Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'poems', 'Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity' and 'Grundrisse'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
'Ultimate sortals' cannot explain ontological categories [Westerhoff on Wiggins]
     Full Idea: 'Ultimate sortals' are said to be non-subordinated, disjoint from one another, and uniquely paired with each object. Because of this, the ultimate sortal cannot be a satisfactory explication of the notion of an ontological category.
     From: comment on David Wiggins (Identity and Spatio-Temporal Continuity [1971], p.75) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §26
     A reaction: My strong intuitions are that Wiggins is plain wrong, and Westerhoff gives the most promising reasons for my intuition. The simplest point is that objects can obviously belong to more than one category.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / j. Ethics by convention
Nomos is king [Pindar]
     Full Idea: Nomos is king.
     From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture
     A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed.
24. Political Theory / B. Nature of a State / 2. State Legitimacy / d. General will
The real will of the cooperative will replace the 'will of the people' [Marx]
     Full Idea: Under collective property, the so called will of the people disappears in order to make way for the real will of the cooperative.
     From: Karl Marx (Grundrisse [1876], p.563), quoted by Peter Singer - Marx 10
     A reaction: [from an 1874 note on Bakunin's 'Statism and Anarchy'] So how do you settle on the 'real' will of a cooperative? The travesty is when a ruling elite decide that, without consultation. An institution is needed. This is still a social contract.