Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Oxford Commentary on Sentences' and 'Quining Qualia'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

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.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier

16614	Matter and form give true unity; subject and accident is just unity 'per accidens' [Duns Scotus]
	Full Idea: From matter and form comes one thing per se. This is not so for subject and accident. Matter and form are instrinsic causes of a composite being, but whiteness and a human being are not. Humans can exist without whiteness, so it is one thing per accidens.
	From: John Duns Scotus (Oxford Commentary on Sentences [1301], II.12.1.14), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
	A reaction: This isn't much of a theory, but at least it is focusing on an interesting question, and the distinction between genuinely unified, and unified by chance. Compare a loving couple with siblings who hate each other.

15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / a. Nature of qualia

6624	Dennett denies the existence of qualia [Dennett, by Lowe]
	Full Idea: Dennett goes to the extreme of denying the existence of qualia altogether.
	From: report of Daniel C. Dennett (Quining Qualia [1988]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.3
	A reaction: I sympathise with Dennett. Once you know how physically complex and rapid a quale is (about nine billion connections, all firing continuously), the notion that it seems to be some new 'thing', while just being a process, seems fine. Like a waterfall.

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?