5 ideas
| 19480 | Process philosophy places the dynamic nature of being at the centre of our theories [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: Process philosophy is based on the premise that being is dynamic and that the dynamic nature of being should be the primary focus of any comprehensive philosophical account of reality and our place within it. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Put like that, the chief ancestor of this approach would be Leibniz, even though his central idea concerns substances. Heraclitus is the most famous ancestor of Process Philosophy. Powers are dynamic, but powers of what? |
| 19479 | Reductionists identify processes by their 'owner', but tornadoes etc. are processes without owners [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: On the reductionist view of processes, they are all 'owned' and we identify them by their owner (such as the murder of Caesar), ...but many processes (e.g. tornadoes, lightning bolts, the NY rush hour) lack a proper 'subject' altogether. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be a fairly conclusive refutation of the view that processes are just objects changing their properties. |
| 19481 | Traditionally small things add up to processes, but quantum mechanics reverses this [Seibt] |
| Full Idea: Instead of very small things (atoms) combining to produce standard processes (snowstorms), modern physics envisions very small processes (quantum phenomena) combining to produce standard things. | |
| From: Johanna Seibt (Process Philosophy [2012], 4 (i)) | |
| A reaction: Though electrons seem to be distinct things with a fixed set of properties, so this is not a clear point. Where do fields come into it? Beware of citing quantum mechanics in metaphysics! |
| 6019 | If someone squashed a horse to make a dog, something new would now exist [Mnesarchus] |
| Full Idea: If, for the sake of argument, someone were to mould a horse, squash it, then make a dog, it would be reasonable for us on seeing this to say that this previously did not exist but now does exist. | |
| From: Mnesarchus (fragments/reports [c.120 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 179.11 | |
| A reaction: Locke would say it is new, because the substance is the same, but a new life now exists. A sword could cease to exist and become a new ploughshare, I would think. Apply this to the Ship of Theseus. Is form more important than substance? |
| 21131 | Democracy is competition for support of the people, guided by self-interest on all sides [Posner] |
| Full Idea: Democratic politics is a competition among self-interested politicians, constituting a ruling class, for the support of the people, also assumed to be self-interested, and none too interested or well informed about politics. | |
| From: Richard Posner (Law, Pragmatism and Democracy [2003], p.144), quoted by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 05 | |
| A reaction: This articulates the 'competitive' view of democracy, as simply a technique for establishing legitimacy. Posner is also an economist, and they also assume that everyone is wholly self-interested, which may be why they are so frequently wrong. |