6 ideas
| 19480 | Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, the chief ancestor of this approach would be Leibniz, even though his central idea concerns substances. Heraclitus is the most famous ancestor of Process Philosophy. Powers are dynamic, but powers of what? |
| 19479 | Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: On the reductionist view of processes, they are all 'owned' and we identify them by their owner (such as the murder of Caesar), ...but many processes (e.g. tornadoes, lightning bolts, the NY rush hour) lack a proper 'subject' altogether. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a fairly conclusive refutation of the view that processes are just objects changing their properties. |
| 19481 | Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: Instead of very small things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes (snowstorms), modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum phenomena) combining to produce standard things. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 4 (i)) | |
| A reaction: Though electrons seem to be distinct things with a fixed set of properties, so this is not a clear point. Where do fields come into it? Beware of citing quantum mechanics in metaphysics! |
| 3238 | 'Dead person' isn't a contradiction, so 'person' is somewhat vague [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If we say (in opposition to a physical view of identity) that when Jones dies 'Jones ceases to exist' but 'Jones' body does not cease to exist', this shouldn't be pressed too hard, because it would make 'dead person' a contradiction. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.74) | |
| A reaction: A good point, which nicely challenges the distinction between a 'human' and a 'person', but the problem case is much more the one where Jones gets advanced Alzheimer's, rather than dies. A dead body ceases as a mechanism, as well as as a personality. |
| 3239 | You can only really love a person as a token, not as a type [Williams,B] |
| Full Idea: If you love a person as a type instead of as a token (i.e. a "person", instead of a physical body) you might prefer a run-down copy of them to no person at all, but at this point our idea of loving a person begins to crack. | |
| From: Bernard Williams (Are Persons Bodies? [1970], p.81) | |
| A reaction: Very persuasive. If you love a person you can cope with them getting old. If you own an original watercolour, you can accept that it fades, but you would replace a reproduction of it if that faded. But what, then, is it that you love? |
| 468 | 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? |