16776
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Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus]
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Full Idea:
Substance ...is an ens per se. No part of a substance is an ens per se when it is part of a substance, because then it would be a particular thing, and one substance would be a particular thing from many things, which does not seem to be true.
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From:
John Duns Scotus (In Praed. [1300], 15.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1
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A reaction:
The tricky bit is 'when it is a part of a substance', meaning a substance must cease to be a substance when it is subsumed into some greater substance. Maybe. Drops of water? Molecules? Bricks? Cells?
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9382
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Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
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Full Idea:
I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
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From:
Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
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A reaction:
I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.
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21099
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People must have agreed to authority, because they are naturally equal, prior to education [Hume]
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Full Idea:
When we consider how nearly equal all men are in their bodily force, and even in their mental powers and faculties, till cultivated by education, ...then nothing but their own consent could at first associate them together, and subject them to authority.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.276)
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A reaction:
This doesn't sound very convincing. Some people are much better suited than others to training and education. Men vary enormously in size.
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20495
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We no more give 'tacit assent' to the state than a passenger carried on board a ship while asleep [Hume]
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Full Idea:
[If we give 'tacit' assent to the state] ...we may as well assert that a man, by remaining in a vessel, freely consents to the dominion of the master, though he was carried aboard while asleep.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
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A reaction:
We should probably drop the whole idea that we give assent to the state. We are stuck with a state, and a few of us can escape, if it seems important enough, but most of us have no choice. He hope to assent to the controllers of the state.
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6703
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Poor people lack the knowledge or wealth to move to a different state [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Can we seriously say, that a poor peasant or artisan has a free choice to leave his country, when he knows no foreign language or manners, and lives, from day to day, by the small wages that he acquires?
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.283)
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A reaction:
Of course, in the nineteenth century the Scottish poor did, going to America, which welcomed the poor, and spoke English. Hume's point is the right reply to anyone who says 'If you don't like it, go elsewhere'. Also 'No! Change it!'
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21102
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We all know that the history of property is founded on injustices [Hume]
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Full Idea:
Reason tells us that there is no property in durable objects, such as land or houses, when carefully examined in passing from hand to hand, but must, in some period, have been founded on fraud and injustice.
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From:
David Hume (Of the original contract [1741], p.288)
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A reaction:
A prime objection to Nozick, who fantasises about an initial position of just ownership, which can then be the subject of just contracts. In 1866 thousands of white people were granted land in the USA, but not a single black freed slave got anything.
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