5 ideas
11966 | If there are essential properties, how do you find out what they are? [Chisholm] |
Full Idea: It seems to me that if Adam does have essential properties, there is no procedure at all for finding out what they are. | |
From: Roderick Chisholm (Identity through Possible Worlds [1967], p.85) | |
A reaction: My tentative suggestion is that the essential properties are those which explain the nature, power, function and role of Adam in the 'actual' world. Whatever possibilities he acquires, he had better retain the capacity to be the First Man. |
11965 | Could possible Adam gradually transform into Noah, and vice versa? [Chisholm] |
Full Idea: If Adam lived for 931 years in a possible world, instead of his actual 930 years, ..then Adam and Noah could gradually exchange their ages and other properties...and we could trace Adam in a world back to the actual Noah, and vice versa. | |
From: Roderick Chisholm (Identity through Possible Worlds [1967], p.81-2) | |
A reaction: [very compressed] Chisholm was one of the first to raise this problem for possible worlds, though it had been Quine's objection to modal logic all along. Only Adam having essential properties seems to stop this slippery slope, says Chisholm. |
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? |
9111 | God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good [William of Ockham] |
Full Idea: God is not wise, but more-than-wise; God is not good, but more-than-good. | |
From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
A reaction: [He is quoting 'Damascene'] I quote this for interest, but I very much doubt whether Damascene or William knew what it meant, and I certainly don't. There seems to have been a politically correct desire to invent super-powers for God. |
9112 | We could never form a concept of God's wisdom if we couldn't abstract it from creatures [William of Ockham] |
Full Idea: What we abstract is said to belong to perfection in so far as it can be predicated of God and can stand for Him. For if such a concept could not be abstracted from a creature, then in this life we could not arrive at a cognition of God's wisdom. | |
From: William of Ockham (Reportatio [1330], III Q viii) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the germ of an important argument. Without the ability to abstract from what is experienced, we would not be able to apply general concepts to things which are beyond experience. It is a key idea for empiricism. |