4 ideas
21338 | I will even consider changing a meaning to save a law; I question the meaning-fact cleavage [Quine] |
Full Idea: I am not concerned even to avoid the trivial extreme of sustaining a law by changing a meaning; for the cleavage between meaning and fact is part of what ...I am questioning. | |
From: Willard Quine (Letters [1962], 1962.06.01) | |
A reaction: [Letter to Adolf Grünbaum. Found on Twitter] A strikingly helpful expression of his position by Quine. We should take about the 'meaning/fact distinction' in order to understand clearly what is going on here. |
12156 | Aesthetics has risen and fallen with Romanticism [Scruton] |
Full Idea: The rise and fall (as we presently perceive them) of aesthetics have been contemporaneous with the rise and fall of Romanticism. | |
From: Roger Scruton (Recent Aesthetics in England and America [1980], p.3) | |
A reaction: Maybe it started a little before Romanticism, as part of the Englightenment aim of being rational about everything, and maybe it survives Romanticism because we want to be scientific about everything. |
12158 | Aesthetic experience informs the world with the values of the observer [Scruton] |
Full Idea: It is possible to conclude that aesthetic experience has a peculiar practical significance: it represents the world as informed by the values of the observer. | |
From: Roger Scruton (Recent Aesthetics in England and America [1980], p.13) | |
A reaction: An excellent remark. If you look at, or listen to, anything, you can make a conscious effort to drain away your personal values (objectivity; science?), or you can consciously flood them with values. But moral and aesthetic vision must differ... |
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'). |