3 ideas
| 15793 | We can take 'ways things might have been' as irreducible elements in our ontology [Stalnaker, by Lycan] |
| Full Idea: Stalnaker suggests talking 'ways things might have been' as sui generis elements of our ontology - actual abstract entities in their own right, not to be reduced to more familiar items. | |
| From: report of Robert C. Stalnaker (Possible Worlds [1976]) by William Lycan - The Trouble with Possible Worlds 09 | |
| A reaction: This seems to rest on an ontology of 'states of affairs', favoured by Armstrong, and implied in the Tractatus. How big is a state of affairs? How manys states of affairs can be co-present? |
| 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. |
| 7903 | 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'). |