Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Aristotle and Descartes on Matter', 'Causes and Events: Mackie on causation' and 'Positions'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 6. Deconstruction

8216	Deconstruction is not neutral; it intervenes [Derrida]
	Full Idea: Deconstruction, I have insisted, is not neutral. It intervenes.
	From: Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.76)
	A reaction: This, I think, is because there is in Derrida, as in most French philosophers, a strong streak of Marxism, and a desire to change the world, rather than merely understanding it. Idea 8213 shows the sort of thing he wants to change.

2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic

8213	I try to analyse certain verbal concepts which block and confuse the dialectical process [Derrida]
	Full Idea: I have tried to analyse certain marks in writing which are undecidables, false verbal properties, which inhabit philosophical opposition, resisting and disorganising it, without ever constituting a third term, withour ever leaving room for a solution.
	From: Jacques Derrida (Positions [1971], p.40)
	A reaction: [I have simplified his sentence!] Much of Derrida seems to be a commentary on the Hegelian dialectic, and the project is presumably to figure out why philosophy is not advancing in the way we would like. Interesting...

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events

4779	For Kim, events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times [Kim, by Psillos]
	Full Idea: A dominant view, attributed mainly to Kim, is that events are exemplifications of properties by objects at particular times.
	From: report of Jaegwon Kim (Causes and Events: Mackie on causation [1971]) by Stathis Psillos - Causation and Explanation §2.6
	A reaction: The obvious thought is that we might not describe something as an 'event' just because a property was exemplified (seeing red?). And WWII was an event, but a bit more than a 'property exemplification'.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / b. Prime matter

19399	Prime matter is nothing when it is at rest [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Primary matter is nothing if considered at rest.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Aristotle and Descartes on Matter [1671], p.90)
	A reaction: This goes with Leibniz's Idea 13393, that activity is the hallmark of existence. No one seems to have been able to make good sense of prime matter, and it plays little role in Aristotle's writings.