Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Content Preservation', 'Aristotelian commentaries' and 'Freedom and Reason'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts


6 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
Unity by aggregation, order, inherence, composition, and simplicity [Conimbricense, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: The Coimbrans have five degrees of unity: by aggregation (stones), by order (an army), per accidens (inherence), per se composite unity (connected), and per se unity of simple things.
     From: report of Collegium Conimbricense (Aristotelian commentaries [1595], Phys I.9.11.2) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.3
     A reaction: [my summary of Pasnau's summary] Take some stones, then order them, then glue them together, then melt them together. The unity of inherence is a different type of unity from these stages. This is a hylomorphic view.
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / b. Primary/secondary
Secondary qualities come from temperaments and proportions of primary qualities [Conimbricense]
     Full Idea: Colors, flavours, smells, and other secondary qualities arise from the various temperaments and proportions of the primary qualities.
     From: Collegium Conimbricense (Aristotelian commentaries [1595], I.10.4 Gen&C), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 21.2
     A reaction: This is a bit more subtle than merely mixing the primary qualities. What about the powers of the primary qualities? Presumably that is the 'temperaments'?
13. Knowledge Criteria / C. External Justification / 1. External Justification
Subjects may be unaware of their epistemic 'entitlements', unlike their 'justifications' [Burge]
     Full Idea: I call 'entitlement' (as opposed to justification) the epistemic rights or warrants that need not be understood by or even be accessible to the subject.
     From: Tyler Burge (Content Preservation [1993]), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
     A reaction: I espouse a coherentism that has both internal and external components, and is mediated socially. In Burge's sense, animals will sometimes have 'entitlement'. I prefer, though, not to call this 'knowledge'. 'Entitled true belief' is good.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / i. Prescriptivism
Moral statements are imperatives rather than the avowals of emotion - but universalisable [Hare, by Glock]
     Full Idea: According to Hare's universal prescriptivism, moral statements are closer to imperatives than to avowals of emotion; their purpose is to guide action. But unlike imeperatives they are universalisable.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Hans-Johann Glock - What is Analytic Philosophy? 2.9
     A reaction: Why isn't 'everyone ought to support West Ham' a moral judgement?
Universalised prescriptivism could be seen as implying utilitarianism [Hare, by Foot]
     Full Idea: Hare has suggested that a fairly tight form of utilitarianism can be obtained from universalised prescriptivism.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963]) by Philippa Foot - Does Moral Subjectivism Rest on a Mistake? p.191
     A reaction: All the benefits of Bentham, Kant and Hume, in one neat package! Since I take all three of them to be wrong about ethics, that counts against this idea.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 4. Categorical Imperative
The categorical imperative leads to utilitarianism [Hare, by Nagel]
     Full Idea: Hare has proposed that utilitarianism is the ultimate standard to which we are led by the categorical imperative.
     From: report of Richard M. Hare (Freedom and Reason [1963], p.123-4) by Thomas Nagel - Equality and Partiality
     A reaction: It seems to me better to say that Kant starts (unwittingly) from something like utilitarianism, that is, an assumption that human happiness and welfare have some sort of intrinsic value that cannot be demonstrated. Otherwise evil can be universalised.