong necessity/Chalmers: thesis: in addition to substantial contingent truths, there are also substantial modal truths: e.g. that Kripke is essentially a human being, e.g. that pain is essentially identical to XY. >Necessity, >a posteriori necessity, >necessity de re. Important argument: knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. How do we recognize them, perhaps we cannot do this (van Inwagen 1998)(1) or only hypothetically through methodological considerations (Block/Stalnaker 1999)(2). A posteriori necessity/metaphysics/Lewis/Schwarz: normal cases are not cases of strong necessity. You can learn e.g. that Blair is premier or e.g. that the evening star corresponds to the morning star. LewisVsInwagen/LewisVsStalnaker: other cases (which cannot be empirically found) do not exist. LewisVsStrong Necessity: strong necessity has no place in his modal logic. >LewisVsTelescope Theory: worlds are not like distant planets of which one can learn which ones exist. >Possible worlds. 1. Peter van Inwagen [1998]: “Modal Epistemology”. Philosophical Studies, 92: 67–84. 2. Ned Block und Robert Stalnaker [1999]: “Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap”. The Philosophical Review, 108: 1–46. |
Inwagen I Peter van Inwagen Metaphysics Fourth Edition Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Modalities | Inwagen | Schwarz I 227 Modality/LewisVsInwagen: there are no substantial modal facts: what possibilities there are is not contingent. You cannot get any information about this. >Modal facts. |
Inwagen I Peter van Inwagen Metaphysics Fourth Edition Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Necessity | Chalmers | Schwarz I 27 Definition strong necessity/Chalmers: Thesis: In addition to substantial contingent truths, there are also substantial modal truths: For example, Kripke is essentially a human being, e.g. that pain is essentially identical to XY. N.B.: knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. How do we recognize them, perhaps we cannot do this (van Inwagen 1998)(1) or only hypothetically through methodological considerations (Block/Stalnaker 1999(2)). >Modality, >Modal truth, >Possible worlds, >Essentialism, >Pain, >Identity, >Identity theory, >Contingency. Schwarz I 208 A posteriori/Necessity/Lewis/Schwarz: here the secondary truth conditions are generally fulfilled, but not the primary ones! The first circumstance makes the sentences necessary - secondary truths reflect the behavior in modal embeddings - the second makes them a posteriori. But not because primary conditions of truth would be determined by embedding in epistemic operators (as in (Chalmers, 2003)(3)), but because, according to our language conventions, e.g. "The Morning Star is the Evening Star" may not always be expressed, but only when certain conditions are available about which we must first inform ourselves. >Truth conditions. Schwarz I 209 E.g. if the astronomers announce tomorrow that the Morning Star is not the Evening Star, then they have real news, but they do not violate our language conventions. This has something to do with Lewis' description theory of the reference. >Reference/Lewis, >Conventions/Lewis, >Language use, >Morning star/Evening star. 1. [1998]: “Modal Epistemology”. Philosophical Studies, 92: 67–84. In [van Inwagen 2001] 2. Ned Block und Robert Stalnaker [1999]: “Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap”. The Philosophical Review, 108: 1–46 3. [2003]: “The Foundations of Two-Dimensional Semantics”. Manuskript. Online verf¨ugbar unter http://www.consc.net/papers/foundations.html --- Chalmers I 63 Necessary Truth/Gareth Evans/Chalmers: (Evans 1979 (1)): Definition "superficial necessity"/Evans: E..g "Water is H2O" when the modal operator is "actually fixed", i.e. related to the actual world (The world of the speaker). (Davies and Humberstone, 1980 (2)). It may turn out that the reference is different. (I.e., that it was different all the time). >Reference, >Actuality, >Actual World. Def "deep necessity"/Evans: this is not influenced by a posteriori considerations. These types of necessity and possibility refer to statements, not to worlds. Truths conditions/Evans/Chalmers: Thus, two sets of truth conditions are associated with each statement (primary and secondary,> Intensions/Chalmers). I 13 Strong metaphysical necessity/Chalmers: would be one that assumes that it would be metaphysically impossible for a world to be identical with ours in regard to the physical facts, but not for all positive facts. I 137 This is stronger than Kripke's metaphysical necessity, which we may call weak metaphysical necessity. >Metaphysical necessity. Conceivability/Chalmers: then worlds are conceivable that are not possible at all. Strong metaphysical necessity goes beyond the limitations we have described as "wrongly described worlds". Then "Zombie world" could correctly describe a world that we imagine, even with regard to a secondary intension. It is only the case that such a world would not be metaphysically possible. >Zombies, >Secondary Intension/Chalmers, >Intensions, >Terminology/Chalmers. 1. Vs: there is no reason to believe that there is such a modality of metaphysical necessity. There are no analogies to this of how they are provided by examples such as water/H2O or Hesperus/Phosphorus, since they require only one possible world. A posteriori Information: always affects only our own world! This can help to locate our world in the space of possible worlds. 2. Vs: If we allow this kind of metaphysical necessity, we open the door for further ad hoc modalities. I 138 Zombie World: someone who believes that a zombie world is logically possible but metaphysically impossible, cannot answer the key question: Why could not God have created a Zombie world? If he had created it, it would still be metaphysically impossible. This is too arbitrary. >Metaphysics. 1. G. Evans, Reference and contingency. The Monist 62, 1979: pp. 161-89. 2. M. K. Davies and I. L. Humberstone, Two notions of necessity. Philosophical Studies 38, 1980: pp. 1-30. |
Cha I D. Chalmers The Conscious Mind Oxford New York 1996 Cha II D. Chalmers Constructing the World Oxford 2014 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Disputed term/author/ism | Author Vs Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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Inwagen, P. van | Lewis Vs Inwagen, P. van | V 195 Individuation/Redundant Causation/Peter van Inwagen: Thesis: An event, which actually happens as a product of several causes, could not have happened had if it had not been the product of these causes. The causes could also not have led to another event. Analogy to individuation of objects and humans because of their causal origins. LewisVsInwagen: 1. It would ruin my analysis to analyze causation in terms of counterfactual dependence. ((s) Any deviation would be a different event, not comparable, no counterfactual conditionals applicable.) 2. It is prima facie implausible: I am quite able to legitimately establish alternative hypotheses how an event (or an object or a human being) was caused. But then I postulate that it was one and the same event! Or that one and the same event could have had different effects. >Events/Lewis. (Even Inwagen postulates this.) Plan/LewisVsInwagen: implies even more impossibilities: Either all my plans or hypotheses are hidden impossibilities or they do not even deal with particular event. >Planning. V 296 Vs weak determinism/VsCompatibilism/van InwagenVsLewis: (against wD which I pretend to represent): e.g. Suppose of reductio that I could have lifted my left hand although determinism would be true. Then follows from four premises, which I cannot deny, that I could have created a wrong conjunction HL from a proposition H of a moment in time before my birth, and a certain proposition about a law L. Premise 5: If yes, I could have made L wrong. Premise 6: But I could not have made L wrong. (Contradiction.) LewisVInwagen: 5 and 6 are both not true. Which one of both is true depends on what Inwage calls "could have made wrong". However, not in everyday language, but in Inwagen's artificial language. But it does not matter as well what Inwagen means himself! What matters is whether we can actually give sense to it, which would make all premises valid without circularity. Inwagen: (oral) third meaning for "could have made wrong": only iff the actor could have arranged the things in such a way that both his action and the whole truth about the previous history would have implied the wrongness of the proposition. Then premise 6 states that I could not have arranged the things in such a way to make me predetermined to not arrange them. Lewis: But it is not instructive to see that compatibilism needs to reject premise 6 which is interpreted that way. V 297 Falsification/Action/Free Will/Lewis: provisory definition: An event falsifies a proposition only when it is necessary that the proposition is wrong when an event happens. But my action to throw a stone is not going to falsify the proposition that the window which is on the other end of the trajectory will not be broken. The truth is that my action creates a different event which would falsify the proposition. The action itself does not falsify a law. It would only falsify a conjunction of antecedent history and law. The truth is that my action precedes another action, the miracle, and the latter falsifies the law. feeble: let's say I could make a proposition wrong in a weak sense iff I do something. The proposition would be falsified (but not necessarily because of my action, and not necessarily because of an event which happened because of my action). (Lewis per "Weak Thesis". (Compatibilism)). strong: If the proposition is falsified, either because of my action or because of an event that was caused because of my action. Inwagen/Lewis: The first part of his thesis is strong, regardless of whether we advocate the strong or the weak thesis: Had I been able to lift my hand, although determinism is true and I have not done so, then it is both true - according to the weak and strong sense- that I could have made the conjunctions HL (propositions about the antecedent history and the laws of nature) wrong. But I could have made proposition L wrong in the weak sense, although I could not have done it wrong in the strong sense. Lewis: If we advocate the weak sense, I deny premise 6. If we advocate the strong sense, I deny premise 5. Inwagen: Advocates both position by contemplating analogous cases. LewisVsInwagen: I do believe that the cases are not analogous. They are cases in which the strong and the weak case do not diverge at all. Premise 6/Inwagen: He invites us to reject the idea that a physicist could accelerate a particle faster than light. LewisVsInwagen: But this does not contribute to support premise 6 in the weak sense. V 298 Since the rejected assumption is that the physicist could falsify a law of nature in the strong sense. Premise 5/Inwagen: We should reject the assumption here that a traveller could falsify a conjunction of propositions about the antecedent history and the history of his future travel differently than a falsification of the non-historic part. LewisVsInwagen: Reject the assumption as a whole if you would like to. It does not change anything: premise 5 is not supported in the strong sense. What would follow if a conjunction could be falsified in such a strong sense? Tht the non-historic part could be thus falsified in the strong sense? This is what would support premise 5 in the strong sense. Or would simply follow (what I believe) that the non-historic part can be rejected in the weak sense? The example of the traveller is not helpful here because a proposition of future travels can be falsified in both weak as strong sense. Schwarz I 28 Object/Lewis/Schwarz: Material things are accumulations or aggregates of such points. But not every collection of such points is a material object. Taken together they are neither constituting a cat nor any other object in the customary sense. e.g. The same is valid for the aggregate of parts of which I am constituted of, together with the parts which constituted Hubert Humphrey at the beginning of 1968. Thing: What is the difference between a thing in the normal sense and those aggregates? Sufficient conditions are difficult to find. Paradigmatic objects have no gaps, and holes are delimited from others, and fulfill a function. But not all things are of this nature, e.g. bikes have holes, bikinis and Saturn have disjointed parts. What we accept as a thing depends from our interests in our daily life. It depends on the context: e.g. whether we count the back wall or the stelae of the Holocaust Memorial or the screen or the keyboard as singly. But these things do also not disappear if we do not count them as singly! Object/Thing/van Inwagen: (1990b)(1) Thesis: Parts will constitute themselves to an object if the latter is a living being. So, there are humans, fishes, cats, but not computers, walls and bikinis. Object/Thing/Lewis: better answer: two questions: 1. Under what conditions parts will form themselves to a whole? Under all conditions! For random things there is always a thing which constitutes them. ((s) This is the definition of mereological Universalism). 2. Which of these aggregates do we call a singly thing in daily life? If certain aggregates are not viewed as daily things for us does not mean that they do not exist.(However, they go beyond the normal realms of our normal quantifiers.) But these restrictions vary from culture to culture. As such, it is not reality that is dependent on culture, but the respective observed part of reality (1986e(2), 211 213, 1991(3):79 81). LewisVsInwagen/Schwarz: If only living things can form objects, evolution could not have begun. ((s) But if it is not a problem to say that living beings originated from emergentism, it should also not be a problem to say "objects" instead.) LewisVsInwagen: no criteria for "living being" is so precise that it can clearly define. Schwarz I 30 Lewis: It is not a problem for him: Conventions of the German language do not determine with atomic precision for which aggregates "living being" is accurate. (1986e(2), 212) LewisVsvan Inwagen: This explanation is not at his disposal: For him the distinction between living being and not a living being is the distinction between existence and non-existence. If the definition of living being is vague, the same is valid for existence as well. Existence/Van Inwagen: (1990b(1). Kap.19) Thesis: some things are borderline cases of existence. LewisVsvan Inwagen: (1991(3),80f,1983e(2),212f): If one already said "there is", then one has lost already: if one says that "something exists to a lesser degree". Def Existence/Lewis: Simply means to be one of the things that exist.h Schwarz I 34 Temporal Parts/van Inwagen: (1981)(4) generally rejects temporal parts. SchwarzVsInwagen: Then he must strongly limit the mereological universalims or be a presentist. Schwarz I 227 Modality/LewisVsInwagen: There are no substantial modal facts: The existence of possibilities is not contingent. Information about this cannot be obtained. 1. Peter van Inwagen [1990b]: Material Beings. Ithaca, London: Cornell University Press 2. D. Lewis [1986e]: On the Plurality of Worlds. Malden (Mass.): Blackwell 3. D. Lewis [1991]: Parts of Classes. Oxford: Blackwell 4. P. van Inwagen [1981]: “The Doctrine of Arbitrary Undetached Parts”. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly, 62: 123–137. |
Lewis I David K. Lewis Die Identität von Körper und Geist Frankfurt 1989 Lewis I (a) David K. Lewis An Argument for the Identity Theory, in: Journal of Philosophy 63 (1966) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (b) David K. Lewis Psychophysical and Theoretical Identifications, in: Australasian Journal of Philosophy 50 (1972) In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis I (c) David K. Lewis Mad Pain and Martian Pain, Readings in Philosophy of Psychology, Vol. 1, Ned Block (ed.) Harvard University Press, 1980 In Die Identität von Körper und Geist, Frankfurt/M. 1989 Lewis II David K. Lewis "Languages and Language", in: K. Gunderson (Ed.), Minnesota Studies in the Philosophy of Science, Vol. VII, Language, Mind, and Knowledge, Minneapolis 1975, pp. 3-35 In Handlung, Kommunikation, Bedeutung, Georg Meggle Frankfurt/M. 1979 Lewis IV David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd I New York Oxford 1983 Lewis V David K. Lewis Philosophical Papers Bd II New York Oxford 1986 Lewis VI David K. Lewis Convention. A Philosophical Study, Cambridge/MA 1969 German Edition: Konventionen Berlin 1975 LewisCl Clarence Irving Lewis Collected Papers of Clarence Irving Lewis Stanford 1970 LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Lewis, D. | Inwagen, Vs Lewis, D. | Schwarz I 227 Metaphysics/being/essential/van InwagenVsLewis/StalnakerVsLewis: knowing contingent facts about the current situation would in principle not be sufficient to know all a posteriori necessities: Def strong necessity/Chalmers: thesis: in addition to substantial contingent truths, there are also substantial modal truths: e.g. that Kripke is essentially a human being, e.g. that pain is essentially identical to XY. Important argument: knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. How do we recognize them, perhaps we cannot do this (van Inwagen 1998)(1) or only hypothetically through methodological considerations (Block/Stalnaker 1999)(2). 1. Peter van Inwagen [1998]: “Modal Epistemology”. Philosophical Studies, 92: 67–84. 2. Ned Block und Robert Stalnaker [1999]: “Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap”. The Philosophical Review, 108: 1–46. |
Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Reductionism | Physicalism Vs Reductionism | Schwarz I 156 Physicalism/Vs Reductionism/VsLewis. other authors: Physicalism is not at all fixed on the a priori derivability of mental from physical truths, only on supervenience of mental on physical facts. But this does not have to be a priori. It can be a posteriori necessity. For example, the relationship between H2O-truths and water truths. (This is non-reductive physicalism). LewisVs: this is a misunderstanding about a posteriori necessity: e.g. Assuming that "water is H2O" is necessary a posteriori: this is not because there is a modal fact, a necessity that we can only discover a posteriori, but rather because the meaning of certain words depends on contingent, empirical factors: according to our conventions, in all possible worlds "water" picks out the substance that fills our lakes and streams. "Water is H2O" is a posteriori, because you first have to find out that the material that fills streams and lakes in our country is H2O. This is a contingent fact that usually requires chemical analysis, no excursions into modal space. The H2O-truths therefore a priori imply the water truths. If pain a posteriori is identical with a physical state, then this must also be due to the fact that the reference to "pain" depends on contingent facts, on what kind of state plays the and the role with us ((s) not what kind of linguistic convention we have). (see 1994b(1),296f). 1. David Lewis [1994b]: “Reduction of Mind”. In Samuel Guttenplan (ed.), A Companion to the Philosophy of Mind, Oxford: Blackwell, 412–431, und in [Lewis 1999a] |
Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Tooley, M. | Lewis Vs Tooley, M. | Schwarz I 119 Natural Laws/Law of Nature/Reductionism/LewisVsTooley: this is the price for anti-reductionist intuitions: it sounds nice and good that laws of nature do not supervene on local events, that our concepts of counterfactual truths and causality cannot be reduced to something outside. (Tooley 1987(1), 2003(2)). Problem: the most obvious features of laws of nature become incomprehensible! Lewis: (as a reductionist) can explain why one can empirically discover the laws of nature, why physics is on the way to it, why it is useful to know the laws of nature, and why all Fs are Gs, if "all Fs are Gs" is a law of nature. As an anti-reductionist, one just has to acknowledge all this with humility. Lewis: the assumption of a primitive modal fact which ensures that in every possible world in nature (F,G) exists, also all Fs are Gs, is obscure and almost pointless: if there is no possible world in which nature (F,G) exists, but some Fs are not G, then this must have an explanation, then the idea of such worlds must be somewhat incoherent. Possible worlds cannot simply be missing. Laws of nature/LewisVsArmstrong: perhaps better: regularities that are additionally blessed by a primitive relationship between universals, a relationship that also exists in possible worlds where the law of nature does not apply. That's even more obscure, but then it's at least no wonder that all Fs are Gs if a law of nature demands it. 1. Michael Tooley [1987]: Causation: A Realist Approach. Oxford: Oxford University Press 2. Michael Tooley [2003]: “Causation and Supervenience”. In [Loux und Zimmerman 2003] |
LewisCl I Clarence Irving Lewis Mind and the World Order: Outline of a Theory of Knowledge (Dover Books on Western Philosophy) 1991 Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |
Disputed term/author/ism | Author |
Entry |
Reference |
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Necessity | Chalmers, D. | Schwarz I 227 Def Strong Necessity/Chalmers: Thesis: Besides substantial contingent truths, there are also substantial modal truths: for example, that Kripke is essentially a human being, that pain is essentially identical to XY. N.B.: Knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. How do we recognize them, perhaps we cannot (van Inwagen 1998) or only hypothetically by methodological considerations (Block/Stalnaker 1999)(1). Schw I 227 Strong Necessity/Chalmers/Schwarz: Thesis: there are substantial modal truths. - For example Kripke is essentially human. - E.g. pain essentially identical with XY. - N.B.: Knowledge of contingent facts is not sufficient to recognize these modal facts. LewisVs: what is a possibility is not contingent. >Metaphysically possible. 1. Ned Block und Robert Stalnaker [1999]: “Conceptual Analysis, Dualism, and the Explanatory Gap”. The Philosophical Review, 108: 1–46 |
Schw I W. Schwarz David Lewis Bielefeld 2005 |