June 25, 2013
Vision : Touch :: Written Words : Spoken Words?
In a very interesting, if rather bizarre, paper called "Berkeley's Metaphysical Grammar," Colin Turbayne develops an interpretation of Berkeley's 'language of nature' theory which takes extremely seriously Berkeley's remark, in the New Theory of Vision, "that visible figures represent tangible figures much after the same manner that written words do sounds" (sect. 143). The relation of vision to touch is, in other words, the same as the relation of written English to spoken English. A particular visible idea signifies a particular tangible idea not in the way a word signifies its referent, but rather in the way a written word...
Continue reading "Vision : Touch :: Written Words : Spoken Words?"
June 19, 2013
"Infinite Power and Finite Powers"
I have posted a new draft,
"Infinite Power and Finite Powers," to my
writings page. This is the paper I plan to present at the
divine infinity conference in Bochum, Germany in August. In it, I argue that the ordinary notion of power or ability should be understood as a notion of approximation to an ideal, where that ideal is provided by the analysis of omnipotence which Alexander Pruss and I have
previously defended.
Continue reading ""Infinite Power and Finite Powers""
June 18, 2013
Quote of the Day: D. Z. Phillips on the Christian 'Image'
Consider the following example. There is a gentleman who appears advertising cigars on television. No sooner does this immaculate man light up cigars than women come from all quarters to gather round him. We can imagine people reacting in certain moods by saying, 'What a man!' Here, 'man' is clearly not a purely descriptive term. They are extolling, praising, wondering. A cluster of images influence their attitude: success, flair, charm, panache, the great seducer, etc., etc. At the heart of Christianity is a very different event. It is that of a torn body on a cross. Here, too, it was...
Continue reading "Quote of the Day: D. Z. Phillips on the Christian 'Image'"