Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'On Medical Experience' and 'The Language of Morals'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

16050	The goodness of a picture supervenes on the picture; duplicates must be equally good [Hare]
	Full Idea: Characteristic of value-words is that they name 'supervenient' properties. If we are discussing whether a picture is a good picture, ..and there is another picture that is a replica of it, we cannot say 'they are alike, but one is good and the other not'.
	From: Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952], 5.2)
	A reaction: [compressed] Horgan says this is the passage which introduced 'supervenience' into contemporary discussions. I think the best simple word for it is that the goodness of the picture 'tracks' its physical characteristics. It also depend on them.

10. Modality / A. Necessity / 8. Transcendental Necessity

490	Everything happens by reason and necessity [Leucippus]
	Full Idea: Nothing happens at random; everything happens out of reason and by necessity.
	From: Leucippus (fragments/reports [c.435 BCE], B002), quoted by (who?) - where?

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism

2855	In primary evaluative words like 'ought' prescription is constant but description can vary [Hare, by Hooker,B]
	Full Idea: Hare says words are secondarily evaluative (e.g. 'soft-hearted') if prescriptive meaning varies but description is constant; primarily evaluative words ('good', 'right', 'ought') are the opposite, with the descriptive content varying.
	From: report of Richard M. Hare (The Language of Morals [1952]) by Brad W. Hooker - Prescriptivism p.640
	A reaction: I would have thought that the prescriptive meaning of the evaluative word could at least vary in strength. You really, really ought to do that.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean

7453	Galen's medicine followed the mean; each illness was balanced by opposite treatment [Galen, by Hacking]
	Full Idea: Galen ran medicine on the principle of the mean; afflictions must be treated by contraries; hot diseases deserve cold medicine and moist illnesses want drying agents. (Paracelsus rebelled, treating through similarity).
	From: report of Galen (On Medical Experience [c.169]) by Ian Hacking - The Emergence of Probability Ch.5
	A reaction: This must be inherited from Aristotle, with the aim of virtue for the body, as Aristotle wanted virtue for the psuché. In some areas Galen is probably right, that natural balance is the aim, as in bodily temperature control.