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11842
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If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad]
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Full Idea:
We call a lightning flash or a motor accident an event, but refuse to apply this to the cliffs of Dover. ...But quantitative differences (of time) give no good grounds for calling one bit of history an event, and refusing the name to another bit.
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From:
C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], p.54), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 2.3 n13
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A reaction:
Wiggins calls this proposal a 'terrible absurdity', but it seems to me to demand attention. There is a case to be made for a 'process' to be the fundamental category of our ontology, with stable physical objects seen in that light.
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14609
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We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad]
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Full Idea:
One theory accepts the reality of the present and the past, but holds that the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world.
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From:
C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
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A reaction:
This is now known as Broad's 'Growing Block' view of time. It is tempting to say that neither past nor future exist, but it seems undeniable that statements about the past can be wholly true, unlike those about the future.
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22933
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We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad]
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Full Idea:
We imagine presentness moving, like the spot of light from a policeman's bulls eye traversing the fronts of houses in a street. What is illuminated is present, what was illuminated is past, and what is not yet illuminated is the future.
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From:
C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
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A reaction:
This is the 'moving spotlight' compromise theory, which retains the B-series eternal sequence of ordered events, but adds the A-series privileged present moment. Le Poidevin says Broad represents time twice over.
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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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