Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford' and 'Lewis on Perdurance versus Endurance'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
Maybe particles are unchanging, and intrinsic change in things is their rearrangement [Lowe, by Lewis]
     Full Idea: Lowe's solution the 'temporary intrinsics' problem is that particles have no temporary intrinsic properties; they may be safely supposed to endure, and large things consist of those enduring particles, undergoing rearrangement but no intrinsic change.
     From: report of E.J. Lowe (Lewis on Perdurance versus Endurance [1987]) by David Lewis - Rearrangement of Particles II
     A reaction: A mere rearrangement of particles doesn't sound the same as a change in properties, which must involve causal powers in some way.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 4. Intentionality / b. Intentionality theories
Intentionality is the mark of dispositions, not of the mental [Place]
     Full Idea: My thesis is that intentionality is the mark, not of the mental, but of the dispositional.
     From: Ullin T. Place (Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford [1999], 1)
     A reaction: An idea with few friends, but I really like it, because it offers the prospect of a unified account of physical nature and the mind/brain. It seems reasonable to say my mind is essentially a bunch of dispositions. Mind is representations + dispositions.
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?
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
Dispositions are not general laws, but laws of the natures of individual entities [Place]
     Full Idea: Dispositions are the substantive laws, not, as for Armstrong, of nature in general, but of the nature of individual entities whose dispositional properties they are.
     From: Ullin T. Place (Intentionality and the Physical: reply to Mumford [1999], 6)
     A reaction: [He notes that Nancy Cartwright 1989 agrees with him] I like this a lot. I tend to denegrate 'laws', because of their dubious ontological status, but this restores laws to the picture, in the place where they belong, in the stuff of the world.