Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', '64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals' and 'Scientific Thought'

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9 ideas

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 4. Four-Dimensionalism
14759 A thing is simply a long event, linked by qualities, and spatio-temporal unity [Broad]
     Full Idea: A thing is simply a long event, throughout the course of which there is either qualitative similarity or continuous qualitative change, together with a characteristic spatio-temporal unity.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], 10 'Duration')
     A reaction: At least he is trying to give some sort of principle that links the stages of the event together.
11842 If short-lived happenings like car crashes are 'events', why not long-lived events like Dover Cliffs? [Broad]
     Full Idea: We call a lightning flash or a motor accident an event, but refuse to apply this to the cliffs of Dover. ...But quantitative differences (of time) give no good grounds for calling one bit of history an event, and refusing the name to another bit.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], p.54), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 2.3 n13
     A reaction: Wiggins calls this proposal a 'terrible absurdity', but it seems to me to demand attention. There is a case to be made for a 'process' to be the fundamental category of our ontology, with stable physical objects seen in that light.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
1477 Being manly and brave is the result of convention, not of human nature [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Manliness is not a natural human attribute, otherwise women would be just as brave. It is due to pressure from laws, and this pressure has no free will, but is a slave of convention and criticism.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 988c)
     A reaction: This is the first glimmerings of seeing gender as a cultural creation, rather than as a fact. Presumably he takes the same view of some of the supposed feminine virtues.
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.
22. Metaethics / C. The Good / 3. Pleasure / e. Role of pleasure
1478 Animals don't value pleasure, as they cease sexual intercourse after impregnation [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Animals of both sexes cease to have intercourse after impregnation; that shows how little animals value pleasure, and that nature is all that counts.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
     A reaction: A famous monkey had an implant to stimulate pleasure, and a button to trigger it. It apparently would have starved to death rather than release the button. Animal sex is dull?
25. Social Practice / F. Life Issues / 5. Sexual Morality
1479 Animals have not been led into homosexuality, because they value pleasure very little [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Because animals value pleasure very little, they have not been led into sex between males or between females.
     From: Plutarch (64: Gryllus - on Rationality in Animals [c.85], 990d)
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / g. Growing block
8160 The present and past exist, but the future does not [Broad, by Dummett]
     Full Idea: Not only the present but also the past exist, but the future (so long as it is the future) does not.
     From: report of C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923]) by Michael Dummett - Thought and Reality 1
     A reaction: This is quite appealing, and seems right if you believe that every truth has a truthmaker, and that there are no truths about the future. And yet the whole misery of people dying is that they cease to exist.
14609 We could say present and past exist, but not future, so that each event adds to the total history [Broad]
     Full Idea: One theory accepts the reality of the present and the past, but holds that the future is simply nothing at all. Nothing has happened to the present by becoming past except that fresh slices of existence have been added to the total history of the world.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
     A reaction: This is now known as Broad's 'Growing Block' view of time. It is tempting to say that neither past nor future exist, but it seems undeniable that statements about the past can be wholly true, unlike those about the future.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series
22933 We imagine the present as a spotlight, moving across events from past to future [Broad]
     Full Idea: We imagine presentness moving, like the spot of light from a policeman's bulls eye traversing the fronts of houses in a street. What is illuminated is present, what was illuminated is past, and what is not yet illuminated is the future.
     From: C.D. Broad (Scientific Thought [1923], II)
     A reaction: This is the 'moving spotlight' compromise theory, which retains the B-series eternal sequence of ordered events, but adds the A-series privileged present moment. Le Poidevin says Broad represents time twice over.