Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Roderick Firth, Nicole Oresme and Lynn Holt

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 9. Qualities
Whiteness isn't created in an alteration, because it is just this-being-white [Oresme]
     Full Idea: If it is said that whiteness begins to be through alteration, this does not hold, because whiteness is nothing other than this-being-white.
     From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1349], I.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 19.3
     A reaction: This innocent-looking remark is dynamite, because it rejects the separability of qualities, which threatens the doctrine of Transubstantiation.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things
Successive entities are in flux, flowing in existence, with different parts at different times [Oresme]
     Full Idea: For any time, some of a successive entity exists in one of its parts, and a totally different such exists in another part. …It is in continuous flux and transition, ..and flows in existence if it does not have the same existence over a whole time.
     From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Physics' [1346], III.6, dist.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1
     A reaction: Pasnau says the successive entity is the whole made up of these changing parts, so it sounds very like the temporal stages view of Sider and Hawley.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 4. Sense Data / d. Sense-data problems
We are not conscious of pure liquidity, but of the liquidity of water [Firth]
     Full Idea: We are not conscious of liquidity, coldness, and solidity, but of the liquidity of water, the coldness of ice, and the solidity of rocks.
     From: Roderick Firth (Sense Data and the Percept Theory [1949]), quoted by Howard Robinson - Perception 1.7
     A reaction: A nice point, but it might not be entirely true in a blindfold test, where one might only report properties like 'sticky' or 'warm', without having any clear concept of the substance being experienced. Firth is proposing the 'percept theory'.
12. Knowledge Sources / E. Direct Knowledge / 1. Common Sense
Apprehension is a complex intellect grasping the essence of a complex object [Holt,L]
     Full Idea: The paradigm case of apprehension is of a complex intellect confronted with a complex object, in which the intellect understands in a particular context what is 'essential' about the object.
     From: Lynn Holt (Apprehension: reason in absence of Rules [2002], 3 'Expertise')
     A reaction: My line is that this apprehension cashes out as an immediate ability to explain the object. This is an enhanced version of the rational understanding of things found in most larger animals. Holt says her account is Aristotelian.