Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Political Liberalism' and 'In Defense of Absolute Essentialism'

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10 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier

13804	A property is essential iff the object would not exist if it lacked that property [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: A property P is an essential property of an object x iff x could not exist and lack P, that is, as they say, iff x has P at every world at which x exists.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 1)
	A reaction: This immediately places the existence of x outside the normal range of its properties, so presumably 'existence is not a predicate', but that dictum may be doubted. As it stands this definition will include trivial and vacuous properties.

13805	Properties are trivially essential if they are not grounded in a thing's specific nature [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: Essential properties may be trivial or nontrivial. It is characteristic of P's being trivially essential to x that x's possession of P is not grounded in the specific nature of x.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
	A reaction: This is where my objection to the modal view of essence arises. How is he going to explain 'grounded' and 'specific nature' without supplying an entirely different account of essence?

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties

13808	A relation is essential to two items if it holds in every world where they exist [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: A relation R is essential to x and y (in that order) iff Rxy holds at every world where x and y both exist.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
	A reaction: I find this bizarre. Not only does this seem to me to have nothing whatever to do with essence, but also the relation might hold even though it is a purely contingent matter. All rabbits are a reasonable distance from the local star. Essence of rabbit?

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / c. Essentials are necessary

13806	Trivially essential properties are existence, self-identity, and de dicto necessities [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: The main groups of trivially essential properties are (a) existence, self-identity, or their consequences in S5; and (b) properties possessed in virtue of some de dicto necessary truth.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
	A reaction: He adds 'extraneously essential' properties, which also strike me as being trivial, involving relations. 'Is such that 2+2=4' or 'is such that something exists' might be necessary, but they don't, I would say, have anything to do with essence.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties

13807	A property is 'extraneously essential' if it is had only because of the properties of other objects [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: P is 'extraneously essential' to x iff it is possessed by x at any world w only in virtue of the possession at w of certain properties by other objects.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 2)
	A reaction: I would say that these are the sorts of properties which have nothing to do with being essential, even if they are deemed to be necessary.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 11. Essence of Artefacts

13809	One might be essentialist about the original bronze from which a statue was made [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: In the case of artefacts, there is an essentialism about original matter; for instance, it would be said of any particular bronze statue that it could not have been cast from a totally different quantity of bronze.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3)
	A reaction: Forbes isn't endorsing this, and it doesn't sound convincing. He quotes the thought 'I wish I had made this pot from a different piece of clay'. We might corrupt a statue by switching bronze, but I don't think the sculptor could do so.

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 4. Necessity from Concepts

13810	The source of de dicto necessity is not concepts, but the actual properties of the thing [Forbes,G]
	Full Idea: It is widely held that the source of de dicto necessity is in concepts, ..but I deny this... even with simple de dicto necessities, the source of the necessity is to be found in the properties to which the predicates of the de dicto truth refer.
	From: Graeme Forbes (In Defense of Absolute Essentialism [1986], 3)
	A reaction: It is normal nowadays to say this about de re necessities, but this is more unusual.

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').

23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 3. Universalisability

21051	Check your rationality by thinking of your opinion pronounced by the supreme court [Rawls]
	Full Idea: To check whether we are following public reason we might ask: how would our argument strike us presented in the form of a supreme court opinion?
	From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.254), quoted by Michael J. Sandel - Justice: What's the right thing to do? 10
	A reaction: A very nice practical implementation of Kantian universalisability. How would your opinion sound if it were written into a constitution?

24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / c. Social contract

21119	Power is only legitimate if it is reasonable for free equal citizens to endorse the constitution [Rawls]
	Full Idea: Exercise of political power is fully proper only when it is exercised in accordance with a constitution the essentials of which all citizens as free and equal may reasonably be expected to endorse in light of principles and ideals acceptable to reason.
	From: John Rawls (Political Liberalism [1993], p.217), quoted by Andrew Shorten - Contemporary Political Theory 02
	A reaction: This is not the actual endorsement of Rousseau, or the tacit endorsement of Locke (by living there), but adds a Kantian appeal to a rational consensus, on which rational people should converge. Very Enlightenment. 'Hypothetical consent'.