Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance', 'Intention' and 'The Putney Debates'

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3 ideas

20. Action / B. Preliminaries of Action / 1. Intention to Act / a. Nature of intentions
Intentional actions are those which are explained by giving the reason for so acting [Anscombe]
     Full Idea: Intentional actions are those to which a certain sense of the question 'Why?' is given application; the sense is of course that in which the answer, if positive, gives a reason for acting.
     From: G.E.M. Anscombe (Intention [1957], p.9), quoted by Rowland Stout - Action 2 'Two kinds'
     A reaction: This works better for grand large-scale actions than for small ones, like taking the knife out of the drawer before the fork. Kahnemann nowadays tells us that the reasons we articulate might not be the ones that are operative.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / c. Social contract
Even the poorest have a life to lead, and so should consent to who governs them [-]
     Full Idea: For really I think that the poorest hee that is in England hath a life to live, as the greatest hee; …and every Man that is to live under a Government ought first by his own Consent to put himself under that Government.
     From: - (The Putney Debates [1647])
     A reaction: [remark made by Thomas Rainsborough] This is the social contract idea which is explicit in Hobbes. I'm sure we can at least trace it back to John Lilburne in the 1630s.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 4. Regularities / b. Best system theory
Lewis later proposed the axioms at the intersection of the best theories (which may be few) [Mumford on Lewis]
     Full Idea: Later Lewis said we must choose between the intersection of the axioms of the tied best systems. He chose for laws the axioms that are in all the tied systems (but then there may be few or no axioms in the intersection).
     From: comment on David Lewis (Subjectivist's Guide to Objective Chance [1980], p.124) by Stephen Mumford - Laws in Nature