Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'Ars Magna' and 'Aspects of the Theory of Syntax'

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


4 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / A. Overview of Logic / 2. History of Logic
Lull's combinatorial art would articulate all the basic concepts, then show how they combine [Lull, by Arthur,R]
     Full Idea: Lull proposed a combinatorial art. He wanted to reconcile Islam and Christianity by articulating the basic concepts that their belief systems held in common, and then inventing a device that would allow these concepts to be combined.
     From: report of Ramon (Ars Magna [1305]) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 2 Intro
     A reaction: Leibniz's Universal Characteristic was an attempt at continuing Lull's project. Lull's plan rested on Aristotle's categories.
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 1. Syntax
Chomsky's 'interpretative semantics' says syntax comes first, and is then interpreted [Chomsky, by Magidor]
     Full Idea: Chomsky and his followers (whose position was labelled 'interpretative semantics') claimed that a sentence is first assigned a syntactic structure by an autonomous syntactic module, and this structure is then provided as input for semantic interpretation.
     From: report of Noam Chomsky (Aspects of the Theory of Syntax [1965]) by Ofra Magidor - Category Mistakes 1.3
     A reaction: This certainly doesn't fit the experience of introspecting speech, but then I suppose good pianists focus entirely on the music, and overlook the finger movements which have obvious priority. But I don't know the syntax of the sentence when I begin it.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
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').
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
Nine principles of God: goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth and glory [Lull, by Arthur,R]
     Full Idea: Lull restricted himself to only nine 'absolute principles' of God: goodness, greatness, eternity, power, wisdom, will, virtue, truth and glory
     From: report of Ramon (Ars Magna [1305]) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 2 'Combinatorics'
     A reaction: Leibniz responded that God's perfections are infinite in number, and thus beyond human comprehension. Lull cut them down to nine, because he was designing a sort of conceptual logic that employed them.