Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Causation', 'Speaking of Objects' and 'Being and Nothingness'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / h. Dasein (being human)
For Sartre there is only being for-itself, or being in-itself (which is beyond experience) [Sartre, by Daigle]
     Full Idea: The two most fundamental modes of being in Sartre's ontology are being in-itself, and being for-itself. ...The in-itself lies beyond our experience of it.
     From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Being and Nothingness [1943]) by Christine Daigle - Jean-Paul Sartre 2.2
     A reaction: This appears to be Kant's ding-an-sich, paired with Heidegger's Dasein. If those are the only options, then reality is either subjective or unknown, which seems to make Sartre an idealist, but he asserted that phenomena vindicate the in-itself.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 7. Abstract/Concrete / a. Abstract/concrete
We can only see an alien language in terms of our own thought structures (e.g. physical/abstract) [Quine]
     Full Idea: We are prone to talk about physical and abstract objects. It is hard to know how else to talk, because we are bound to adapt any alien pattern to our own in the very process of understanding or translating the alien sentences.
     From: Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960], pt.I,p.1)
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers
"No entity without identity" - our ontology must contain items with settled identity conditions [Quine, by Melia]
     Full Idea: Quine's well-known slogan "no entity without identity" means that no object should be admitted into our ontology unless its identity conditions, the conditions that say which object it is, have been settled.
     From: report of Willard Quine (Speaking of Objects [1960]) by Joseph Melia - Modality Ch.4
     A reaction: This invites science fiction scenarios, where we admit the existence of something before we have a clue what it is (whether it is physical, hallucination, divine..). Quine's slogan seems attractive but optimistic. How 'settled'?