Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Events and Their Names', 'Letter to Mersenne' and 'Some Main Problems of Philosophy'

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4 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / c. Philosophy as generalisation

17992	The main aim of philosophy is to describe the whole Universe. [Moore,GE]
	Full Idea: It seems to me that the most important and interesting thing which philosophers have tried to do ...is to give a general description of the whole of the Universe.
	From: G.E. Moore (Some Main Problems of Philosophy [1911], Ch. 1)
	A reaction: He adds that they aim to show what is in it, and what might be in it, and how the two relate. This sort of big view is the one I favour. I think the hallmark of philosophical thought is a high level of generality. He next proceeds to defend common sense.

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.

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 3. Constraints on the will

3789	The more reasons that compel me, the freer I am [Descartes]
	Full Idea: I move the more freely towards an object in proportion to the number of reasons which compel me.
	From: René Descartes (Letter to Mersenne [1642])

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).