6 ideas
| 15547 | Negative existentials have 'totality facts' as truthmakers [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong offers 'totality facts' (complete states of affairs) as truthmakers for negative existentials, and for negated predications. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'The demand' |
| 15542 | All possibilities are recombinations of properties in the actual world [Armstrong, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Armstrong's thesis is that recombination gives all the possibilities there are. There is no 'outer sphere' of possibilities wherein are found new and different universals alien to the actual world. No extra fundamental properties of fundamental particles. | |
| From: report of David M. Armstrong (A Combinatorial Theory of Possibility [1989]) by David Lewis - Armstrong on combinatorial possibility 'Combinatorialism' | |
| A reaction: I can't grasp what Armstrong's basis would be for such a claim. I surmise that current fundamental particles can only have the properties they currently have, but I can't see the impossibility of new stuff with new properties. |
| 7071 | Life and rationality are pointless if we can only contemplate the freedom of our own ego [Jacobi] |
| Full Idea: If the highest upon which I can reflect, what I can contemplate, is my empty and pure, naked and mere ego, with its autonomy and freedom: then rational self-contemplation, then rationality is for me a curse - I deplore my existence. | |
| From: Friedrich Jacobi (Letters to Fichte [1799], Ch.2), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro | |
| A reaction: This is a rebellion against Fichte's interpretation of Kant. It is a lovely cry from the heart on behalf of everyone who resents lines of philosophical thinking that seem to imprison the mind and cut us off from the ordinary world and real life. |
| 7072 | Jacobi was the first philosopher to talk of nihilism [Jacobi, by Critchley] |
| Full Idea: Jacobi was the first to philosophically employ the concept of nihilism. | |
| From: report of Friedrich Jacobi (Letters to Fichte [1799]) by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: Critchley explains that it was Jacobi's fear that Fichte was drawing nihilist conclusions from Kant's philosophy. This fear may be seen as the beginning of what is loosely called 'continental philosophy'. A worthy subject for thinkers... |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |