Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'The iterative conception of Set' and 'Introduction to Philosophical Papers I'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 3. Metaphysical Systems

21461	I tried to be unsystematic and piecemeal, but failed; my papers presuppose my other views [Lewis]
	Full Idea: I should have like to be a piecemeal, unsystematic philosopher, offering independent proposals on a variety of topics. It was not be. I succumbed too often to the temptation to presuppose my views on one topic when writing on another.
	From: David Lewis (Introduction to Philosophical Papers I [1983], p.1)
	A reaction: He particularly mentions his possible worlds realism as a doctrine which coloured all his other work. A charming insight into the mind of a systematic thinker (called by someone 'the most systematic metaphysician since Leibniz').

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 4. Axioms for Sets / h. Axiom of Replacement VII

18192	Do the Replacement Axioms exceed the iterative conception of sets? [Boolos, by Maddy]
	Full Idea: For Boolos, the Replacement Axioms go beyond the iterative conception.
	From: report of George Boolos (The iterative conception of Set [1971]) by Penelope Maddy - Naturalism in Mathematics I.3

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.

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?