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21982
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I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
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Full Idea:
"I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
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From:
Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
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A reaction:
[Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.
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5495
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Instances of pain are physical tokens, but the nature of pain is more abstract [Putnam, by Lycan]
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Full Idea:
In machine functionalism, pain tokens (individual instances of pain) are identical with particular neurophysiological states, but pain itself, the kind, universal, or 'type', can be identified only with something more abstract.
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From:
report of Hilary Putnam (The Mental Life of Some Machines [1967]) by William Lycan - Introduction - Ontology p.6
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A reaction:
This is where the "what is it like?" question seems important. Pain doesn't seem like a physical object, or an abstract idea. Personally I think the former is more likely to be correct than the latter. Causation by pain is not like causation by gravity.
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16566
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Poetry is more philosophic than history, as it concerns universals, not particulars [Aristotle]
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Full Idea:
Poetry is something more philosophic and of graver import than history, since its statements are rather of universals, whereas those of history are singulars.
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From:
Aristotle (The Poetics [c.347 BCE], 1451b05)
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A reaction:
Hm. Characters in great novels achieve universality by being representated very particularly. Great depth of mind seems required to be a poet, but less so for a historian (though there is, I presume, no upward limit on the possible level of thought).
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