Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Eumenides', 'Experimental Researches in Electricity' and 'Comment on Armstrong and Forrest'

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4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals

15453	The main rivals to universals are resemblance or natural-class nominalism, or sparse trope theory [Lewis]
	Full Idea: The leading rivals to a theory of universals are resemblance or natural-class nominalism, or sparse trope theory.
	From: David Lewis (Comment on Armstrong and Forrest [1986], p.110)
	A reaction: If that is the complete menu, I choose resemblance nominalism. All discussion of properties in terms of classes is wildly misguided (because properties come first). Why not 'natural' tropes?

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 1. Structure of an Object

15452	We could not uphold a truthmaker for 'Fa' without structures [Lewis]
	Full Idea: We could not, without structures, uphold the principle that every truth has a truthmaker. If Fa is true, the truthmaker is not F, not a, nor both together; not their mereological sum; not a set-theoretic construction. These would exist just the same.
	From: David Lewis (Comment on Armstrong and Forrest [1986], p.109)
	A reaction: This point ought to trouble Lewis, as well as Armstrong and Forrest. If we assert 'Fa', we must (in any theory) have some idea of what unites them, as well as of their separate existence. It must a fact about 'a', not a fact about 'F'.

25. Social Practice / D. Justice / 2. The Law / b. Rule of law

7810	The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus shows blood feuds replaced by law [Aeschylus, by Grayling]
	Full Idea: The 'Eumenides' of Aeschylus tells how the old rule of revenge and blood feud was replaced by a due process of law before a civil jury.
	From: report of Aeschylus (The Eumenides [c.458 BCE]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.2
	A reaction: Compare Idea 1659, where this revolution is attributed to Protagoras (a little later than Aeschylus). I take the rule of law and of society to be above all the rule of reason, because the aim is calm objectivity instead of emotion.

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 2. Electrodynamics / b. Fields

15314	Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden]
	Full Idea: In Faraday lines of force picture the directional structure of powers,...so the fundamental entity is a single, unified field. ...A new criterion of the ultimate has stepped in: Unity. The universal field is still the final explanation, but not invariant.
	From: report of Michael Faraday (Experimental Researches in Electricity [1859]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
	A reaction: Almost Parmenides, except that the field is not invariant. But that was always the ancient objection to the One - that it offered no explanation of change.