Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Dispositions' and 'The Meaning of 'Meaning''

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence

458	Nothing could come out of nothing, and existence could never completely cease [Empedocles]
	Full Idea: From what in no wise exists, it is impossible for anything to come into being; for Being to perish completely is incapable of fulfilment and unthinkable.
	From: Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], B012), quoted by Anon (Lyc) - On Melissus 975b1-4

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change

5112	Empedocles says things are at rest, unless love unites them, or hatred splits them [Empedocles, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Empedocles claims that things are alternately changing and at rest - that they are changing whenever love is creating a unity out of plurality, or hatred is creating plurality out of unity, and they are at rest in the times in between.
	From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 250b26
	A reaction: I suppose one must say that this an example of Ruskin's 'pathetic fallacy' - reading human emotions into the cosmos. Being constructive little creatures, we think goodness leads to construction. I'm afraid Empedocles is just wrong.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism

14334	Modest realism says there is a reality; the presumptuous view says we can accurately describe it [Mumford]
	Full Idea: The claim of modest realism is that there is a subject-independent reality; the presumptuous claim is that we are capable of describing that reality accurately.
	From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 09.1)
	A reaction: And the super-presumptuous claim is that there only exists one ultimate accurate description of reality. I am happy to call myself a Modest Realist on this one.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism

14306	Anti-realists deny truth-values to all statements, and say evidence and ontology are inseparable [Mumford]
	Full Idea: The anti-realist declines to permit that all statements have truth-values. ...The essence of the anti-realist position is that evidence and ontology cannot be separated.
	From: Stephen Mumford (Dispositions [1998], 03.6)
	A reaction: [second half on p.51] The idea that evidence and ontology are 'inseparable' strikes me as an absurd idea. The proposal that you should not speculate about ontology without some sort of evidence is, of course, not unreasonable.