Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'There is No A Priori (and reply)' and 'Getting Causes from Powers'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
     Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
     From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
     A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
A process is unified as an expression of a collection of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: A process has a unity to it that comes from being the expression of a collection of causal powers.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 5.5 1)
     A reaction: I would be happier with this if I had a clear notion of what counts as a 'collection' of causal powers. We are back with the Leibnizian anguish over what constitutes a 'unity'. Processes need more attention, I'm thinking.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Events are essentially changes; property exemplifications are just states of affairs [Mumford/Anjum]
     Full Idea: Events are to be understood essentially as changes, rather than as property exemplifications. A particular exemplifying a property (as in Kim 1973 and Lewis 1986) would be better understood as a state of affairs.
     From: S.Mumford/R.Lill Anjum (Getting Causes from Powers [2011], 2.3)
     A reaction: I agree entirely with this. I've never been able to make sense of events as such static relations. It resembles the dubious Russellian view of motion as just being at one place and then at another.