Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'God and Human Attributes', 'The Tragic Sense of Life' and 'Properties'

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6 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 2. Need for Properties
We accept properties because of type/tokens, reference, and quantification [Edwards]
     Full Idea: Three main reasons for thinking properties exist: the one-over-many argument (that a type can have many tokens), the reference argument (to understand predicates and singular terms), and the quantification argument (that we quantify over them).
     From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 1.1)
     A reaction: [Bits in brackets are compressions of his explanations]. I don't find any of these remotely persuasive. Why would we infer how the world is, simply from how we talk about or reason about the world? His first reason is the only interesting one.
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 10. Properties as Predicates
Quineans say that predication is primitive and inexplicable [Edwards]
     Full Idea: The Quinean claims that the application of a predicate cannot, in principle, be explained - it is a 'primitive' fact.
     From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 4.4)
     A reaction: I am not clear what 'principle' could endorse this claim. There just seems to be a possible failure of all the usual attempts at explaining predication.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
Resemblance nominalism requires a second entity to explain 'the rose is crimson' [Edwards]
     Full Idea: For resemblance nominalism the sentence 'the rose is crimson' commits us to at least one other entity that the rose resembles in order for it to be crimson.
     From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.5.2)
     A reaction: If the theory really needs this, then it has just sunk without trace. It can't suddenly cease to be crimson when the last resembling entity disappears.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
That a whole is prior to its parts ('priority monism') is a view gaining in support [Edwards]
     Full Idea: The view of 'priority monism' - that the whole is prior to its parts - is controversial, but has been growing in support
     From: Douglas Edwards (Properties [2014], 5.4.4)
     A reaction: The simple and plausible thought is, I take it, that parts only count as parts when a whole comes into existence, so a whole is needed to generate parts. Thus the whole must be prior to the parts. Fine by me.
24. Political Theory / A. Basis of a State / 1. A People / a. Human distinctiveness
Maybe humans are distinguished from other animals by feelings, rather than reason [Unamuno]
     Full Idea: Man is said to be a reasoning animal. I do not know why he has not been defined as an affective or feeling animal. Perhaps that which differentiates him from other animals is feeling rather than reason.
     From: Miguel de Unamuno (The Tragic Sense of Life [1912], p.3), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 2 'Problem'
     A reaction: Perfectly plausible, given that we presume that our feelings are startlingly different from other animals - even if we feel far more community with other mammals than we did in Unamuno's day.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / c. Moral Argument
God must be fit for worship, but worship abandons morally autonomy, but there is no God [Rachels, by Davies,B]
     Full Idea: Rachels argues 1) If any being is God, he must be a fitting object of worship, 2) No being could be a fitting object of worship, since worship requires the abandonment of one's role as an autonomous moral agent, so 3) There cannot be a being who is God.
     From: report of James Rachels (God and Human Attributes [1971], 7 p.334) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 9 'd morality'
     A reaction: Presumably Lionel Messi can be a fitting object of worship without being God. Since the problem is with being worshipful, rather than with being God, should I infer that Messi doesn't exist?