Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The World' and 'The Nature of Necessity'

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8 ideas

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism

18383	Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
	Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
	A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation

11891	Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
	Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
	A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities

22593	Our sensation of light may not be the same as what produces the sensation [Descartes]
	Full Idea: There can be a difference between our sensation of light and what is in the objects that produce that sensation in us.
	From: René Descartes (The World [1631]), quoted by Ian Dunt - How to be a Liberal 1
	A reaction: Note only that they 'may' differ, and that he does not assert that they are entirely different. Secondary qualities give information, and are not just mental events.

25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles

13304	Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
	Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
	From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
	A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / f. Ancient elements

16569	The Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry of the philosophers need themselves to be explained [Descartes]
	Full Idea: If you find it strange that in explaining these elements I do not use the qualities called Hot, Cold, Wet and Dry - as the philosophers do - I shall say to you that these qualities themselves seem to me to need explanation.
	From: René Descartes (The World [1631], 9:25-6), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 1.3
	A reaction: Nice. I take pushing the boundaries of explanation back (or down) to be the basic driving force of all human thought, in metaphysics as well as in physics.

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / b. Laws of motion

20964	Descartes said there was conservation of 'quantity of motion' [Descartes, by Papineau]
	Full Idea: Descartes incorporated the conservation of what he called 'quantity of motion', by which he meant mass times speed.
	From: report of René Descartes (The World [1631]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness App 2
	A reaction: Mass times velocity is now called 'momentum'. Is this the first ever conservation law? There are now lots of them.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure

20820	Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
	Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
	From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
	A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.

28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof

20704	A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
	Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
	From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
	A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.