Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'On 'The Beginning of Philosophy'' and 'Understanding'

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6 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 3. Philosophy Defined

19456	Philosophy is distinguished from other sciences by its complete lack of presuppositions [Feuerbach]
	Full Idea: Philosophy does not presuppose anything. It is precisely in this fact of non-presupposition that its beginning lies - a beginning by virtue of which it is set apart from all the other sciences.
	From: Ludwig Feuerbach (On 'The Beginning of Philosophy' [1841], p.135)
	A reaction: Most modern philosophers seem to laugh at such an idea, because everything is theory-laden, culture-laden, language-laden etc. As an aspiration I love it, and think good philosophers get quite close to the goal (which, I admit, is not fully attainable).

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.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19691	Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm]
	Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
	A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it.

19690	'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm]
	Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2)
	A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it.

19692	You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm]
	Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
	A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck?

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).