Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Understanding' and 'The Scientific Image'

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6 ideas

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 7. Chance
Chance is compatible with necessity, and the two occur together [Weil]
     Full Idea: Chance is not the contrary of necessity; it is not incompatible with necessity. On the contrary, it never appears except at the same time as necessity.
     From: Simone Weil (The Scientific Image [1941], p.175)
     A reaction: She illustrates it with the six terminating results of a die throw, and the innumerabe ways the throw can occur. This thought strikes me as relevant to discussions of free will. …But I'm not sure I fully understand it.
11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding
Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm]
     Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it.
'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm]
     Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2)
     A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it.
You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm]
     Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way.
     From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
     A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck?
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 4. Beauty
The secret of art is that beauty is a just blend of unity and its opposite [Weil]
     Full Idea: A just blend of unity and that which opposes it is the condition of the beautiful, and it is the secret of art.
     From: Simone Weil (The Scientific Image [1941], p.169)
     A reaction: Rather sweeping, but the observation strikes me as fairly accurate. It seems to work for most novels, paintings and music, though more recent art may provide counterexamples.
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?