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All the ideas for 'Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow', 'works' and 'works'

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5 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 5. Later European Thought

7822	A neo-Stoic movement began in the late sixteenth century [Lipsius, by Grayling]
	Full Idea: A neo-Stoic movement began at the end of the sixteenth century, under the inspiration of the Dutch scholar Justus Lipsius.
	From: report of Justus Lipsius (works [1584]) by A.C. Grayling - What is Good? Ch.5
	A reaction: I would take this to be just as much a movement against Christianity as the interest in the less theistic Epicurus. They wanted the virtues of Christianity without the theological trappings.

19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 6. Meaning as Use

20949	Study the use of words, not their origins [Herder]
	Full Idea: Not how an expression can be etymologically derived and determined analytically, but how it is used is the question. Origin and use are often very different.
	From: Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784], p.153), quoted by Andrew Bowie - Introduction to German Philosophy 2 'Herder'
	A reaction: This doesn't quite say that meaning is use, and is basically an attack on the Etymological Fallacy (that origin gives meaning), but it is a strikingly modern view of language.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 1. Nature of Value / f. Ultimate value

7669	We cannot attain all the ideals of every culture, so there cannot be a perfect life [Herder, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: For Herder, we cannot attain to the highest ideals of all the centuries and all the places at once, and since we cannot do that, the whole notion of the perfect life collapses.
	From: report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784]) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism Ch.3
	A reaction: Herder seems to be the father of modern cultural relativism. The idea is hard to challenge, but the ideals of some cultures should be ignored, if they diminish rather than enhance the good life for all.

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 7. Communitarianism / a. Communitarianism

7668	Herder invented the idea of being rooted in (or cut off from) a home or a group [Herder, by Berlin]
	Full Idea: The whole notion of being at home, or being cut off from one's natural roots, the whole idea of roots, the whole idea of belonging to a group, a sect, a movement, was largely invented by Herder.
	From: report of Johann Gottfried Herder (works [1784], Ch.3) by Isaiah Berlin - The Roots of Romanticism
	A reaction: Hm. Broad generalisations are an awful temptation in the history of ideas. As a corrective to this, trying reading the two Anglo-Saxon poems 'The Wanderer' and 'The Seafarer'. Very Germanic, I suppose. Interesting, though. Leads to Hegel's politics.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 5. Direction of causation

8433	There are few traces of an event before it happens, but many afterwards [Lewis, by Horwich]
	Full Idea: Lewis claims that most events are over-determined by subsequent states of the world, but not by their history. That is, the future of every event contains many independent traces of its occurrence, with little prior indication that it would happen.
	From: report of David Lewis (Counterfactual Dependence and Time's Arrow [1979]) by Paul Horwich - Lewis's Programme p.209
	A reaction: Lewis uses this asymmetry to deduce the direction of causation, and hence the direction of time. Most people (including me, I think) would prefer to use the axiomatic direction of time to deduce directions of causation. Lewis was very wicked.