4 ideas
15541 | 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. |
18088 | 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. |
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? |
18089 | 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. |