20344
|
Music is not an expressive art, because it expresses no familiar emotions [Hanslick, by Wollheim]
|
|
Full Idea:
Hanslick concluded from the fact that music doesn't express definite feelings like piety, love, joy, or sadness, that it isn't an art of expression.
|
|
From:
report of Eduard Hanslick (The Beautiful in Music [1854]) by Richard Wollheim - Art and Its Objects 48
|
|
A reaction:
Whether music is 'expressive' (which it may not be) should not be confused with whether it is emotional, which it clearly is, even in its coolest examples. Hanslick viewed music as a code, not a language.
|
16589
|
Prime matter lacks essence, but is only potentially and indeterminately a physical thing [Auriol]
|
|
Full Idea:
Prime matter has no essence, nor a nature that is determinate, distinct, and actual. Instead, it is pure potential, and determinable, so that it is indeterminately and indistinctly a material thing.
|
|
From:
Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], II.12.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1
|
|
A reaction:
Pasnau thinks Auriol has the best shot at explaining the vague idea of 'prime matter', with the thought that it exists, but indeterminateness is what gives it a lesser mode of existence. It strikes me as best to treat 'exist' as univocal.
|
16651
|
God can do anything non-contradictory, as making straightness with no line, or lightness with no parts [Auriol]
|
|
Full Idea:
If someone says 'God could make straightness without a line, and roughness and lightness in weight without parts', …then show me the reason why God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction, yet cannot do these things.
|
|
From:
Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], IV.12.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 11.4
|
|
A reaction:
How engagingly bonkers. The key idea preceding this is that God can do all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding. He is then obliged to offer some examples.
|