9283
|
Our ancient beliefs can never be overthrown by subtle arguments [Euripides]
|
|
Full Idea:
Teiresias: We have no use for theological subtleties./ The beliefs we have inherited, as old as time,/ Cannot be overthrown by any argument,/ Nor by the most inventive ingenuity.
|
|
From:
Euripides (The Bacchae [c.407 BCE], 201)
|
|
A reaction:
[trans. Philip Vellacott (Penguin)] Compare Idea 8243. While very conservative societies have amazing resilience in maintaining traditional beliefs, modern culture eats into them, not directly by argument, but by arguments at fifth remove.
|
16061
|
If some facts 'logically supervene' on some others, they just redescribe them, adding nothing [Lynch/Glasgow]
|
|
Full Idea:
Logical supervenience, restricted to individuals, seems to imply strong reduction. It is said that where the B-facts logically supervene on the A-facts, the B-facts simply re-describe what the A-facts describe, and the B-facts come along 'for free'.
|
|
From:
Lynch,MP/Glasgow,JM (The Impossibility of Superdupervenience [2003], C)
|
|
A reaction:
This seems to be taking 'logically' to mean 'analytically'. Presumably an entailment is logically supervenient on its premisses, and may therefore be very revealing, even if some people think such things are analytic.
|
16657
|
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.
|
16645
|
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.
|
22012
|
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?
|