21982
|
I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
|
|
Full Idea:
"I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
|
|
From:
Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
|
|
A reaction:
[Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
|
16657
|
Substance, Quantity and Quality are real; other categories depend on those three [Henry of Ghent]
|
|
Full Idea:
Among creatures there are only three 'res' belong to the three first categories: Substance, Quantity and Quality. All other are aspects [rationes] and intellectual concepts with respect to them, with reality only as grounded on the res of those three.
|
|
From:
Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], VII:1-2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.3
|
|
A reaction:
Pasnau connects with the 'arrangement of being', giving an 'ontologically innocent' structure to reality. That seems to be what we all want, if only we could work out the ontologically guilty bit.
|
16645
|
Accidents are diminished beings, because they are dispositions of substance (unqualified being) [Henry of Ghent]
|
|
Full Idea:
Accidents are beings only in a qualified and diminished sense, because they are not called beings, nor are they beings, except because they are dispositions of an unqualified being, a substance.
|
|
From:
Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], XV.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.4
|
|
A reaction:
This is aimed to 'half' detach the accidents (as the Eucharist requires). Later scholastics detached them completely. Late scholastics seem to have drifted back to Henry's view. The equivocal use of 'being' here was challenged later.
|
22012
|
Kant says things-in-themselves cause sensations, but then makes causation transcendental! [Henry of Ghent, by Pinkard]
|
|
Full Idea:
Kant claimed that things-in-themselves caused our sensations; but causality was a transcendental condition of experience, not a property of things-in-themselves, so the great Kant had contradicted himself.
|
|
From:
report of Henry of Ghent (Quodlibeta [1284], Supplement) by Terry Pinkard - German Philosophy 1760-1860 04
|
|
A reaction:
This early objection by the conservative Jacobi (who disliked Enlightenment rational religion) is the key to the dispute over whether Kant is an idealist. Kant denied being an idealist, but how can he be, if this idea is correct?
|
6660
|
Libet found conscious choice 0.2 secs before movement, well after unconscious 'readiness potential' [Libet, by Lowe]
|
|
Full Idea:
Libet found that a subject's conscious choice to move was about a fifth of a second before movement, and thus later than the onset of the brain's so-called 'readiness potential', which seems to imply that unconscious processes initiates action.
|
|
From:
report of Benjamin Libet (Unconscious Cerebral Initiative [1985]) by E.J. Lowe - Introduction to the Philosophy of Mind Ch.9
|
|
A reaction:
Of great interest to philosophers! It seems to make conscious choices epiphenomenal. The key move, I think, is to give up the idea of consciousness as being all-or-nothing. My actions are still initiated by 'me', but 'me' shades off into unconsciousness.
|