Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Gorgias, Michael della Rocca and Gregory Currie

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5 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being

18933	Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: I. Nothing exists. a) Not-Being does not exist. b) Being does not exist as everlasting, as created, as both, as One, or as Many. II. If anything does exist, it is incomprehensible. III. If existence is comprehensible, it is incommunicable.
	From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B03) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09
	A reaction: [Also Sextus Empiricus, Against Logicians I.65-] For Part I he works through all the possible modes of being he can think of, and explains why none of them are possible. It is worth remembering that Gorgias loved rhetoric, not philosophy!

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties

14380	The distinction between necessary and essential properties can be ignored [Rocca]
	Full Idea: Some philosophers distinguish between necessary properties and essential properties. This distinction is irrelevant to my purposes. Following Yablo, I shall ignore this distinction in what follows.
	From: Michael della Rocca (Essentialists and Essentialism [1996], I n1)
	A reaction: This is two years after Kit Fine's seminal paper suggesting the distinction is real. The first step towards a good metaphysics is to realise that Della Rocca and Yablo have made a horrible mistake.

19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric

5864	Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias]
	Full Idea: Destroy the seriousness of others with laughter, and their laughter with seriousness.
	From: Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The Art of Rhetoric 1419b
	A reaction: This sounds like brilliant tactical advice, which should be on the wall of every barrister's chambers. This is a case of rhetoric having something to teach us which is nothing at all to do with truth. It is more like learning karate.

9866	Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
	Full Idea: Gorgias insists that the art of persuasion is superior to all others because it enslaves all the rest, with their own consent, not by force, and is therefore by far the best of all the arts.
	From: report of Gorgias (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Plato - Philebus 58a
	A reaction: A nice point, and it is not unreasonable to rank the arts in order of their power. To enchant, without achieving agreement, and to speak truth without persuading, are both very fine, but there is something about success that cannot be gainsaid.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art

20444	If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach]
	Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently.
	From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3
	A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings.