Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'The Actual and the Virtual' and 'Nietzsche's Immoralism'

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5 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.

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / g. Moral responsibility

22474	Unlike aesthetic evaluation, moral evaluation needs a concept of responsibility [Foot]
	Full Idea: Moral, as opposed to aesthetic, evaluation does require some distinction between actions for which we are responsible and those for which we are not responsible.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.154)
	A reaction: It is hard to disagree with this, but difficult to give a precise account of responsibility, probably because it is not an all-or-nothing matter. If we accept responsibility for our controlled actions, why not for our considered aesthetic judgements?

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / c. Justice

22472	The practice of justice may well need a recognition of human equality [Foot]
	Full Idea: I wonder whether the practice of justice may not absolutely require a certain recognition of equality between human beings, not a pretence of the equality of talents, but something deeper.
	From: Philippa Foot (Nietzsche's Immoralism [1991], p.152)
	A reaction: {My 'something deeper' is expressed by Foot in a quotation from Gertrude Stein]. This may well be the most fundamental division which runs across a society - between those who accept and those reject human equality.

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?