12314
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Audience-relative explanation, or metaphysical explanation based on information? [Stanford]
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Full Idea:
Rather than an 'interest-relative' notion of explanation (Putnam), it can be informational content which makes an explanation, which is an 'audience-invariant' contraint, which is not pragmatic, but mainly epistemological and also partly metaphysical.
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From:
Michael Stanford (Explanation: the state of play [1991], p.172)
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A reaction:
[compressed summary of Ruben 1990] Examples given are that Rome burning explains Nero fiddling, even if no one ever says so, and learning that George III had porphyria explains his madness.
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8120
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Objects can be beautiful which express nothing at all, such as the rainbow [Herbart, by Tolstoy]
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Full Idea:
Objects are often beautiful which express nothing at all, as, for instance, the rainbow, which is beautiful for its lines and colours and not for its mythological connexion with Iris, or Noah's rainbow.
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From:
report of Johann Herbart (works [1830]) by Leo Tolstoy - What is Art? Ch.3
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A reaction:
A nice counterexample to Tolstoy's own theory. The example is one of a natural beauty, but it would be harder to find examples in human art. How much the artist may feel, though, has little to do with the success of a work of art.
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16764
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The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
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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.
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From:
Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
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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.
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