Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'The Poetics' and 'Identity through Possible Worlds'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

21982	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]
	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."
	From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
	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.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences

11966	If there are essential properties, how do you find out what they are? [Chisholm]
	Full Idea: It seems to me that if Adam does have essential properties, there is no procedure at all for finding out what they are.
	From: Roderick Chisholm (Identity through Possible Worlds [1967], p.85)
	A reaction: My tentative suggestion is that the essential properties are those which explain the nature, power, function and role of Adam in the 'actual' world. Whatever possibilities he acquires, he had better retain the capacity to be the First Man.

10. Modality / B. Possibility / 1. Possibility

22518	The actual must be possible, because it occurred [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Actual events are evidently possible, otherwise they would not have occurred.
	From: Aristotle (The Poetics [c.347 BCE], 1451b18)
	A reaction: [quoted online by Peter Adamson] Seems like common sense, but it's important to have Aristotle assert it.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / a. Transworld identity

11965	Could possible Adam gradually transform into Noah, and vice versa? [Chisholm]
	Full Idea: If Adam lived for 931 years in a possible world, instead of his actual 930 years, ..then Adam and Noah could gradually exchange their ages and other properties...and we could trace Adam in a world back to the actual Noah, and vice versa.
	From: Roderick Chisholm (Identity through Possible Worlds [1967], p.81-2)
	A reaction: [very compressed] Chisholm was one of the first to raise this problem for possible worlds, though it had been Quine's objection to modal logic all along. Only Adam having essential properties seems to stop this slippery slope, says Chisholm.

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 8. The Arts / b. Literature

16566	Poetry is more philosophic than history, as it concerns universals, not particulars [Aristotle]
	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.
	From: Aristotle (The Poetics [c.347 BCE], 1451b05)
	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).