5 ideas
| 19695 | The devil was wise as an angel, and lost no knowledge when he rebelled [Whitcomb] |
| Full Idea: The devil is evil but nonetheless wise; he was a wise angel, and through no loss of knowledge, but, rather, through some sort of affective restructuring tried and failed to take over the throne. | |
| From: Dennis Whitcomb (Wisdom [2011], 'Argument') | |
| A reaction: ['affective restructuring' indeed! philosophers- don't you love 'em?] To fail at something you try to do suggests a flaw in the wisdom. And the new regime the devil wished to introduce doesn't look like a wise regime. Not convinced. |
| 22626 | Process philosophy insists that processes are not inferior in being to substances [Rescher] |
| Full Idea: Process philosophy diametrically opposes the view that denies processes or downgrades them in the order of being or of understanding by subordinating them to substantial things. | |
| From: Nicholas Rescher (Process Metaphysics [1996]), quoted by R.D. Ingthorsson - A Powerful Particulars View of Causation 7 | |
| A reaction: [No page cited - nr start?] Ingthorsson quotes this in order to challenge it, and says that substances are also processes, because change is essential to them. |
| 10650 | In the military, persons are parts of parts of large units, but not parts of those large units [Rescher] |
| Full Idea: In military usage, persons can be parts of small units, and small units parts of large ones; but persons are never parts of large units. | |
| From: Nicholas Rescher (Axioms for the Part Relation [1955]), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 2.1 | |
| A reaction: This much-cited objection to the transitivity of the 'part' relation seems very odd. There could hardly be an army or a regiment if there weren't soldiers to make up parts of it. |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 20365 | We only see points in motion, and thereby infer movement [Rescher] |
| Full Idea: We perceive motion only as isolated points, and then infer it without actually seeing it. | |
| From: Nicholas Rescher (Scepticism [1980], §112) | |
| A reaction: Note how writing suddenly becomes readable as you slow down on entering a railway station. Is that points suddenly becoming unified? This is an empiricist endorsement of Russell's 'at-at' account of motion. |