18914
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Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen]
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Full Idea:
An alternative, and still controversial, extension of first-order logic is due to Donald Davidson, who allows for quantification over events.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3
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A reaction:
I'm suddenly thinking this is quite an attractive proposal. We need to quantify over facts, or states of affairs, or events, or some such thing, to talk about the world properly. Objects, predicates and sets/parts is too sparse. I like facts.
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14004
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We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne]
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Full Idea:
Davidson claims that we require the existence of events in order to make sense of a) action statements, b) causal statements, c) explanation, d) the mind-body problem, and e) the logic of adverbial modification.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], Intro IIb) by Craig Bourne - A Future for Presentism
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A reaction:
Events are a nice shorthand, but I don't like them in a serious ontology. Prior says there objects and what happens to them; Kim reduces events to other things. Processes are more clearly individuated than events.
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7903
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The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
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Full Idea:
The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
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From:
Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
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A reaction:
What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
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15314
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Faraday's single field of variable forces introduces a criterion of Unity into what is ultimate [Faraday, by Harré/Madden]
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Full Idea:
In Faraday lines of force picture the directional structure of powers,...so the fundamental entity is a single, unified field. ...A new criterion of the ultimate has stepped in: Unity. The universal field is still the final explanation, but not invariant.
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From:
report of Michael Faraday (Experimental Researches in Electricity [1859]) by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B
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A reaction:
Almost Parmenides, except that the field is not invariant. But that was always the ancient objection to the One - that it offered no explanation of change.
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