Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'The New Organon' and 'Two Concepts of Liberty'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events

8978	Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
	A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right.

8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 1. Nominalism / a. Nominalism

16639	Only individual bodies exist [Bacon]
	Full Idea: Nothing truly exists in nature beyond individual bodies.
	From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620]), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 182
	A reaction: [Unusually, Pasnau gives no reference in the text; possibly II:1-2] What this leaves out, from even an auster nominalist ontology, is undifferentiated stuff like water. Even electrons don't seem quite distinct from one another.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / c. Form as causal

16033	There are only individual bodies containing law-based powers, and the Forms are these laws [Bacon]
	Full Idea: Though nothing exists in nature except individual bodies which exhibit pure individual acts [powers] in accordance with law…It is this law and its clauses which we understand by the term Forms.
	From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620], p.103), quoted by Jan-Erik Jones - Real Essence §3
	A reaction: This isn't far off what Aristotle had in mind, when he talks of forms as being 'principles', though there is more emphasis on mechanisms in the original idea. Note that Bacon takes laws so literally that he refers to their 'clauses'.

14. Science / B. Scientific Theories / 2. Aim of Science

21950	Science must clear away the idols of the mind if they are ever going to find the truth [Bacon]
	Full Idea: We must clear away the idols and false notions which are now in possession of the human understanding, and have taken deep root therein, and so beset men's minds that truth can hardly find an entrance.
	From: Francis Bacon (The New Organon [1620], 38), quoted by Mark Wrathall - Heidegger: how to read 2
	A reaction: [He goes on to list the types of idol]

25. Social Practice / A. Freedoms / 5. Freedom of lifestyle

20544	Berlin distinguishes 'negative' and 'positive' liberty, and rejects the latter [Berlin, by Swift]
	Full Idea: Isaiah Berlin draws a famous distinction between 'negative' and 'positive' concepts of liberty, and argues that the latter should be seen as a wrong turning (because totalitarian regimes have invoked it).
	From: report of Isaiah Berlin (Two Concepts of Liberty [1958]) by Adam Swift - Political Philosophy (3rd ed) 2 'Intro'
	A reaction: Swift argues against him, saying that positive liberty is not a single concept (it's three), and has aspects that should be defended. I think I'm with Swift on that. Is religious freedom a freedom 'from' something, or a freedom 'to do' something?

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata

10364	Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
	A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out).