18383
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Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
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A reaction:
To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.
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11891
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Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
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A reaction:
This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.
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20424
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Imaginative life requires no action, so new kinds of perception and values emerge in art [Fry]
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Full Idea:
In the imaginative life no action is necessary, so the whole consciousness may be focused upon the perceptive and the emotional aspects of the experience. Hence we get a different set of values, and a different kind of perception
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From:
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.24)
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A reaction:
Good. A huge range of human activities are like scientific experiments, where you draw on our evolved faculties, but put them in controlled conditions, where the less convenient and stressful parts are absent. War and sport. Real and theatrical tragedy.
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20430
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In life we neglect 'cosmic emotion', but it matters, and art brings it to the fore [Fry]
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Full Idea:
Those feelings unhappily named cosmic emotion find almost no place in life, but, since they seem to belong to certain very deep springs of our nature, do become of great importance in the arts.
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From:
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.31)
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A reaction:
Focus on the sublime was big in the romantic era, but Fry still sees its importance, and I don't think it ever goes away. Art styles which scorn the sublime are failing to perform their social duty, say I.
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20428
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Popular opinion favours realism, yet most people never look closely at anything! [Fry]
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Full Idea:
Ordinary people have almost no idea of what things really look like, so that the one standard that popular criticism applies to painting (whether it is like nature or not) is the one which most people are prevented frm applying properly.
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From:
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.29)
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A reaction:
A nice remark, though there is a streak of Bloomsbury artistic snobbery running through Fry. Ordinary people recognise photographic realism, so they can study things closely either in the reality or the picture, should they so choose.
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20426
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For pure moralists art must promote right action, and not just be harmless [Fry]
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Full Idea:
To the pure moralist, accepting nothing but ethical values, to be justified, the life of the imagination must be shown not only not to hinder but actually to forward right action, otherwise it is not only useless but, by absorbing energies, harmful.
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From:
Roger Fry (An Essay in Aesthetics [1909], p.26)
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A reaction:
I think this is the sort of attitude you find in Samuel Johnson. Puritans even reject light music, which seems pleasantly harmless to the rest of us. 'Absorbing energies' doesn't sound much of an objection, and may not be the actual objection.
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20704
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A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
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Full Idea:
Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
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From:
report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
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A reaction:
This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.
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