3 ideas
16557 | Salmon's mechanisms are processes and interactions, involving marks, or conserved quantities [Salmon, by Machamer/Darden/Craver] |
Full Idea: For Salmon mechanisms are composed of processes and interactions. The interactions are identified in terms of transmitted marks and statistical relations, or (more recently) exchanges of conserved quantities. | |
From: report of Wesley Salmon (Causality and Explanation [1998], 3.1) by Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C - Thinking About Mechanisms 3.1 | |
A reaction: They say that Salmon has too little to say about the activities that constitute a mechanism. A 'mark' doesn't sound too promising, but I quite like the exchange of conserved quantities, which gets into the guts of what is going on. |
20328 | A thing is only seen as art in an 'artworld', which has a theory and a history [Danto] |
Full Idea: To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. | |
From: Arthur C. Danto (The Artworld [1964], II) | |
A reaction: The editors of the volume call this a revolutionary remark, followed up by Danto and George Dickie with a social and institutional account of art. Danto's key example is Warhol's Brillo pads - art in a gallery, cleaning material in a shop. |
5655 | Happiness is not satisfaction of desires, but fulfilment of values [Bradley, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: For Bradley, the happiness of the individual is not to be understood in terms of his desires and needs, but rather in terms of his values - which is to say, in terms of those of his desires which he incorporates into his self. | |
From: report of F.H. Bradley (Ethical Studies [1876]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.16 | |
A reaction: Good. Bentham will reduce the values to a further set of desires, so that a value is a complex (second-level?) desire. I prefer to think of values as judgements, but I like Scruton's phrase of 'incorporating into his self'. Kant take note (Idea 1452). |