Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'The Actual and the Virtual' and 'History of Ancient Art'

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4 ideas

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.

7. Existence / E. Categories / 5. Category Anti-Realism

21907	We don't want another new set of categories; we want a variety of flexible categories [Deleuze, by May]
	Full Idea: For Deleuze, the task is not one of replacing a single set of categories with another set. It is one of being able to create and move among various sets of categories, and even to cross between them.
	From: report of Gilles Deleuze (The Actual and the Virtual [1977]) by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 4.05
	A reaction: This sounds fun, but I'm not clear why we need this anarchic mix of categories. The motto of Deleuze seems to be 'at all costs, keep moving'. He loved the idea of nomads. Is Rimbaud our role model? The influence of Foucault is obvious.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 4. Art as Expression

8119	Art aims only at beauty, of form, of idea, and (above all) of expression [Winckelmann, by Tolstoy]
	Full Idea: According to Winckelmann, the law and aim of all art is beauty, independent of goodness. The three kinds of beauty are of form, of idea, and of expression (the highest aim, attainable only when the other two are present).
	From: report of Johann Winckelmann (History of Ancient Art [1764]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3
	A reaction: This sounds very like 'art for art's sake', but a hundred years earlier. This is quite a good distinction, and I particularly like the 'beauty of idea', which is often overlooked.

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?