Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Necessary Existents', 'The Nature of Universals and Propositions' and 'Time and Free Will'

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3 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes

8511	Stout first explicitly proposed that properties and relations are particulars [Stout,GF, by Campbell,K]
	Full Idea: In modern times, it was G.F. Stout who first explicitly made the proposal that properties and relations are as particular as the substances that they qualify.
	From: report of G.F. Stout (The Nature of Universals and Propositions [1923]) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §1
	A reaction: Note that relations will have to be tropes, as well as properties. Williams wants tropes to be parts of objects, but that will be tricky with relations. If you place two objects on a table, how does the 'to the left of' trope come into existence?

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument

22100	Experienced time means no two mental moments are ever alike [Bergson]
	Full Idea: If duration [experienced time] is what we say, deep-seated psychic states are radically heterogeneous to each other, and it is impossible that any two of them should be quite alike, since they are two different moments in a life-story.
	From: Henri Bergson (Time and Free Will [1889], p.220), quoted by Pete A.Y. Gunter - Bergson p.174
	A reaction: This implies that we are intrinsically unpredictable, and there certainly can't be a regularity account of mental causation. The sense of time is said to make the self radically different from the rest of reality. Bergson later rejected dualism.

19. Language / D. Propositions / 3. Concrete Propositions

19216	Propositions (such as 'that dog is barking') only exist if their items exist [Williamson]
	Full Idea: A proposition about an item exists only if that item exists... how could something be the proposition that that dog is barking in circumstances in which that dog does not exist?
	From: Timothy Williamson (Necessary Existents [2002], p.240), quoted by Trenton Merricks - Propositions
	A reaction: This is a view of propositions I can't make sense of. If I'm under an illusion that there is a dog barking nearby, when there isn't one, can I not say 'that dog is barking'? If I haven't expressed a proposition, what have I done?