Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for David Fair, Eduard Hanslick and Anon (Lev)

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4 ideas

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 4. Emotion in Art
Music is not an expressive art, because it expresses no familiar emotions [Hanslick, by Wollheim]
     Full Idea: Hanslick concluded from the fact that music doesn't express definite feelings like piety, love, joy, or sadness, that it isn't an art of expression.
     From: report of Eduard Hanslick (The Beautiful in Music [1854]) by Richard Wollheim - Art and Its Objects 48
     A reaction: Whether music is 'expressive' (which it may not be) should not be confused with whether it is emotional, which it clearly is, even in its coolest examples. Hanslick viewed music as a code, not a language.
22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / g. Love
Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself [Anon (Leviticus)]
     Full Idea: Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.
     From: Anon (Lev) (03: Book of Leviticus [c.700 BCE], 19.18)
     A reaction: Most Christians think Jesus originated this thought. Interestingly, this precedes Socrates, who taught a similar idea.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 4. Naturalised causation
Science has shown that causal relations are just transfers of energy or momentum [Fair, by Sosa/Tooley]
     Full Idea: Basic causal relations can, as a consequence of our scientific knowledge, be identified with certain physicalistic [sic] relations between objects that can be characterized in terms of transference of either energy or momentum between objects.
     From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by E Sosa / M Tooley - Introduction to 'Causation' §1
     A reaction: Presumably a transfer of momentum is a transfer of energy. If only anyone had the foggiest idea what energy actually is, we'd be doing well. What is energy made of? 'No identity without substance', I say. I like Fair's idea.
Fair shifted his view to talk of counterfactuals about energy flow [Fair, by Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Fair, who originated the energy flow view of causation, moved to a view that understands connection in terms of counterfactuals about energy flow.
     From: report of David Fair (Causation and the Flow of Energy [1979]) by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 2.1.2
     A reaction: David Fair was a pupil of David Lewis, the king of the counterfactual view. To me that sounds like a disappointing move, but it is hard to think that a mere flow of energy through space would amount to causation. Cause must work back from an effect.