3 ideas
18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
8417 | Direct realism is false, because defeasibility questions are essential to perceptual knowledge [Galloway] |
Full Idea: Since awareness of defeasibility issues is an essential prerequisite for any genuine perceptual knowledge of even straightforward physical objects, any realist theory of perception must be indirect or representative, rather than direct. | |
From: David Galloway (lectures [2007]), quoted by PG - lecture notes | |
A reaction: [a very compressed summary] A very interesting claim. The issue might be over what direct realism is actually claiming. If it claims full-blown knowledge, then the criticism seems good. But it might survive if it claimed rather less. |
20328 | A thing is only seen as art in an 'artworld', which has a theory and a history [Danto] |
Full Idea: To see something as art requires something the eye cannot descry - an atmosphere of artistic theory, a knowledge of the history of art: an artworld. | |
From: Arthur C. Danto (The Artworld [1964], II) | |
A reaction: The editors of the volume call this a revolutionary remark, followed up by Danto and George Dickie with a social and institutional account of art. Danto's key example is Warhol's Brillo pads - art in a gallery, cleaning material in a shop. |