Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Survival and Identity, with postscript' and 'Leibniz'

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4 ideas

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 4. De re / De dicto modality
De re modal predicates are ambiguous [Lewis, by Rudder Baker]
     Full Idea: Lewis is perhaps the most prominent proponent of the view that de re modal predicates are ambiguous.
     From: report of David Lewis (Survival and Identity, with postscript [1983]) by Lynne Rudder Baker - Why Constitution is not Identity n25
10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility
Early modern possibility is what occurs sometime; for Leibniz, it is what is not contradictory [Arthur,R]
     Full Idea: For Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza, if a state of things is possible, it must occur at some time, whether past, present or future. For Leibniz possibility makes no reference to time; an individual is possible if its concept contains no contradiction.
     From: Richard T.W. Arthur (Leibniz [2014], 4 'Contingent')
     A reaction: It has always struck me as fallacious to say that anything that is possible must at some time occur. If '6' is possible on the die, what will constrain it to eventually come up when thrown? Mere non-contradiction doesn't imply possibility either.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 4. Occasionalism
Occasionalism contradicts the Eucharist, which needs genuine changes of substance [Arthur,R]
     Full Idea: The Jesuits rejected occasionalism ... because it is incompatible with the Catholic interpretation of the Eucharist, which there is genuine change of substance of the bread into the substance of Christ (transubstantiation).
     From: Richard T.W. Arthur (Leibniz [2014], 5 'Substance')
     A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I take it that the Eucharist needs a real relation across the substance-spirit boundary, and not just a co-ordination.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
     Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
     From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?