Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Letters' and 'talk'

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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.

15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 2. Imagination

6901	Understanding is needed for imagination, just as much as the other way around [Betteridge]
	Full Idea: Although it might be right to say that imagination is required in order to make reasoning and understanding possible, this also works the other way, as imagination cannot occur without some prior understanding.
	From: Alex Betteridge (talk [2005]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
	A reaction: This strikes me as a very illuminating remark, particularly for anyone who aspires to draw a simplified flowdiagram of the mind showing logical priority between its various parts. In fact, the parts are interdependent. Maybe imagination is understanding.

19. Language / E. Analyticity / 4. Analytic/Synthetic Critique

21338	I will even consider changing a meaning to save a law; I question the meaning-fact cleavage [Quine]
	Full Idea: I am not concerned even to avoid the trivial extreme of sustaining a law by changing a meaning; for the cleavage between meaning and fact is part of what ...I am questioning.
	From: Willard Quine (Letters [1962], 1962.06.01)
	A reaction: [Letter to Adolf Grünbaum. Found on Twitter] A strikingly helpful expression of his position by Quine. We should take about the 'meaning/fact distinction' in order to understand clearly what is going on here.

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?