Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Time and Free Will' and 'In a Different Voice'

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4 ideas

17. Mind and Body / E. Mind as Physical / 5. Causal Argument
Experienced time means no two mental moments are ever alike [Bergson]
     Full Idea: If duration [experienced time] is what we say, deep-seated psychic states are radically heterogeneous to each other, and it is impossible that any two of them should be quite alike, since they are two different moments in a life-story.
     From: Henri Bergson (Time and Free Will [1889], p.220), quoted by Pete A.Y. Gunter - Bergson p.174
     A reaction: This implies that we are intrinsically unpredictable, and there certainly can't be a regularity account of mental causation. The sense of time is said to make the self radically different from the rest of reality. Bergson later rejected dualism.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 1. Nature of Ethics / b. Defining ethics
Moral problems are responsibility conflicts, needing contextual and narrative attention to relationships [Gilligan]
     Full Idea: The moral problem arises from conflicting responsibilities rather than competing rights, and its resolution needs contextual and narrative thinking. This morality as care centers around the understanding of responsibility and relationships.
     From: Carol Gilligan (In a Different Voice [1982], p.19), quoted by Will Kymlicka - Contemporary Political Philosophy (1st edn)
     A reaction: [Kymlicka cites her as a key voice in feminist moral philosophy] I like all of this, especially the very original thought (to me, anyway) that moral thinking should be 'narrative' in character.
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / b. Education principles
Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius]
     Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes.
     From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078
     A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / d. Time as measure
Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness.
     From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them.