11 ideas
| 12170 | Amusement rests on superiority, or relief, or incongruity [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: There are three common accounts of amusement: superiority theories (Hobbes's 'sudden glory'), 'relief from restraint' (Freud on jokes), and 'incongruity' theories (Schopenhauer). | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Laughter [1982], §5) | |
| A reaction: All three contain some truth. But one need not feel superior to laugh, and one may already be in a state of unrestraint. Schopenhauer seems closest to a good general account. |
| 12173 | The central object of amusement is the human [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: There are amusing buildings, but not amusing rocks and cliffs. If I were to propose a candidate for the formal object of amusement, then the human would be my choice, ...or at least emphasise its centrality. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Laughter [1982], §9) | |
| A reaction: Sounds good. Animal behaviour only seems to amuse if it evokes something human. Plants would have to look a bit human to be funny. |
| 12169 | Since only men laugh, it seems to be an attribute of reason [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: Man is the only animal that laughs, so a starting point for all enquiries into laughter must be the hypothesis that it is an attribute of reason (though that gets us no further than our definition of reason). | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Laughter [1982], §1) | |
| A reaction: I would be inclined to say that both our capacity for reason and our capacity for laughter (and, indeed, our capacity for language) are a consequence of our evolved capacity for meta-thought. |
| 12172 | Objects of amusement do not have to be real [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It is a matter of indifference whether the object of amusement be thought to be real. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Laughter [1982], §7) | |
| A reaction: Sort of. If I say 'wouldn't it be funny if someone did x?', it is probably much less funny than if I say 'apparently he really did x'. The fantasy case has to be much funnier to evoke the laughter. |
| 15395 | Give up objects necessitating truths, and say their natures cause the truths? [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: We could abandon the view that truthmakers necessitate the truth of that which makes them true, and say that an object makes a truth when its intrinsic nature suffices for that truth. The object would have a different intrinsic nature if the truth failed. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
| A reaction: [He cites Josh Parsons 1999, 2005 for this] This approach seems closely related to Kit Fine's proposal that necessities arise from the natures of things. It sounds to me as if an object with that intrinsic nature would necessitate that truth. |
| 15394 | Truthmaker requires a commitment to tropes or states of affairs, for contingent truths [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The most popular view is that an object is a truthmaker if the object couldn't exist and the truth be false. But contingent predications are also held to need truthmakers. Socrates is not necessarily snub-nosed, so a trope or state of affairs is needed. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Truthmakers') | |
| A reaction: Cameron calls this 'some heavy ontological commitments'. If snub-nosedness is necessitated by the trope of 'being snub-nosed', what is the truthmaker for Socrates having that trope? |
| 15401 | Essentialists say intrinsic properties arise from what the thing is, irrespective of surroundings [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: The essentialist approach would be to say that an intrinsic property is one such that it is no part of what it is to instantiate that property that the bearer stands in some relation to its surroundings. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Analysis') | |
| A reaction: This is offered as an alternative to the David Lewis account in terms of duplicates across possible worlds. You will have gathered by now, if you have spent days poring over my stuff, that I favour the essentialist approach. |
| 15393 | An object's intrinsic properties are had in virtue of how it is, independently [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Intrinsic properties are those that an object has solely in virtue of how it is, independently of its surroundings. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Intro') | |
| A reaction: Better not mention quantum mechanics and fields if you want to talk of objects being independent of their surroundings. Am I 'independent' of gravity, or is gravity 'independent' of me? |
| 15396 | Most criteria for identity over time seem to leave two later objects identical to the earlier one [Cameron] |
| Full Idea: Criteria for identity across times have proven hard to give. Whatever criteria we lay down, it seems that there are possible situations in which two later objects bear the relevant relation to one earlier object, though only one of them can be identical. | |
| From: Ross P. Cameron (Intrinsic and Extrinsic Properties [2009], 'Personal') | |
| A reaction: We only have to think of twins, amoebae that fission, and the Ship of Theseus. We seem to end up inventing a dubious criterion in order to break the tie. |
| 12174 | Only rational beings are attentive without motive or concern [Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It is only rational beings who can be attentive without a motive; only rational beings who can be interested in that in which they have no interest. | |
| From: Roger Scruton (Laughter [1982], §12) | |
| A reaction: Rational beings make long term plans, so they cannot prejudge which things may turn out to be of interest to them. Scruton (a Kantian) makes it sound a little loftier than it actually is. |
| 20422 | The experience of expression and communication are intermingled in art [Croce] |
| Full Idea: It is very difficult to perceive the frontier between expression and communication in actual fact, for the two processes usually alternate rapidly and are almost intermingled. | |
| From: Benedetto Croce (The Essence of Aesthetic [1912]), quoted by Gary Kemp - Croce and Collingwood | |
| A reaction: [text unsure] I think he is getting at seeing the painting (or whatever) as a physical object, and seeing it as the experience which results from the object. The alternation of the objective and subjective views. Reminds me of Thomas Nagel. |