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17304
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As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
Grounding is something like metaphysical causation. Just as causation links the world across time, grounding links the world across levels. Grounding connects the more fundamental to the less fundamental, and thereby backs a certain form of explanation.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], Intro)
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A reaction:
Obviously you need 'levels' for this, which we should take to be structural levels.
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17308
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Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
Explaining why ADAM ate the apple is a different matter from explaining why he ATE the apple, and from why he ate THE APPLE. ...In my view the best explanations incorporate ....contrastive information.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
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A reaction:
But why are the contrasts Eve, or throwing it, or a pear? It occurs to me that this is wrong! The contrast is with anything else which could have gone in subject, verb or object position. It is a matter of categories, not of contrasts.
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23519
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The self is embodied, perspectival, volitional, narrative and social [Seth, by PG]
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Full Idea:
The elements of a self are 1) embodied - related directly to the body, 2) perspectival - having a viewpoint, 3) volitional - being an agent, 4) narrative - aware of past and future, and 5) social - as others perceive me.
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From:
report of Anil Seth (Being You [2021], III.8) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
[summarised] Seth says there are distinctive emotions associated with each of these aspects of the self. This list is very helpful, as a discouragement for anyone who wants to pick one of these as the sole true nature of the self.
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17305
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I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1)
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A reaction:
Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got?
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17307
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Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J]
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Full Idea:
The leading treatments of causation work within 'structural equation models', with events represented via variables each of which is allotted a range of permitted values, which constitute a 'contrast space'.
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From:
Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
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A reaction:
Like Woodward's idea that causation is a graph, this seems to be a matter of plotting or formalising correlations between activities, which is a very Humean approach to causation.
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7909
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The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha]
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Full Idea:
The Eightfold Path has three steps concerning morality - right speech, right bodily action, and right livelihood; three of wisdom - right views, right intentions, and right effort; and two of tranquillity - right mindfulness and right concentration.
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From:
Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
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A reaction:
Most of this translates quite comfortably into the aspirations of western philosophy. For example, 'right effort' sounds like Kant's claim that only a good will is truly good (Idea 3710). The Buddhist division is interesting for action theory.
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7908
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At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha]
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Full Idea:
When an accomplished saint comes to the end, he does not go anywhere down in the earth or up in the sky, nor into any of the directions of space, but because his defilements have become extinct he simply ceases to be disturbed.
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From:
Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
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A reaction:
To 'cease to be disturbed' is the most attractive account of heaven I have encountered. It all sounds a bit dull though. I wonder, as usual, how they know all this stuff.
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