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Full Idea
It cannot be explained what it is for a person to be generous without first explaining what it is for an action to be generous.
Gist of Idea
To explain generosity in a person, you must understand a generous action
Source
Michael Dummett (Could There Be Unicorns? [1983], 4)
Book Ref
Dummett,Michael: 'The Seas of Language' [OUP 1993], p.336
A Reaction
I presume a slot machine can't be 'generous', even if it favours the punter, so you can't specify a generous action without making reference to the person. A benign circle, as Aristotle says.
| 16952 | If something is only possible relative to another possibility, the possibility relation is not transitive [Dummett] |
| 16953 | Relative possibility one way may be impossible coming back, so it isn't symmetrical [Dummett] |
| 16951 | It was realised that possible worlds covered all modal logics, if they had a structure [Dummett] |
| 16954 | Generalised talk of 'natural kinds' is unfortunate, as they vary too much [Dummett] |
| 16956 | To explain generosity in a person, you must understand a generous action [Dummett] |
| 16960 | If possibilitiy is relative, that might make accessibility non-transitive, and T the correct system [Dummett] |
| 16958 | In S4 the actual world has a special place [Dummett] |
| 16957 | Possible worlds aren't how the world might be, but how a world might be, given some possibility [Dummett] |
| 16959 | If possible worlds have no structure (S5) they are equal, and it is hard to deny them reality [Dummett] |