Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Queries to the 'Opticks'' and 'Merely Possible Propositions'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 4. Impossible objects

14617	Predicates can't apply to what doesn't exist [Stalnaker]
	Full Idea: Nothing can be predicated of something which does not exist.
	From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Merely Possible Propositions [2010], p.28)
	A reaction: [He says he is 'agreeing with Plantinga' on this] This seems very puzzling, as you can obviously say that dragons do not exist, but they breathe fire. Why can't you attach predicates to hypothetical objects?

19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions

14616	A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence of individual, properties and relations [Stalnaker]
	Full Idea: A 'Russellian proposition' is an ordered sequence containing the individual, along with properties and relations.
	From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Merely Possible Propositions [2010], p.22)
	A reaction: Since Russell took properties and relations to be features of reality, this made the whole proposition a feature of reality. This is utterly different from what I understand by the word 'proposition', which is a feature of thought, not of the world.

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

16764	The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
	Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
	From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
	A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.

26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 1. Laws of Nature

16746	Principles of things are not hidden features of forms, but the laws by which they were formed [Newton]
	Full Idea: The (active) principles I consider not as occult qualities, supposed to result from the specific forms of things, but as general laws of nature, by which the things themselves are formed.
	From: Isaac Newton (Queries to the 'Opticks' [1721], q 31), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.6
	A reaction: This is the external, 'imposed' view of laws (with the matter passive) at its most persuasive. If laws arise out the stuff (as I prefer to think), what principles went into the formulation of the stuff?