Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Saundaranandakavya', 'works' and 'Making Things Happen'

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9 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.

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor

6806	Do not multiply entities beyond necessity [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: Do not multiply entities beyond necessity.
	From: William of Ockham (works [1335])
	A reaction: This is the classic statement of Ockham's Razor, though it is not found in his printed works. It appears to be mainly aimed at Plato's Theory of Forms. It is taken to refer to types of entities, not numbers. One seraph is as bad as a hundred.

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 5. Universals as Concepts

22132	Species and genera are individual concepts which naturally signify many individuals [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: In his mature nominalism, species and genera are identified with certain mental qualities called concepts or intentions of the mind. Ontologically they are individuals too, like everthing else, ...but they naturally signify many different individuals.
	From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Claude Panaccio - William of Ockham p.1056
	A reaction: 'Naturally' is the key word, because the concepts are not fictions, but natural responses to encountering individuals in the world. I am an Ockhamist.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / g. Causal explanations

14367	An explanation is a causal graph [Woodward,J, by Strevens]
	Full Idea: On Woodward's manipulationist view, an explanation would take the form of a causal graph.
	From: report of James Woodward (Making Things Happen [2003]) by Michael Strevens - No Understanding without Explanation 1
	A reaction: The idea is that causation is all to do with how nature responds when you try to manipulate it. I'm certainly in favour of tying explanation closely to causation.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / i. Denying time

19381	The past has ceased to exist, and the future does not yet exist, so time does not exist [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: Time is composed of non-entities, because it is composed of the past which does not exist now, although it did exist, and of the future, which does not yet exist; therefore time does not exist.
	From: William of Ockham (works [1335], 6:496), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 7 'Nominalist'
	A reaction: I've a lot of sympathy with this! I favour Presentism, so the past is gone and the future is yet to arrive. But we have no coherent concept of a present moment of any duration to contain reality. We are just completely bogglificated by it all.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality

8010	William of Ockham is the main spokesman for God's commands being the source of morality [William of Ockham]
	Full Idea: The most notable philosopher who makes God's commandment the basis of goodness, rather than God's goodness a reason for obeying him, is William of Occam.
	From: William of Ockham (works [1335]), quoted by Alasdair MacIntyre - A Short History of Ethics Ch.9
	A reaction: Either view has problems. Why choose God to obey? Obey anyone who is powerful? But how do you decide that God is good? How do we know the nature of God's commands, or the nature of God's goodness? Etc.

29. Religion / B. Monotheistic Religion / 4. Christianity / c. Angels

16679	Even an angel must have some location [William of Ockham, by Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Ockham dismisses the possibility of non-location out of hand, remarking that even an angel has some location.
	From: report of William of Ockham (works [1335]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 14.4

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.