5 ideas
| 15102 | S4 says there must be some necessary truths (the actual ones, of which there is at least one) [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: S4 says there must be some necessary truths, because the actual necessary truths must be necessary. (It says if there are some actual necessary truths then that is so - but the S4 axiom is an actual necessary truth, if true). | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 2) |
| 15103 | Blackburn fails to show that the necessary cannot be grounded in the contingent [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: I conclude that Blackburn has not shown that any grounding of the necessary in the contingent (the Contingency Horn of his dilemma) is doomed to failure. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 2) | |
| A reaction: [You must read the article for details of Cameron's argument!] He goes on to also reject the Necessity Horn (that there is a regress if necessities must rely on necessities). |
| 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. |
| 22254 | Economic capitalist liberty naturally leads to democratic political liberty [Novak] |
| Full Idea: The natural logic of capitalism leads to democracy. For economic liberties without political liberties are inherently unstable. | |
| From: Michael Novak (The Spirit of Democratic Capitalism [1982], p.15), quoted by David Conway - Capitalism and Community II | |
| A reaction: Not sure about 'inherently unstable'. Only in the sense that if you dish out economic liberties, people come to expect political liberties. China and Hong Kong are each currently facing this problem. Capitalist liberty can be highly restricted. |
| 15104 | The 'moving spotlight' theory makes one time privileged, while all times are on a par ontologically [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: What seems so wrong about the 'moving spotlight' theory is that here one time is privileged, but all the times are on a par ontologically. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (On the Source of Necessity [2010], 4) | |
| A reaction: The whole thing is baffling, but this looks like a good point. All our intuitions make presentism (there's only the present) look like a better theory than the moving spotlight (that the present is just 'special'). |