19382
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Abstracta are abbreviated ways of talking; there are just substances, and truths about them [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
I consider abstracta not as real things but as abbreviated ways of talking ...and to that extent I am a nominalist, at least provisionally ...It suffices to posit only substances as real things, and, to assert truths about these.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (On the Reality of Accidents [1688]), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz
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A reaction:
I am a modern nominalist, in my hostility to a serious ontological commitment to abstracta. You get into trouble, though, if you say there are only objects or substances. Physics says reality may all be 'fields', or something.... 'Truths' is good.
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19554
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Denying closure is denying we know P when we know P and Q, which is absurd in simple cases [Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
How could we know that P and Q but not be in a position to know that P (as deniers of closure must say)? If my glass is full of wine, we know 'g is full of wine, and not full of non-wine'. How can we deny that we know it is not full of non-wine?
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From:
John Hawthorne (The Case for Closure [2005], 2)
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A reaction:
Hawthorne merely raises this doubt. Dretske is concerned with heavyweight implications, but how do you accept lightweight implications like this one, and then suddenly reject them when they become too heavy? [see p.49]
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22235
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Feelings are not unchanging, but have a history (especially if they are noble) [Foucault]
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Full Idea:
We believe that feelings are immutable, but every sentiment, particularly the most noble and disinterested, has a history.
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From:
Michel Foucault (Nietzsche, Genealogy, History [1971], p.86), quoted by Johanna Oksala - How to Read Foucault 5
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A reaction:
This is the sort of remark that makes me think Foucault is worth reading. Aristotle thought you could teach correct feelings. That implies that you can also teach incorrect feelings.
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