Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Inverted Earth'

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4 ideas

13. Knowledge Criteria / E. Relativism / 2. Knowledge as Convention
By nature people are close to one another, but culture drives them apart [Hippias]
     Full Idea: I regard you all as relatives - by nature, not by convention. By nature like is akin to like, but convention is a tyrant over humankind and often constrains people to act contrary to nature.
     From: Hippias (fragments/reports [c.430 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Protagoras 337c8
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 5. Qualia / b. Qualia and intentionality
The Inverted Earth example shows that phenomenal properties are not representational [Block, by Rowlands]
     Full Idea: Block's Inverted Earth example (with matching inversion of both colours and colour-language) tries to show a variation of representational properties without a variation of phenomenal properties, so that the latter are not constituted by the former.
     From: report of Ned Block (Inverted Earth [1990]) by Mark Rowlands - Externalism Ch.7
     A reaction: (The example is actually quite complex). This type of argument - a thought experiment in which qualia are held steady while everything else varies, or vice versa - seems to be the only way that we can possibly get at an assessment of the role of qualia.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.