18914
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Davidson controversially proposed to quantify over events [Davidson, by Engelbretsen]
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Full Idea:
An alternative, and still controversial, extension of first-order logic is due to Donald Davidson, who allows for quantification over events.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969]) by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3
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A reaction:
I'm suddenly thinking this is quite an attractive proposal. We need to quantify over facts, or states of affairs, or events, or some such thing, to talk about the world properly. Objects, predicates and sets/parts is too sparse. I like facts.
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14004
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We need events for action statements, causal statements, explanation, mind-and-body, and adverbs [Davidson, by Bourne]
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Full Idea:
Davidson claims that we require the existence of events in order to make sense of a) action statements, b) causal statements, c) explanation, d) the mind-body problem, and e) the logic of adverbial modification.
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From:
report of Donald Davidson (The Individuation of Events [1969], Intro IIb) by Craig Bourne - A Future for Presentism
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A reaction:
Events are a nice shorthand, but I don't like them in a serious ontology. Prior says there objects and what happens to them; Kim reduces events to other things. Processes are more clearly individuated than events.
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23609
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I act justly if I follow my Prince in an apparently unjust war, and refusing to fight would be injustice [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
If I wage war at the commandment of my Prince, conceiving the war to be justly undertaken, I do not therefore do unjustly, but rather if I refuse to do it, arrogating to myself the knowledge of what is just and unjust, which pertains only to my Prince.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (De Cive [1642], 12.II), quoted by Jeff McMahan - Killing in War 2.6
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A reaction:
Hobbes early says that Princes make things just by commanding them. This presumably assumes divine authority in the Prince. This is, of course, ancient pernicious nonsense.
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5994
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Is the cosmos open or closed, mechanical or teleological, alive or inanimate, and created or eternal? [Robinson,TM, by PG]
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Full Idea:
The four major disputes in classical cosmology were whether the cosmos is 'open' or 'closed', whether it is explained mechanistically or teleologically, whether it is alive or mere matter, and whether or not it has a beginning.
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From:
report of T.M. Robinson (Classical Cosmology (frags) [1997]) by PG - Db (ideas)
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A reaction:
A nice summary. The standard modern view is closed, mechanistic, inanimate and non-eternal. But philosophers can ask deeper questions than physicists, and I say we are entitled to speculate when the evidence runs out.
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