Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Saundaranandakavya', 'Causal Connections' and 'Disputed questions about truth'

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

---

6 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.

3. Truth / C. Correspondence Truth / 1. Correspondence Truth

22104	Truth is the conformity of being to intellect [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: The word 'true' expresses the conformity of a being to intellect.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Disputed questions about truth [1267], I.1c), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 09
	A reaction: I believe in a 'robust' theory of truth, but accept that the concept of 'correspondence' has major problems. So I embrace with delight the word 'conformity'. I offer the world The Conformity Theory of Truth! 'Conform' is suitably vague.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being

22103	Being is basic to thought, and all other concepts are additions to being [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: Being is inherently intellect's most intelligible object, in which it finds the basis of all conceptions. ...All of intellect's other conceptions must be arrived at by adding to being, insofar as they express what is not expressed by 'being' itself.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Disputed questions about truth [1267], I.1c), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 09
	A reaction: I like the word 'intelligible' here. We might know reality, or be aware of appearances, but what is intelligible lies nicely in between. What would Berkeley make of that? I presume 'intelligible' means 'makes good sense'.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata

4784	Salmon says processes rather than events should be basic in a theory of physical causation [Salmon, by Psillos]
	Full Idea: Salmon argues that processes rather than events should be the basic entities in a theory of physical causation.
	From: report of Wesley Salmon (Causal Connections [1984]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §4.2
	A reaction: It increasingly strikes me that the concept of a 'process' ought to be ontologically basic. Edelman says the mind is a process. An 'event' is too loose, and a 'fact' too vague, and heaven knows what Hume meant by an 'object'.

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.