Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Events and Their Names' and 'At the Existentialist Caf'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

5 ideas

1. Philosophy / H. Continental Philosophy / 2. Phenomenology

21238	Later phenomenologists tried hard to incorporate social relationships [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Ever since Husserl, phenomenologists and existentialists had been trying to stretch the definition of existence to incorporate our social lives and relationships.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 08)
	A reaction: I see a parallel move in Wittgenstein's Private Language Argument. Husserl's later work seems to have been along those lines. Putnam's Twin Earth too.

21237	Phenomenology begins from the immediate, rather than from axioms and theories [Bakewell]
	Full Idea: Traditional philosophy often started with abstract axioms or theories, but the German phenomenologists went straight for life as they experienced it, moment to moment.
	From: Sarah Bakewell (At the Existentialist Café [2016], 01)
	A reaction: Bakewell gives this as the gist of what Aron said to Sartre in 1933, providing the bridge from phenomenology to existentialism. The obvious thought is that everybody outside philosophy starts from immediate experience, so why is this philosophy?

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / c. Reduction of events

8978	Events are made of other things, and are not fundamental to ontology [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Events are not basic items in the universe; they should not be included in any fundamental ontology...all the truths about them are entailed by and explained and made true by truths that do not involve the event concept.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.12), quoted by Peter Simons - Events 3.1
	A reaction: Given the variable time spans of events, their ability to coincide, their ability to contain no motion, their blatantly conventional component, and their recalcitrance to individuation, I say Bennett is right.

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 / C. Causation / 8. Particular Causation / b. Causal relata

10364	Facts are about the world, not in it, so they can't cause anything [Bennett]
	Full Idea: Facts are not the sort of item that can cause anything. A fact is a true proposition (they say); it is not something in the world but is rather something about the world.
	From: Jonathan Bennett (Events and Their Names [1988], p.22), quoted by Jonathan Schaffer - The Metaphysics of Causation 1.1
	A reaction: Compare 10361. Good argument, but maybe 'fact' is ambiguous. See Idea 10365. Events are said to be more concrete, and so can do the job, but their individuation also seems to depend on a description (as Davidson has pointed out).