Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Artistic Value and Opportunistic Moralism' and 'Some Remarks on Essentialism'

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11 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
Not-Being obviously doesn't exist, and the five modes of Being are all impossible [Gorgias, by Diog. Laertius]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
Essentialism says some of a thing's properties are necessary, and could not be absent [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
The difficulty in essentialism is deciding the grounds for rating an attribute as essential [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
Essentialism is said to be unintelligible, because relative, if necessary truths are all analytic [Cartwright,R]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
An act of ostension doesn't seem to need a 'sort' of thing, even of a very broad kind [Cartwright,R]
19. Language / F. Communication / 1. Rhetoric
Gorgias says rhetoric is the best of arts, because it enslaves without using force [Gorgias, by Plato]
Destroy seriousness with laughter, and laughter with seriousness [Gorgias]
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
A work can be morally and artistically excellent, despite rejecting moral truth [John,E]
The works we value most are in sympathy with our own moral views [John,E]
We should understand what is morally important in a story, without having to endorse it [John,E]
We value morality in art because that is what we care about - but it is a contingent fact [John,E]