5 ideas
15549 | If it were true that nothing at all existed, would that have a truthmaker? [Lewis] |
Full Idea: If there was absolutely nothing at all, then it would have been true that there was nothing. Would there have been a truthmaker for this truth? | |
From: David Lewis (A world of truthmakers? [1998], p.220) | |
A reaction: This is a problem for Lewis's own claim that 'truth supervenes on being', as well as the more restricted truthmakers invoked by Armstrong. |
5960 | When the soul is intelligent and harmonious, it is part of god and derives from god [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: The soul, when it has partaken of intelligence and reason and concord, is not merely a work but also a part of god and has come to be not by his agency but both from him as source and out of his substance. | |
From: Plutarch (67: Platonic Questions [c.85], II.1001) | |
A reaction: A most intriguing shift of view from earlier concepts of the psuché. How did this come about? This man is a pagan. The history is in the evolution of Platonism. See 'The Middle Platonists' by John Dillon. Davidson is also very impressed by reason. |
10645 | We reach concepts by clarification, or by definition, or by habitual experience [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: We have three different ways in which we arrive at concepts or universals: there is a clarification, where we have a ready-made concept and define it; we have a combination (where a definition creates a concept); and an experience can lead to a habit. | |
From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.190) | |
A reaction: [very compressed] He cites Russell as calling the third one a 'condensed induction'. There seems to an intellectualist and non-intellectualist strand in the abstractionist tradition. |
10644 | A 'felt familiarity' with universals is more primitive than abstraction [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: A 'felt familiarity' with universals seems to be more primitive than explicit abstraction. | |
From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.188) | |
A reaction: This I take to be part of the 'given' of the abstractionist view, which is quite well described in the first instance by Aristotle. Price says that it is 'pre-verbal'. |
10646 | Our understanding of 'dog' or 'house' arises from a repeated experience of concomitances [Price,HH] |
Full Idea: Whether you call it inductive or not, our understanding of such a word as 'dog' or 'house' does arise from a repeated experience of concomitances. | |
From: H.H. Price (Review of Aron 'Our Knowledge of Universals' [1946], p.191) | |
A reaction: Philosophers don't use phrases like that last one any more. How else could we form the concept of 'dog' - if we are actually allowed to discuss the question of concept-formation, instead of just the logic of concepts. |