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21349
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Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil]
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Full Idea:
If Simmias is taller than Socrates, they are indirectly related; they are related via their possession of properties that are themselves directly - and internally - related. Hence relational truths are made true by non-relational features of the world.
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From:
John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Founding')
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A reaction:
This seems to be a strategy for reducing external relations to internal relations, which are intrinsic to objects, which thus reduces the ontology. Heil is not endorsing it, but cites Kit Fine 2000. The germ of this idea is in Plato.
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21351
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Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil]
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Full Idea:
Truthmaking is a paradigmatic internal relation: if you have a truthbearer, a representation, and you have the world as the truthbearer represents it as being, you have truthmaking, you have the truthbearer's being true.
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From:
John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Causal')
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A reaction:
It is nice to have an example of an internal relation other than numbers, and closer to the concrete world. Is the relation between the world and facts about the world the same thing, or another example?
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21344
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If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil]
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Full Idea:
A simple way to think about internal relations is: if R internally relates a and b, then, if you have a and b, you thereby have R. If you have six and you have five, you thereby have six's being greater than five.
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From:
John Heil (Relations [2009], 'External')
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A reaction:
This seems to work a lot better for abstracta than for physical objects, where I am struggling to think of a parallel example. Parenthood? Temporal relations between things? Acorn and oak?
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13048
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Good explications are exact, fruitful, simple and similar to the explicandum [Carnap, by Salmon]
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Full Idea:
Carnap's four criteria for giving a good explication are similarity to the explicandum, exactness, fruitfulness and simplicity.
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From:
report of Rudolph Carnap (Logical Foundations of Probability [1950], Ch.1) by Wesley Salmon - Four Decades of Scientific Explanation 0.1
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A reaction:
[compressed] Salmon's view is that this represents the old attitude, that the contribution of philosophy to explanation is the clarification of the key concepts. Carnap is, of course, a logical empiricist.
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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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