Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'The Statesman', 'The Ethical Criticism of Art' and 'A Defense of Presentism'

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28 ideas

1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 2. Analysis by Division
Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato]
1. Philosophy / G. Scientific Philosophy / 3. Scientism
People who use science to make philosophical points don't realise how philosophical science is [Markosian]
2. Reason / D. Definition / 2. Aims of Definition
To reveal a nature, divide down, and strip away what it has in common with other things [Plato]
No one wants to define 'weaving' just for the sake of weaving [Plato]
3. Truth / B. Truthmakers / 9. Making Past Truths
Presentism has the problem that if Socrates ceases to exist, so do propositions about him [Markosian]
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 2. Nature of Possible Worlds / a. Nature of possible worlds
Possible worlds must be abstract, because two qualitatively identical worlds are just one world [Markosian]
12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 3. Innate Knowledge / b. Recollection doctrine
The soul gets its goodness from god, and its evil from previous existence. [Plato]
19. Language / A. Nature of Meaning / 4. Meaning as Truth-Conditions
'Grabby' truth conditions first select their object, unlike 'searchy' truth conditions [Markosian]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
The question of whether or not to persuade comes before the science of persuasion [Plato]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 2. Aesthetic Attitude
Maybe literary assessment is evaluating the artist as a suitable friend [Gaut]
21. Aesthetics / A. Aesthetic Experience / 5. Natural Beauty
Non-physical beauty can only be shown clearly by speech [Plato]
21. Aesthetics / B. Nature of Art / 2. Art as Form
Formalists say aesthetics concerns types of beauty, or unity, complexity and intensity [Gaut]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
'Moralism' says all aesthetic merits are moral merits [Gaut]
Good ethics counts towards aesthetic merit, and bad ethics counts against it [Gaut]
If we don't respond ethically in the way a work prescribes, that is an aesthetic failure [Gaut]
Good art does not necessarily improve people (any more than good advice does) [Gaut]
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / f. The Mean
The arts produce good and beautiful things by preserving the mean [Plato]
24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 5. Democracy / a. Nature of democracy
Democracy is the worst of good constitutions, but the best of bad constitutions [Plato, by Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
Presentism is the view that only present objects exist [Markosian]
Presentism says if objects don't exist now, we can't have attitudes to them or relations with them [Markosian]
Presentism seems to entail that we cannot talk about other times [Markosian]
Serious Presentism says things must exist to have relations and properties; Unrestricted version denies this [Markosian]
Maybe Presentists can refer to the haecceity of a thing, after the thing itself disappears [Markosian]
Maybe Presentists can paraphrase singular propositions about the past [Markosian]
Special Relativity denies the absolute present which Presentism needs [Markosian]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / k. Temporal truths
Objects in the past, like Socrates, are more like imaginary objects than like remote spatial objects [Markosian]
People are mistaken when they think 'Socrates was a philosopher' says something [Markosian]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
Only divine things can always stay the same, and bodies are not like that [Plato]