Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'works' and 'Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / a. Nature of grounding
17304 As causation links across time, grounding links the world across levels [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Grounding is something like metaphysical causation. Just as causation links the world across time, grounding links the world across levels. Grounding connects the more fundamental to the less fundamental, and thereby backs a certain form of explanation.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], Intro)
     A reaction: Obviously you need 'levels' for this, which we should take to be structural levels.
17306 If ground is transitive and irreflexive, it has a strict partial ordering, giving structure [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: By treating grounding as transitive (and irreflexive), one generates a strict partial ordering that induces metaphysical structure.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], Intro)
     A reaction: Schaffer's paper goes on to attach the claim that grounding is transitive, but I didn't find his examples very convincing.
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / b. Contrastive explanations
17308 Explaining 'Adam ate the apple' depends on emphasis, and thus implies a contrast [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Explaining why ADAM ate the apple is a different matter from explaining why he ATE the apple, and from why he ate THE APPLE. ...In my view the best explanations incorporate ....contrastive information.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
     A reaction: But why are the contrasts Eve, or throwing it, or a pear? It occurs to me that this is wrong! The contrast is with anything else which could have gone in subject, verb or object position. It is a matter of categories, not of contrasts.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 5. Parallelism
3449 If parallelism is true, how does the mind know about the body? [Crease]
     Full Idea: In parallelism, the idea that we have a body is like an astronaut hearing shouting on the moon, and reasoning that as this is impossible he must be simultaneously imagining shouting AND there is real shouting taking place!
     From: Jason Crease (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: This seems to capture the absurdity of Leibniz's proposal. I experience what my brain is doing, but not because my brain is doing it. I would never know if God had made a slight error in setting His two 'clocks'; their accuracy is just a pious hope.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
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').
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 1. Nature
17305 I take what is fundamental to be the whole spatiotemporal manifold and its fields [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: I myself would prefer to speak of what is fundamental in terms of the whole spatiotemporal manifold and the fields that permeate it, with parts counting as derivative of the whole.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.1.1)
     A reaction: Not quite the Parmenidean One, since it has parts, but a nice try at updating the great man. Note the reference to 'fields', suggesting that this view is grounded in the physics rather than metaphysics. How many fields has it got?
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
17307 Nowadays causation is usually understood in terms of equations and variable ranges [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: The leading treatments of causation work within 'structural equation models', with events represented via variables each of which is allotted a range of permitted values, which constitute a 'contrast space'.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Grounding, Transitivity and Contrastivity [2012], 4.3.1)
     A reaction: Like Woodward's idea that causation is a graph, this seems to be a matter of plotting or formalising correlations between activities, which is a very Humean approach to causation.