Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Mahaprajnaparamitashastra', 'The Nature of Necessity' and 'Letters to Oldenburg'

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7 ideas

10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 1. Possible Worlds / d. Possible worlds actualism
Plantinga says there is just this world, with possibilities expressed in propositions [Plantinga, by Armstrong]
     Full Idea: Plantinga rejects other possible worlds, but adds to our world an uncountable multitude of sets of propositions, each set a way that the world might have been, but is in fact not. (Roughly, for each Lewis world, Plantinga has such a set).
     From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by David M. Armstrong - Truth and Truthmakers 07.2
     A reaction: To me it seems as ontologically extravagant to postulate unexpressed propositions as to postulate concrete possible worlds. I think the best line is that there is just the actual world, with the possibilities implied in its dispositions.
10. Modality / E. Possible worlds / 3. Transworld Objects / b. Rigid designation
Possibilities for an individual can only refer to that individual, in some possible world [Plantinga, by Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: Plantinga says for an individual to exist with certain properties in some possible world is simply for it to be true that, had that possible world obtained, that individual would have existed with those properties.
     From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 5.1
     A reaction: This is intended to dissolve the problem of transworld identity, and is certainly a flat rejection of counterparts. I take the point to be that the individual is the key element in defining the possible world, so can't possibly be different.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / f. Ethical non-cognitivism
Whether nature is beautiful or orderly is entirely in relation to human imagination [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: I do not attribute to nature either beauty or deformity, order or confusion. Only in relation to our imagination can things be called beautiful or deformed, ordered or confused.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Oldenburg [1665], 1665?)
     A reaction: This is clearly a statement of Hume's famous later opinion that there are no values ('ought') in nature ('is'). It is a rejection of Aristotelian and Greek teleology. It is hard to argue with, but I have strong sales resistance, rooted in virtue theory.
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues
The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna]
     Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom.
     From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88)
     A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate').
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
God is a being with infinite attributes, each of them infinite or perfect [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: I define God as a being consisting in infinite attributes, whereof each is infinite or supremely perfect.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Oldenburg [1665], 1661)
     A reaction: This seems to me the glorious culmination of the hyperbolic conception of God that expands steadily from wood spirits through Zeus, to eventually mop up everything in nature, and then everything that can be imagined beyond nature. All very silly.
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
A possible world contains a being of maximal greatness - which is existence in all worlds [Plantinga, by Davies,B]
     Full Idea: Plantinga reformulates Malcolm's argument thus: 1) There is a possible world in which there exists a being with maximal greatness, 2) A being has maximal greatness in a world only if it exists in every world.
     From: report of Alvin Plantinga (The Nature of Necessity [1974], p.213) by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 4 'b Descartes'
     A reaction: This is only Plantinga's starting point, which says nothing about the nature of God, but only that this 'great' being exists in all worlds. I would like to know why it is a 'being' rather than a 'thing'. Malcolm says if it is possible it is necessary.
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / e. Miracles
Trying to prove God's existence through miracles is proving the obscure by the more obscure [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: Those who endeavour to establish God's existence and the truth of religion by means of miracles seek to prove the obscure by what is more obscure.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letters to Oldenburg [1665], 1675?)
     A reaction: Nicely put. On the whole this has to be right, but one must leave open a possibility. If there is a God, and He seeks to prove Himself by a deed, are we saying this is impossible? Divine intervention might be the best explanation of something.