9 ideas
| 8526 | We might treat both tropes and substances as fundamental, so we can't presume it is just tropes [Daly] |
| Full Idea: Since C.B. Martin accepts both tropes and substances as fundamental, the claim that tropes are the only fundamental constituents is a further, independent claim. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §4) | |
| A reaction: A dubious mode of argument. Martin may only make the claim because he is ignorant, of facts or of language. Why are some tropes perfectly similar? Is it the result of something more fundamental? |
| 8527 | More than one trope (even identical ones!) can occupy the same location [Daly] |
| Full Idea: More than one trope can occupy the same spatio-temporal location, and it even seems possible for a pair of exactly resembling tropes to occupy the same spatio-temporal location. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §6) | |
| A reaction: This may be the strongest objection to tropes. Being disc-shaped and red would occupy the same location. Aristotle's example of mixing white with white (Idea 557) would be the second case. Individuation of these 'particulars' is the problem. |
| 8528 | If tropes are linked by the existence of concurrence, a special relation is needed to link them all [Daly] |
| Full Idea: To explain how tropes form bundles, concurrence relations are invoked. But tropes F and G and a concurrence relation C don't ensure that F stands in C to G. So trope theory needs 'instantiation' relations (special relational tropes) after all. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §7) | |
| A reaction: Campbell presents relations as 'second-order' items dependent on tropes (Idea 8525), but that seems unclear. Daly's argument resembles Russell's (which he likes), that some sort of universal is inescapable. It also resembles Bradley's regress (7966). |
| 3643 | The concept of mind excludes body, and vice versa [Descartes] |
| Full Idea: The concept of body includes nothing at all which belongs to the mind, and the concept of mind includes nothing at all which belongs to the body. | |
| From: René Descartes (Reply to Fourth Objections [1641], 225) | |
| A reaction: A headache? Hunger? The mistake, I think, is to regard the mind as entirely conscious, thus creating a sharp boundary between two aspects of our lives. As shown by blindsight, I take many of my central mental operations to be pre- or non-conscious. |
| 12163 | Literary meaning emerges in comparisons, and tradition shows which comparisons are relevant [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: We must discover the meanings that emerge when works of literature are experience in relation to each other. ...The importance of tradition is that it denotes - ideally, at least - the class of relevant comparisons. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.27) | |
| A reaction: This is a nice attempt to explain why we all agree that a thorough education in an art is an essential prerequisite for good taste. Some people (e.g. among the young) seem to have natural good taste. How does that happen? |
| 12162 | In literature, word replacement changes literary meaning [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In literary contexts semantically equivalent words cannot replace each other without loss of literary meaning. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.25) | |
| A reaction: The notion of 'literary meaning' is not a standard one, and is questionable whether 'meaning' is the right word, given that a shift in word in a poem is as much to do with sound as with connotations. |
| 12159 | Without intentions we can't perceive sculpture, but that is not the whole story [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: A person for whom it made no difference whether a sculpture was carved by wind and rain or by human hand would be unable to interpret or perceive sculptures - even though the interpretation of sculpture is not the reading of an intention. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.15) | |
| A reaction: Scruton compares it to the role of intention in language, where there is objective meaning, even though intention is basic to speech. |
| 12160 | In aesthetic interest, even what is true is treated as though it were not [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: In aesthetic interest, even what is true is treated as though it were not. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.18) | |
| A reaction: A nice aphorism. I always feel uncomfortable reading novels about real people, although the historical Macbeth doesn't bother me much. Novels are too close to reality. Macbeth didn't speak blank verse. |
| 12161 | We can be objective about conventions, but love of art is needed to understand its traditions [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: An historian can elucidate convention while having no feeling for the art that exploits it; whereas an understanding of tradition is reserved for those with the critical insight which comes from the love of art, both past and present. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Public Text and Common Reader [1982], p.24) | |
| A reaction: This aesthetic observation is obviously close to Scruton's well-known conservatism in politics. I am doubtful whether the notion of 'tradition' can stand up to close examination, though we all know roughly what he means. |