Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letters to Edward Stillingfleet', 'Representation in Music' and 'The Sense of Reality'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / B. History of Ideas / 1. History of Ideas

7460	The great moments are the death of Aristotle, Machiavelli, and Romanticism [Berlin, by Watson]
	Full Idea: Berlin says there were three great turning points: after the death of Aristotle (when Greek schools focused on the inner life of individuals, instead of as social beings), Machiavelli's division of political and individual virtues, and Romanticism.
	From: report of Isaiah Berlin (The Sense of Reality [1996], p.168-9) by Peter Watson - Ideas Intro
	A reaction: I have the impression that Machiavelli introduced a new hard-boiled ethics, which dominated the sixteenth century, but in the seventeenth and eighteenth century they fought back, and Machiavellianism turned out to be just a phase.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences

15990	Every individual thing which exists has an essence, which is its internal constitution [Locke]
	Full Idea: I take essences to be in everything that internal constitution or frame for the modification of substance, which God in his wisdom gives to every particular creature, when he gives it a being; and such essences I grant there are in all things that exist.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 1), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement I have found of Locke's commitment to essences, for all his doubts about whether we can know such things. Alexander says (ch.13) Locke was reacting against scholastic essence, as pertaining to species.

11. Knowledge Aims / B. Certain Knowledge / 1. Certainty

15994	If it is knowledge, it is certain; if it isn't certain, it isn't knowledge [Locke]
	Full Idea: What reaches to knowledge, I think may be called certainty; and what comes short of certainty, I think cannot be knowledge.
	From: John Locke (Letters to Edward Stillingfleet [1695], Letter 2), quoted by Simon Blackburn - Quasi-Realism no Fictionalism
	A reaction: I much prefer that fallibilist approach offered by the pragmatists. Knowledge is well-supported belief which seems (and is agreed) to be true, but there is a small shadow of doubt hanging over all of it.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 4. Art as Expression

12167	Reference without predication is the characteristic of expression [Scruton]
	Full Idea: Characteristic of expression is the presence of 'reference' without predication.
	From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.71)
	A reaction: This echoes (in linguistic terms) Kant's thought that art is 'purposive without purpose'. The remark is comfortable in an essay on music, but it gets more tricky when the topic is literature, or even representational painting.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 5. Art as Language

12166	If music refers to love, it contains no predication, so it is expression, not language [Scruton]
	Full Idea: If a passage carries a reference to love, we are not told what it says about love. And to speak of language with 'reference' but no predication is simply to misuse the word. We leave the realm of representation and enter that of expression.
	From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.63-4)
	A reaction: This is a beautifully simple objection to the idea (associated with Nelson Goodman) that art is a language. Though what an 'expression' of something amounts to I am not quite sure.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / a. Music

12168	Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to it [Scruton]
	Full Idea: Music is not representational, since thoughts about a subject are never essential to the understanding of music.
	From: Roger Scruton (Representation in Music [1976], p.74)
	A reaction: I would not have thought that many people thought music was representational, but Scruton particularly mentions passages in opera that seem to pick up aspects of the story. Do even bell sounds not represent bells?