Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Particulars in Particular Clothing', 'An Ontology of Art' and 'Reply to Sixth Objections'

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5 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

3644	Two things being joined together doesn't prove they are the same [Descartes]
	Full Idea: The fact that we often see two things joined together does not license the inference that they are one and the same.
	From: René Descartes (Reply to Sixth Objections [1641], 444)
	A reaction: Correct. The problem comes when they are never ever apart, and you begin to suspect that they are conjoined in all possible worlds. Why might this be so? It can only be identity or a causal link.

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes

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?

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 3. Illusion Scepticism

3621	Only judgement decides which of our senses are reliable [Descartes]
	Full Idea: Sense alone does not suffice to correct visual error: we also need a degree of reason to tell us that we should believe the judgement based on touch rather than vision. Since we don't have this power in infancy, it must be attributed to the intellect.
	From: René Descartes (Reply to Sixth Objections [1641], 439)

21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 7. Ontology of Art

20444	If paintings could be perfectly duplicated, it would be a multiple art form [Currie, by Bacharach]
	Full Idea: Currie claims that, in principle, all art forms are multiple. A superxerox machine, duplicating a painting molecule by molecule, would show that paintings are singular only contingently.
	From: report of Gregory Currie (An Ontology of Art [1988]) by Sondra Bacharach - Arthur C. Danto 3
	A reaction: This strikes me as correct. An original painting would then have the same status as the manuscript of a poem, giving it an authority, and being moving by its personal contact with the artist. But worth far less than current original paintings.

28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / d. God decrees morality

3637	Ideas in God's mind only have value if he makes it so [Descartes]
	Full Idea: It is impossible to imagine that anything is thought of in the divine intellect as good or true, or worthy of belief or action or omission, prior to the decision of the divine will to make it so.
	From: René Descartes (Reply to Sixth Objections [1641], 432)