Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Changes in Events and Changes in Things', 'Prologue to Ordinatio' and 'What is Critique?'

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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.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 4. Belief / c. Aim of beliefs
9100 Our intellect only assents to what we believe to be true [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Our intellect does not assent to anything unless we believe it to be true.
     From: William of Ockham (Prologue to Ordinatio [1320], Q 1 N sqq)
     A reaction: This strikes me as being a much more accurate and commonsense view of belief than that of Hume, who simply views it phenomenologically. ...But then the remark appears to be circular. Belief requires a belief that it is true. Hm.
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 3. Abstraction by mind
9101 Abstractive cognition knows universals abstracted from many singulars [William of Ockham]
     Full Idea: Abstractive cognition (in one sense) relates to something abstracted from many singulars; and in this sense abstractive cognition is nothing else but cognition of a universal which can be abstracted from many things.
     From: William of Ockham (Prologue to Ordinatio [1320], Q 1 N sqq)
     A reaction: This strikes me as being correct common sense, even though it has become deeply unfashionable since Frege. We may not be able to see quite how the mind manages to see universals in a bunch of objects, but there is no better story.
24. Political Theory / C. Ruling a State / 3. Government / a. Government
22236 The big question of the Renaissance was how to govern everything, from the state to children [Foucault]
     Full Idea: How to govern was one of the fundamental question of the fifteenth and sixteenth century. ...How to govern children, the poor and beggars, how to govern the family, a house, how to govern armies, different groups, cities, states, and govern one's self.
     From: Michel Foucault (What is Critique? [1982], p.28), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 9
     A reaction: A nice example of Foucault showing how things we take for granted (techniques of control) have been slowly learned, and then taught as standard. Of course, the Romans knew how to govern an army.
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?