Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Commentary on 'Physics'' and 'People and Their Bodies'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

16587	Prime matter is halfway between non-existence and existence [Averroes]
	Full Idea: Prime matter falls halfway, as it were, between complete non-existence and actual existence.
	From: Averroes (Ibn Rushd) (Commentary on 'Physics' [1190], I.70), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

15201	That Queen Anne is dead is a 'general fact', not a fact about Queen Anne [Prior,AN]
	Full Idea: The fact that Queen Anne has been dead for some years is not, in the strict sense of 'about', a fact about Queen Anne; it is not a fact about anyone or anything - it is a general fact.
	From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968], p.13), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 1 b
	A reaction: He distinguishes 'general facts' (states of affairs, I think) from 'individual facts', involving some specific object. General facts seem to be what are expressed by negative existential truths, such as 'there is no Loch Ness Monster'. Useful.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts

16209	How can point-duration slices of people have beliefs or desires? [Thomson]
	Full Idea: Can one really think that point-duration temporal slices of bodies believe things or want things?
	From: Judith (Jarvis) Thomson (People and Their Bodies [1997], p.211), quoted by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 2.9 n21
	A reaction: There is a problem with a slice doing anything long-term. The bottom line is that things are said to 'endure', but that is precisely what time-slices are unable to do. Hawley rejects this idea.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / e. Tensed (A) series

22899	'Thank goodness that's over' is not like 'thank goodness that happened on Friday' [Prior,AN]
	Full Idea: One says 'thank goodness that is over', ..and it says something which it is impossible which any use of any tenseless copula with a date should convey. It certainly doesn't mean the same as 'thank goodness that occured on Friday June 15th 1954'.
	From: Arthur N. Prior (Changes in Events and Changes in Things [1968]), quoted by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 4 'Pervasive'
	A reaction: [Ref uncertain] This seems to be appealing to ordinary usage, in which tenses have huge significance. If we take time (with its past, present and future) as primitive, then tenses can have full weight. Did tenses mean anything at all to Einstein?