13 ideas
| 16129 | Evans argues (falsely!) that a contradiction follows from treating objects as vague [Evans, by Lowe] |
| Full Idea: Evans tries to derive a contradiction from the supposition that a given identity statement is of indeterminate truth-value. (As it happens, I consider that this argument is flawed) | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by E.J. Lowe - The Possibility of Metaphysics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: A priori, I wouldn't expect to be able to settle the question of whether there are any vague objects simply by following some logical derivation. Empirical examination, and conceptual analysis (or stipulation) have to be involved. |
| 16459 | Is it coherent that reality is vague, identities can be vague, and objects can have fuzzy boundaries? [Evans] |
| Full Idea: Maybe the world is vague, and vagueness is a necessary feature of any true description of it. Also identities may lack a determinate truth value because of their vagueness. Hence it is a fact that some objects have fuzzy boundaries. But is this coherent? | |
| From: Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Lewis quotes this introduction to the famous short paper, to show that Evans wasn't proposing a poor argument, but offering a reductio of the view that vagueness is 'ontic', or a feature of the world. |
| 16460 | Evans assumes there can be vague identity statements, and that his proof cannot be right [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The correct interpretation is that Evans trusts his reader (unwisely) to take for granted that there are vague identity statements, that a proof of the contrary cannot be right, and that the vagueness-in-describing view affords a diagnosis of the fallacy. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: [Lowe 199:11 is a culprit!] Lewis put this interpretation to Evans, who replied 'Yes, yes, yes!'. |
| 16457 | There clearly are vague identity statements, and Evans's argument has a false conclusion [Evans, by Lewis] |
| Full Idea: One problem with Evans's argument that there are no such thing as vague identity statements is that its conclusion is plainly false. Example: 'Princeton = Princeton Borough', where it is unsettled what region 'Princeton' denotes. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by David Lewis - Vague Identity: Evans misunderstood p.319 | |
| A reaction: Lewis endorses the view that vagueness is semantic. I certainly don't endorse Evans's argument, which hinges on a weird example of a property, as applied to Leibniz's Law. |
| 14484 | If a=b is indeterminate, then a=/=b, and so there cannot be indeterminate identity [Evans, by Thomasson] |
| Full Idea: We cannot accept the existence of vague objects, according to Evans's argument that there cannot be indeterminacy of identity. ...From the assumption that it is indeterminate whether a = b, we conclude, determinately, that it's not the case that a = b. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978]) by Amie L. Thomasson - Ordinary Objects 05.6 | |
| A reaction: I think we should keep intrinsic identity separate from identity between entities. A cloud can be clearly identified, while being a bit fuzzy. It is only when you ask whether we saw the same cloud that Evans's argument seems relevant. |
| 16224 | There can't be vague identity; a and b must differ, since a, unlike b, is only vaguely the same as b [Evans, by PG] |
| Full Idea: Two things can't be vaguely identical, because then a would have an indeterminacy which b lacks (namely, being perfectly identical to b), so by Leibniz's Law they can't be identical. | |
| From: report of Gareth Evans (Can there be Vague Objects? [1978], 4.7) by PG - Db (ideas) | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Katherine Hawley's summary (2001:118) of Evans] Hawley considers the argument to be valid. I have grave doubts about whether b's identity with b is the sort of property needed for an application of Liebniz's Law. |
| 24016 | Consciousness always transcends itself [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: It is of the essence of consciousness to transcend itself | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: As usual, I am a bit baffled by these sorts of pronouncement. Sounds like an oxymoron to me. Maybe it is a development of Schopenhauer's thought. |
| 24013 | An emotion and its object form a unity, so emotion is a mode of apprehension [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion returns to its object every moment, and feeds upon it. …The emotional subject and the object of the emotion are united in an indissoluble synthesis. Emotion is a specific manner of apprehending the world. …[39] It is a transformation of the world. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: The last sentence is the essence (or existence?) of Sartre's core theory of the emotions. They are, it seems, a mode of perception, like a colour filter added to a camera. I don't think I agree. I see them as a response to perceptions, not part of them. |
| 24017 | Emotion is one of our modes of understanding our Being-in-the-World [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion is not an accident, it is a mode of our conscious existence, one of the ways in which consciousness understands (in Heidegger's sense of verstehen) its Being-in-the-World. …It has a meaning. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: Calling emotions a 'mode' suggests that this way of understanding is intermittent, which seems wrong. Even performing arithmetical calculations is coloured by emotions, so they go deeper than a 'mode'. |
| 24014 | Emotions are a sort of bodily incantation which brings a magic to the world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Joy is the magical behaviour which tries, by incantation, to realise the possession of the desired object as an instantaneous totality. [47] Emotions are all reducible to the constitution of a magic world by using our bodies as instruments of incantation. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: I can't pretend to understand this, but I am reminded of the fact that the so-called primary qualities of perception are innately boring, and it is only the secondary qualities (like colour and smell) which make the world interesting. |
| 24015 | Emotions makes us believe in and live in a new world [Sartre] |
| Full Idea: Emotion is a phenomenon of belief. Consciousness does not limit itself to the projection of affective meanings upon the world around it; it lives the new world it has thereby constituted. | |
| From: Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939], §III) | |
| A reaction: There seems to be an implied anti-realism in this, since the emotions prevent us from relating more objectively to the world. The 'magic' seems to be compulsory. |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| 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'). |
| 20491 | States have a monopoly of legitimate violence [Sartre, by Wolff,J] |
| Full Idea: Max Weber observed that states possess a monopoly of legitimate violence. | |
| From: report of Jean-Paul Sartre (Sketch for a Theory of the Emotions [1939]) by Jonathan Wolff - An Introduction to Political Philosophy (Rev) 2 'State' | |
| A reaction: This sounds rather hair-raising, and often is, but it sounds quite good if we describe it as a denial of legitimate violence to individual citizens. Hobbes would like it, since individual violence breaches some sort of natural contract. Guns in USA. |