Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Reply to Hellman', 'Nietzsche and Philosophy' and 'Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian themes'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming
There is no being beyond becoming [Deleuze]
     Full Idea: There is no being beyond becoming, nothing beyond multiplicity. ...Becoming is the affirmation of being.
     From: Gilles Deleuze (Nietzsche and Philosophy [1962], p.23), quoted by Todd May - Gilles Deleuze 2.09
     A reaction: This places Deleuze in what I think of as the Heraclitus tradition. Parmenides does Being, Heraclitus does Becoming, Aristotle does Beings.
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 2. Self-Evidence
A sentence is obvious if it is true, and any speaker of the language will instantly agree to it [Quine]
     Full Idea: A sentence is obvious if (a) it is true and (b) any speaker of the language is prepared, for any reason or none, to assent to it without hesitation, unless put off by being asked so obvious a question.
     From: Willard Quine (Reply to Hellman [1975], p.206), quoted by Paul Boghossian - Analyticity Reconsidered §III
     A reaction: This comes from someone who is keen to deny a priori knowledge, but what are we to make of the expostulations "It's obvious, you idiot!", and "Now I see it, it's obvious!", and "It seemed obvious, but I was wrong!"?
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 1. Causation
Causation interests us because we want to explain change [Mumford]
     Full Idea: Like Aristotle, the reason we are really interested in causation is because we want to be able to explain change.
     From: Stephen Mumford (Contemporary Efficient Causation: Aristotelian themes [2014], 8)
     A reaction: This pinpoints a very important and simple idea. It raises the question (among others) of whether we have just invented this thing called 'causation', because no explanation of change was visible. Hume certainly couldn't see any explanation.