Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Henry of Ghent, Goodman,N/Quine,W and Blasius of Parma

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6 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
Substance, Quantity and Quality are real; other categories depend on those three [Henry of Ghent]
     Full Idea: Among creatures there are only three 'res' belong to the three first categories: Substance, Quantity and Quality. All other are aspects [rationes] and intellectual concepts with respect to them, with reality only as grounded on the res of those three.
     From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
     A reaction: Pasnau connects with the 'arrangement of being', giving an 'ontologically innocent' structure to reality. That seems to be what we all want, if only we could work out the ontologically guilty bit.
8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
The only reality in the category of Relation is things from another category [Henry of Ghent]
     Full Idea: There is beyond a doubt nothing real in the category of Relation, except what is a thing from another category.
     From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
     A reaction: This seems to have been the fairly orthodox scholastic view of relations.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes
Accidents are diminished beings, because they are dispositions of substance (unqualified being) [Henry of Ghent]
     Full Idea: Accidents are beings only in a qualified and diminished sense, because they are not called beings, nor are they beings, except because they are dispositions of an unqualified being, a substance.
     From: Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], XV.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.4
     A reaction: This is aimed to 'half' detach the accidents (as the Eucharist requires). Later scholastics detached them completely. Late scholastics seem to have drifted back to Henry's view. The equivocal use of 'being' here was challenged later.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / c. Nominalism about abstracta
We renounce all abstract entities [Goodman/Quine]
     Full Idea: We do not believe in abstract entities..... We renounce them altogether.
     From: Goodman,N/Quine,W (Steps Towards a Constructive Nominalism [1947], p.105), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Defending the Axioms
     A reaction: Goodman always kept the faith here, but Quine decided to embrace sets, as a minimal commitment to abstracta needed for mathematics, which was needed for science. My sympathies are with Goodman. This is the modern form of 'nominalism'.
11. Knowledge Aims / C. Knowing Reality / 3. Idealism / b. Transcendental idealism
Kant says things-in-themselves cause sensations, but then makes causation transcendental! [Henry of Ghent, by Pinkard]
     Full Idea: Kant claimed that things-in-themselves caused our sensations; but causality was a transcendental condition of experience, not a property of things-in-themselves, so the great Kant had contradicted himself.
     From: report of Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], Supplement) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 04
     A reaction: This early objection by the conservative Jacobi (who disliked Enlightenment rational religion) is the key to the dispute over whether Kant is an idealist. Kant denied being an idealist, but how can he be, if this idea is correct?
17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 1. Physical Mind
Intellectual and moral states, and even the soul itself, depend on prime matter for their existence [Blasius, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Blasius argued that prime matter is the subject of all our intellectual and moral states. This implies that such states cannot exist apart from the body, which seems to imply further that the soul itself cannot exist apart from the body.
     From: report of Blasius of Parma (Les quaestiones de anima (lectures on the soul) [1385], I.8 p.65) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 06.3
     A reaction: It seems that, under pressure, Blasius recanted this view in lectures given eleven years later.