Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Saundaranandakavya', 'Infinitism not solution to regress problem' and 'De ente praedicamentali'

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

---

7 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy

7910	Pursue truth with the urgency of someone whose clothes are on fire [Ashvaghosha]
	Full Idea: As though your turban or your clothes were on fire, so with a sense of urgency should you apply your intellect to the comprehension of the truths.
	From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
	A reaction: The best philosophers need no such urging. I retain a romantic view that we should be 'natural' in these things. See Plato's views in Idea 2153 and 1638. However, maybe I should be confronted with this quotation every morning when I awake.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things

16700	In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff]
	Full Idea: It is clear from the way in which one must speak about time and other successive entities that talk about 'the present' must be enlarged. Otherwise it would have to be denied that any successive entity could exist, which is impossible.
	From: John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
	A reaction: This is a lovely idea, even if it is not quite clear what it means. The mind seems to stretch out the now anyway (as the 'specious present'), so why not embrace that in language and conscious thought?

16701	To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant [Wycliff]
	Full Idea: If something is successive, it is successive with respect to its individual parts, which cannot exist at the same instant. Therefore it follows that many of its parts are lodged outside that instant.
	From: John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
	A reaction: An obvious would be to say that there are therefore no successive entities, but Wycliff is appealing to our universal acceptance of them, and offering a transcendental argument. Nice move.

13. Knowledge Criteria / A. Justification Problems / 1. Justification / a. Justification issues

8836	Must all justification be inferential? [Ginet]
	Full Idea: The infinitist view of justification holds that every justification must be inferential: no other kind of justification is possible.
	From: Carl Ginet (Infinitism not solution to regress problem [2005], p.141)
	A reaction: This is the key question in discussing whether justification is foundational. I'm not sure whether 'inference' is the best word when something is evidence for something else. I am inclined to think that only propositions can be reasons.

8837	Inference cannot originate justification, it can only transfer it from premises to conclusion [Ginet]
	Full Idea: Inference cannot originate justification, it can only transfer it from premises to conclusion. And so it cannot be that, if there actually occurs justification, it is all inferential.
	From: Carl Ginet (Infinitism not solution to regress problem [2005], p.148)
	A reaction: The idea that justification must have an 'origin' seems to beg the question. I take Klein's inifinitism to be a version of coherence, where the accumulation of good reasons adds up to justification. It is not purely inferential.

29. Religion / C. Spiritual Disciplines / 3. Buddhism

7909	The Eightfold Path concerns morality, wisdom, and tranquillity [Ashvaghosha]
	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.
	From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
	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.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / d. Heaven

7908	At the end of a saint, he is not located in space, but just ceases to be disturbed [Ashvaghosha]
	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.
	From: Ashvaghosha (Saundaranandakavya [c.50], XVI)
	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.