Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity'', 'Freedom and Action' and 'Assertion'

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7 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms
17945 Forms are not a theory of universals, but an attempt to explain how predication is possible [Nehamas]
     Full Idea: The theory of Forms is not a theory of universals but a first attempt to explain how predication, the application of a single term to many objects - now considered one of the most elementary operations of language - is possible.
     From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxvii)
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / b. Partaking
17946 Only Tallness really is tall, and other inferior tall things merely participate in the tallness [Nehamas]
     Full Idea: Only Tallness and nothing else really is tall; everything else merely participates in the Forms and, being excluded from the realm of Being, belongs to the inferior world of Becoming.
     From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xxviii)
     A reaction: This is just as weird as the normal view (and puzzle of participation), but at least it makes more sense of 'metachein' (partaking).
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
17944 'Episteme' is better translated as 'understanding' than as 'knowledge' [Nehamas]
     Full Idea: The Greek 'episteme' is usually translated as 'knowledge' but, I argue, closer to our notion of understanding.
     From: Alexander Nehamas (Introduction to 'Virtues of Authenticity' [1999], p.xvi)
     A reaction: He agrees with Julia Annas on this. I take it to be crucial. See the first sentence of Aristotle's 'Metaphysics'. It is explanation which leads to understanding.
19. Language / F. Communication / 2. Assertion
18052 An assertion aims to add to the content of a context [Stalnaker, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker starts with the general thesis that the role of a successful assertion of s is to update the context by adding to it the content of s.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 5.3.2
     A reaction: This is to be compared with criteria of meaningfulness, such as verificationism, and with Grice's rules of conversational implicature. Presumably if you assert what the context presupposes, you fail to assert, without being meaningless.
19. Language / F. Communication / 5. Pragmatics / b. Implicature
14718 An assertion is an attempt to rule out certain possibilities, narrowing things down for good planning [Stalnaker, by Schroeter]
     Full Idea: Stalnaker's guiding idea is that in making an assertion the speaker is trying to get the audience to rule out certain possibilities. ....If all goes well, further planning will proceed on the basis of a smaller and more accurate range of possibilities.
     From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Assertion [1978]) by Laura Schroeter - Two-Dimensional Semantics
     A reaction: This sounds intuitively rather plausible, and is a nice original thought. This is what we pay clever chaps like Stalnaker to come up with. It seems to imply some notion of verisimilitude (qv. under 'truth'), depending on how much narrowing happens.
20. Action / A. Definition of Action / 1. Action Theory
20062 If a desire leads to a satisfactory result by an odd route, the causal theory looks wrong [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: If someone wants to kill his uncle to inherit a fortune, and having this desire makes him so agitated that he loses control of his car and kills a pedestrian, who turns out to be his uncle, the conditions of the causal theory seem to be satisfied.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966]), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 6 'Deviant'
     A reaction: This line of argument has undermined all sorts of causal theories that were fashionable in the 1960s and 70s. Explanation should lead to understanding, but a deviant causal chain doesn't explain the outcome. The causal theory can be tightened.
20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 2. Willed Action / c. Agent causation
20054 There has to be a brain event which is not caused by another event, but by the agent [Chisholm]
     Full Idea: There must be some event A, presumably some cerebral event, which is not caused by any other event, but by the agent.
     From: Roderick Chisholm (Freedom and Action [1966], p.20), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 4 'Agent'
     A reaction: I'm afraid this thought strikes me as quaintly ridiculous. What kind of metaphysics can allow causation outside the natural nexus, yet occuring within the physical brain? This is a relic of religious dualism. Let it go.