Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'An Ontology of Art' and 'What is an Emotion?'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
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.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / a. Nature of emotions
Rage is inconceivable without bodily responses; so there are no disembodied emotions [James]
     Full Idea: Can one fancy a state of rage and picture no flushing of the face, no dilation of the nostrils, no clenching of the teeth, no impulse to vigorous action? …A purely disembodied human emotion is a nonentity.
     From: William James (What is an Emotion? [1884], p.194), quoted by Peter Goldie - The Emotions 3 'Bodily'
     A reaction: Plausible for rage, but less so for irritation or admiration. Goldie thinks James is wrong. James says if intellectual feelings don't become bodily then they don't qualify as emotions. No True Scotsman!
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art
If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach]
     Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently.
     From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3
     A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings.