Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Explaining the A Priori', 'The Origin of the Work of Art' and 'Universals and Particulars'

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3 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / b. Philosophy as transcendent
Later Heidegger sees philosophy as more like poetry than like science [Heidegger, by Polt]
     Full Idea: In his later work Heidegger came to view philosophy as closer to poetry than to science.
     From: report of Martin Heidegger (The Origin of the Work of Art [1935], p.178) by Richard Polt - Heidegger: an introduction 5 'Signs'
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / c. Self-predication
Most thinkers now reject self-predication (whiteness is NOT white) so there is no Third Man problem [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: Modern upholders of universals generally reject self-predication; humanity is not a man, whiteness is not a white thing. This means that the Third Man argument does not constitute a difficulty.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Universals and Particulars [1995], p.506)
     A reaction: This certainly seems right, and is relevant to the modern problem of the content of thought. The idea of a tree does not need to be tree-like.
18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / a. Origin of concepts
The concept 'red' is tied to what actually individuates red things [Peacocke]
     Full Idea: The possession conditions for the concept 'red' of the colour red are tied to those very conditions which individuate the colour red.
     From: Christopher Peacocke (Explaining the A Priori [2000], p.267), quoted by Carrie Jenkins - Grounding Concepts 2.5
     A reaction: Jenkins reports that he therefore argues that we can learn something about the word 'red' from thinking about the concept 'red', which is his new theory of the a priori. I find 'possession conditions' and 'individuation' to be very woolly concepts.