Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art'', 'Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution' and 'Isagoge ('Introduction')'

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12 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 1. Universals

15034	Are genera and species real or conceptual? bodies or incorporeal? in sensibles or separate from them? [Porphyry]
	Full Idea: I shall beg off talking of a) whether genera and species are real or situated in bare thoughts alone, b) whether as real they are bodies or incorporeals, and c) whether they are separated or in sensibles and have their reality in connection with them.
	From: Porphyry (Isagoge ('Introduction') [c.295], (2))
	A reaction: This passage, picking up on Aristotle, seems to be the original source that grew into the medievel debate about universals. It seems to rather neatly lay out the agenda for the universals debate which is still with us.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind

16235	Persistence conditions cannot contradict, so there must be a 'dominant sortal' [Burke,M, by Hawley]
	Full Idea: Burke says a single object cannot have incompatible persistence conditions, for this would entail that there are events in which the object would both survive and perish. He says one sortal 'dominates' the other (sweater dominates thread).
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3
	A reaction: This I take to be the most extreme version of sortal essentialism, and strikes me as incredibly gerrymandered and unacceptable. It is just too anthropocentric to count as genuine metaphysics. I may care more about the thread.

14753	The 'dominant' of two coinciding sortals is the one that entails the widest range of properties [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Burke claims that the 'dominant' sortal is the one whose satisfaction entails possession of the widest range of properties. For example, the statue (unlike the lump of clay) also possesses aesthetic properties, and hence is dominant.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: [there are three papers by Burke on this; see all the quotations from Burke] Presumably one sortal could entail a single very important property, and the other sortal entail a huge range of trivial properties. What does being a 'thing' entail?

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates

16072	'The rock' either refers to an object, or to a collection of parts, or to some stuff [Burke,M, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: Burke distinguishes three different readings of 'the rock'. It can be a singular description denoting an object, or a plural description denoting all the little pieces of rock, or a mass description the relevant rocky stuff.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5
	A reaction: Idea 16068 is an objection to the second reading. Only the first reading seems plausible, so we must just get over all the difficulties philosophers have unearthed about knowing exactly what an 'object' is. I offer you essentialism. Rocks have unity.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail

14751	Tib goes out of existence when the tail is lost, because Tib was never the 'cat' [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Burke argues that Tib (the whole cat apart from its tail) goes out of existence when the tail is lost. His essentialist principle is that if something is ever of a particular sort (such as 'cat') then it is always of that sort. Tib is not initially a cat.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: This I take to be a souped up version of Wiggins, and I just don't buy that identity conditions are decided by sortals, when it seems obvious that sortals are parasitic on identities.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay

16071	Sculpting a lump of clay destroys one object, and replaces it with another one [Burke,M, by Wasserman]
	Full Idea: On Burke's view, the process of sculpting a lump of clay into a statue destroys one object (a mere lump of clay) and replaces it with another (a statue).
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Ryan Wasserman - Material Constitution 5
	A reaction: There is something right about this, but how many intermediate objects are created during the transition. It seems to make the notion of an object very conventional.

16234	Burke says when two object coincide, one of them is destroyed in the process [Burke,M, by Hawley]
	Full Idea: Michael Burke argues that a sweater is identical with the thread that consitutes it, that both were created at the moment when they began to coincide, and that the original thread was destroyed in the process.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Katherine Hawley - How Things Persist 5.3
	A reaction: [Burke's ideas are spread over three articles] It is the thread which is destroyed, because the sweater is the 'dominant sortal' (which strikes me as a particularlyd desperate concept).

13278	Maybe the clay becomes a different lump when it becomes a statue [Burke,M, by Koslicki]
	Full Idea: Burke has argued in a series of papers that the lump of clay which constitutes the statue is numerically distinct from the lump of clay which exists before or after the statue exists. The first is a statue, while the second is merely a lump of clay.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects
	A reaction: Koslicki objects that this introduces radically different persistence conditions from normal. It would mean that a pile of sugar was a different pile of sugar every time a grain moved (even slightly). You couldn't step into the same sugar twice.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / d. Coincident objects

14750	Two entities can coincide as one, but only one of them (the dominant sortal) fixes persistence conditions [Burke,M, by Sider]
	Full Idea: Michael Burke has given an account that avoids distinguishing coinciding entities. ...The statue/lump satisfies both 'lump' and 'statue', but only the latter determines that object's persistence conditions, and so is that object's 'dominant sortal'.
	From: report of Michael Burke (Dion and Theon: an essentialist solution [1994]) by Theodore Sider - Four Dimensionalism 5.4
	A reaction: Presumably a lump on its own can have its own persistance conditions (as a 'lump'), but those would presumably be lost if you shaped it into a statue. Burke concedes that. Can of worms. Using a book as a doorstop...

21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 1. Aesthetics

20327	Modern attention has moved from the intrinsic properties of art to its relational properties [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: In modern discussions, rather than look for intrinsic properties of objects, including aesthetic or formal properties, attention has turned to extrinsic or relational properties, notably of a social, historical, or 'institutional' nature.
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 1)
	A reaction: Lots of modern branches of philosophy have made this move, which seems to me like a defeat. We want to know why things have the relations they do. Just mapping the relations is superficial Humeanism.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 1. Defining Art

20326	Early 20th cent attempts at defining art focused on significant form, intuition, expression, unity [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: In the early twentieth century there were numerous attempts at defining the essence art. Significant form, intuition, the expression of emotion, organic unity, and other notions, were offered to this end.
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 1)
	A reaction: As far as I can see the whole of aesthetics was demolished in one blow by Marcel Duchamp's urinal. Artists announce: we will tell you what art is; you should just sit and listen. Compare the invention of an anarchic sport.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art

20330	The dualistic view says works of art are either abstract objects (types), or physical objects [Lamarque/Olson]
	Full Idea: The dualistic view of the arts holds that works of art come in two fundamentally different kinds: those that are abstract entities, i.e. types, and those that are physical objects (tokens).
	From: Lamargue,P/Olson,SH (Introductions to 'Aesthetics and the Phil of Art' [2004], Pt 2)
	A reaction: Paintings are the main reason for retaining physical objects. Strawson 1974 argues that paintings are only physical because we cannot yet perfectly reproduce them. I agree. Works of art are types, not tokens.