109 ideas
| 15390 | Metaphysics attempts to give an account of everything, in terms of categories and principles [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Metaphysics, the noblest of philosophic enterprises, is an attempt to give an account of everything. ...Its job is to provide a universal framework (of categories and principles) within which anything whatever can take its place. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Whitehead: process and cosmology [2009], 'Speculative') | |
| A reaction: Bravo! I take metaphysics to be entirely continuous with science, but operating entirely at the highest level of generality. See Westerhoff on categories, though. The enterprise may not be going too well. |
| 12865 | Analytic philosophers may prefer formal systems because natural language is such mess [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The untidiness of natural language in its use of 'part' is perhaps one of the chief reasons why mereolologists have preferred to investigate formal systems with nice algebraic properties rather than get out and mix it with reality in all its messiness. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 12864 for the uses of 'part'] I am in the unhappy (and probably doomed) position of wanting to avoid both approaches. I try to operate as if the English language were transparent and we can just discuss the world. Very naïve. |
| 14240 | The empty set is something, not nothing! [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Some authors need to be told loud and clear: if there is an empty set, it is something, not nothing. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of a null set as a pair of brackets, so maybe that puts it into a metalanguage. |
| 14239 | The empty set is usually derived from Separation, but it also seems to need Infinity [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is usually derived via Zermelo's axiom of separation. But the axiom of separation is conditional: it requires the existence of a set in order to generate others as subsets of it. The original set has to come from the axiom of infinity. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: They charge that this leads to circularity, as Infinity depends on the empty set. |
| 14241 | We don't need the empty set to express non-existence, as there are other ways to do that [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: The empty set is said to be useful to express non-existence, but saying 'there are no Us', or ¬∃xUx are no less concise, and certainly less roundabout. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) |
| 14242 | Maybe we can treat the empty set symbol as just meaning an empty term [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Suppose we introduce Ω not as a term standing for a supposed empty set, but as a paradigm of an empty term, not standing for anything. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: This proposal, which they go on to explore, seems to mean that Ω (i.e. the traditional empty set symbol) is no longer part of set theory but is part of semantics. |
| 14243 | The unit set may be needed to express intersections that leave a single member [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Thomason says with no unit sets we couldn't call {1,2}∩{2,3} a set - but so what? Why shouldn't the intersection be the number 2? However, we then have to distinguish three different cases of intersection (common subset or member, or disjoint). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 2.2) |
| 12815 | Classical mereology doesn't apply well to the objects around us [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The most fundamental criticism of classical mereology is that the theory is not applicable to most of the objects around us, and is accordingly of little use as a formal reconstruction of the concepts of part and whole which we actually employ. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This sounds splendidly dismissive, but one might compare it with possible worlds semantics for modal logic, which most people take with a pinch of salt as an actual commitment, but find wonderfully clarifying in modal reasoning. |
| 12832 | Complement: the rest of the Universe apart from some individual, written x-bar [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'complement' of each individual in mereology is the rest of the Universe outside it, that is U - x, but written as x-bar [x with a horizontal bar above it]. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.10) | |
| A reaction: [Don't have a font for x-bar] See Idea 12831 for the 'Universe'. Simons suggest that the interest of this term is mainly historical and algebraic. |
| 12834 | Criticisms of mereology: parts? transitivity? sums? identity? four-dimensional? [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Main criticisms of mereology: we don't mean 'part' as improper; transitivity of 'part' is sometimes not transitive; no guarantee that there are 'sums'; the identity criteria for individuals are false; we are forced into materialistic four-dimensionalism. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: [Compressed summary; for four-dimensionalism see under 'Identity over Time'] Simons says these are in ascending order of importance. |
| 12819 | A 'part' has different meanings for individuals, classes, and masses [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It emerges that 'part', like other formal concepts, is not univocal, but has analogous meanings according to whether we talk of individuals, classes, or masses. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that unrestricted sums are appropriate for the last two, but not for individuals. There must be something univocal about the word - some awareness of a possible whole or larger entity to which the thing could belong. |
| 12822 | Proper or improper part: x < y, 'x is (a) part of y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A 'proper or improper part' is expressed by 'x < y', read as 'x is (a) part of y'. The relatively minor deviation from normal usage (of including an improper part, i.e. the whole thing) is warranted by its algebraical convenience. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.02) | |
| A reaction: Including an improper part (i.e. the whole thing) is not, Simons points out, uncontroversial, because the part being 'equal' to the whole is read as being 'identical' to the whole, which Simons is unwilling to accept. |
| 12823 | Overlap: two parts overlap iff they have a part in common, expressed as 'x o y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Two parts 'overlap' mereologically if and only if they have a part in common, expressed by 'x o y', read as 'x overlaps y'. Overlapping is reflexive and symmetric but not transitive. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.03) | |
| A reaction: Simons points out that we are uncomfortable with overlapping (as in overlapping national boundaries), because we seem to like conceptual boundaries. We avoid overlap even in ordering primary colour terms, by having a no-man's-land. |
| 12824 | Disjoint: two individuals are disjoint iff they do not overlap, written 'x | y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Two individuals are 'disjoint' mereologically if and only if they do not overlap, expressed by 'x | y', read as 'x is disjoint from y'. Disjointedness is symmetric. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.04) |
| 12825 | Product: the product of two individuals is the sum of all of their overlaps, written 'x · y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: For two overlapping individuals their 'product' is the individual which is part of both and such that any common part of both is part of it, expressed by 'x · y', read as 'the product of x and y'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.05) | |
| A reaction: That is, the 'product' is the sum of any common parts between two individuals. In set theory all sets intersect at the null set, but mereology usually avoids the 'null individual'. |
| 12826 | Sum: the sum of individuals is what is overlapped if either of them are, written 'x + y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'sum' of two individuals is that individual which something overlaps iff it overlaps at least one of x and y, expressed by 'x + y', read as 'the sum of x and y'. It is central to classical extensional mereologies that any two individuals have a sum. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.06) | |
| A reaction: This rather technical definition (defining an individual by the possibility of it being overlapped) does not always coincide with the smallest individual containing them both. |
| 12827 | Difference: the difference of individuals is the remainder of an overlap, written 'x - y' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'difference' of two individuals is the largest individual contained in x which has no part in common with y, expressed by 'x - y', read as 'the difference of x and y'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.07) |
| 12828 | General sum: the sum of objects satisfying some predicate, written σx(Fx) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'general sum' of all objects satisfying a certain predicate is denoted by a variable-binding operator, expressed by 'σx(Fx)', read as 'the sum of objects satisfying F'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.08) | |
| A reaction: This, it seems, is introduced to restrict some infinite classes which aspire to be sums. |
| 12829 | General product: the nucleus of all objects satisfying a predicate, written πx(Fx) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'general product' or 'nucleus' of all objects satisfying a certain predicate is denoted by a variable-binding operator, expressed by 'πx(Fx)', read as 'the product of objects satisfying F'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.08) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12825 for 'product'. 'Nucleus' is a helpful word here. Thought: is the general product a candidate for a formal definition of essence? It would be a sortal essence - roughly, what all beetles have in common, just by being beetles. |
| 12830 | Universe: the mereological sum of all objects whatever, written 'U' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'Universe' in mereology is the sum of all objects whatever, a unique individual of which all individuals are part. This is denoted by 'U'. Strictly, there can be no 'empty Universe', since the Universe is not a container, but the whole filling. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.09) | |
| A reaction: This, of course, contrasts with set theory, which cannot have a set of all sets. At the lower end, set theory does have a null set, while mereology has no null individual. See David Lewis on combining the two theories. |
| 12831 | Atom: an individual with no proper parts, written 'At x' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An 'atom' in mereology is an individual with no proper parts. We shall use the expression 'At x' to mean 'x is an atom'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.11) | |
| A reaction: Note that 'part' in standard mereology includes improper parts, so every object has at least one part, namely itself. |
| 12844 | Dissective: stuff is dissective if parts of the stuff are always the stuff [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Water is said not to be 'dissective', since there are parts of any quantity of water which are not water. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: This won't seem to do for any physical matter, but presumably parts of numbers are always numbers. |
| 12813 | Two standard formalisations of part-whole theory are the Calculus of Individuals, and Mereology [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The standardly accepted formal theory of part-whole is classical extensional mereology, which is known in two logical guises, the Calculus of Individuals of Leonard and Goodman, and the Mereology of Lesniewski. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons catalogues several other modern attempts at axiomatisation in his chapter 2. |
| 12816 | Classical mereology doesn't handle temporal or modal notions very well [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The underlying logic of classical extensional mereology does not have the resources to deal with temporal and modal notions such as temporary part, temporal part, essential part, or essential permanent part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons tries to rectify this in the later chapters of his book, with modifications rather than extensions. Since everyone struggles with temporal and modal issues of identity, we shouldn't judge too harshly. |
| 12821 | The part-relation is transitive and asymmetric (and thus irreflexive) [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Formally, the part-relation is transitive and asymmetric (and thus irreflexive). Hence nothing is a proper part of itself, things aren't proper parts of one another, and if one is part of two which is part of three then one is part of three. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.1.1) |
| 18847 | Each wheel is part of a car, but the four wheels are not a further part [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The four wheels of a car are parts of it (each is part of it), but there is not a fifth part consisting of the four wheels. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: This raises questions about the transitivity of parthood. If there are parts of parts of wholes, the basic parts are OK, and the whole is OK, but how can there also be an intermediate part? Try counting the parts of this whole! |
| 12846 | A 'group' is a collection with a condition which constitutes their being united [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We call a 'collection' of jewels a 'group' term. Several random musicians are unlikely to be an orchestra. If they come together regularly in a room to play, such conditions are constitutive of an orchestra. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Clearly this invites lots of borderline cases. Eleven footballers don't immediately make a team, as followers of the game know well. |
| 12848 | The same members may form two groups [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Groups may coincide in membership without being identical - extensionality goes. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.9) | |
| A reaction: Thus an eleven-person orchestra may also constitute a football team. What if a pile of stones is an impediment to you, and useful to me? Is it then two groups? Suppose they hum while playing football? (Don't you just love philosophy?) |
| 12861 | 'The wolves' are the matter of 'the pack'; the latter is a group, with different identity conditions [Simons] |
| Full Idea: 'The wolves' is a plural term referring to just these animals, whereas 'the pack' of wolves refers to a group, and the group and plurality, while they may coincide in membership, have different identity conditions. The wolves are the matter of the pack. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Even a cautious philosopher like Simons is ready to make bold ontological commitment to 'packs', on the basis of something called 'identity conditions'. I think it is just verbal. You can qualify 'the wolves' and 'the pack' to make them identical. |
| 12876 | Philosophy is stuck on the Fregean view that an individual is anything with a proper name [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Modern philosophy is still under the spell of Frege's view that an individual is anything that has a proper name. (Note: But not only are empty names now recognised, but some are aware of the existence of plural reference). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably every electron in the universe is an individual, and every (finite) number which has never been named has a pretty clear identity. Presumably Pegasus, John Doe, and 'the person in the kitchen' have to be accommodated. |
| 12845 | Some natural languages don't distinguish between singular and plural [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The syntactic distinction between singular and plural is not a universal feature of natural languages. Chinese manages nicely without it, and Sanskrit makes a tripartite distinction between singular, dual, and plural (more than two). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: Simons is mounting an attack on the way in which modern philosophy and logic has been mesmerised by singular terms and individuated objects. Most people seem now to agree with Simons. There is stuff, as well as plurals. |
| 14234 | If you only refer to objects one at a time, you need sets in order to refer to a plurality [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: A 'singularist', who refers to objects one at a time, must resort to the language of sets in order to replace plural reference to members ('Henry VIII's wives') by singular reference to a set ('the set of Henry VIII's wives'). | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: A simple and illuminating point about the motivation for plural reference. Null sets and singletons give me the creeps, so I would personally prefer to avoid set theory when dealing with ontology. |
| 14237 | We can use plural language to refer to the set theory domain, to avoid calling it a 'set' [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Plurals earn their keep in set theory, to answer Skolem's remark that 'in order to treat of 'sets', we must begin with 'domains' that are constituted in a certain way'. We can speak in the plural of 'the objects', not a 'domain' of objects. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [Skolem 1922:291 in van Heijenoort] Zermelo has said that the domain cannot be a set, because every set belongs to it. |
| 14245 | Logical truths are true no matter what exists - but predicate calculus insists that something exists [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Logical truths should be true no matter what exists, so true even if nothing exists. The classical predicate calculus, however, makes it logically true that something exists. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) |
| 14246 | If mathematics purely concerned mathematical objects, there would be no applied mathematics [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: If mathematics was purely concerned with mathematical objects, there would be no room for applied mathematics. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.1) | |
| A reaction: Love it! Of course, they are using 'objects' in the rather Fregean sense of genuine abstract entities. I don't see why fictionalism shouldn't allow maths to be wholly 'pure', although we have invented fictions which actually have application. |
| 21382 | Things get smaller without end [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Of the small there is no smallest, but always a smaller. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B03), quoted by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras II | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras seems to be speaking of the physical world (and probably writing prior to the emergence of atomism, which could have been a rebellion against he current idea). |
| 14247 | Sets might either represent the numbers, or be the numbers, or replace the numbers [Oliver/Smiley] |
| Full Idea: Identifying numbers with sets may mean one of three quite different things: 1) the sets represent the numbers, or ii) they are the numbers, or iii) they replace the numbers. | |
| From: Oliver,A/Smiley,T (What are Sets and What are they For? [2006], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: Option one sounds the most plausible to me. I will take numbers to be patterns embedded in nature, and sets are one way of presenting them in shorthand form, in order to bring out what is repeated. |
| 481 | Nothing is created or destroyed; there is only mixing and separation [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: No thing comes into being or passes away, but it is mixed together or separated from existing things. Thus it would be correct if coming into being was called 'mixing', and passing away 'separation-off''. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B17), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 163.20 |
| 21822 | Anaxagoras's concept of supreme Mind has a simple First and a multiple One [Anaxagoras, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras, in his assertion of a Mind pure and unmixed, affirms a simplex First and a sundered One, though writing long ago he failed in precision. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.09 | |
| A reaction: The crunch question is whether the supreme One or Mind is part of Being, or is above and beyond Being. Plotinus claims that Anaxagoras was on his side (with Plato, against Parmenides). |
| 12838 | Four-dimensional ontology has no change, since that needs an object, and time to pass [Simons] |
| Full Idea: In the four-dimensional ontology there may be timeless variation, but there is no change. Change consists in an object having first one property and then another contrary one. But processes all have their properties timelessly. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: Possibly Simons is begging the question here. The phenomena which are traditionally labelled as 'change' are all nicely covered in the four-D account. Change is, we might say, subsumed in the shape of the space-time 'worm'. |
| 12842 | There are real relational changes, as well as bogus 'Cambridge changes' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It is a mistake to call bogus Cambridge changes 'relational changes', since there are real relational changes, such as the changes in the relative positions and distances of several bodies. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1) | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure how you distinguish the two. If we swap seats, that is a real change. If everyone moves away from where I am sitting, is that real or Cambridge? If I notice, I might be upset, but suppose I don't notice? Nothing about me changes. |
| 12841 | I don't believe in processes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: I have been unable to see that there are processes. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n4) | |
| A reaction: My problem here is that I am inclined to think of the mind as a process of the brain. The fact that a reductive account can be given of a process doesn't mean that we can deny there existence. Is there no such thing as decay, or erosion? |
| 12836 | Fans of process ontology cheat, since river-stages refer to 'rivers' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Proponents of process ontology (except perhaps Whitehead, who is obscure) indulge in double-talk with concrete examples. It is cheating to talk of 'cat-processes', or 'bathing in river-stages'. You can't change the subject and leave the predicate alone. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: It is one thing to admit processes into one's ontology, and another to have a 'process ontology', which presumably reduces objects to processes. I suppose the interest of continuant objects is precisely the aspect of them that is above any process. |
| 8979 | Slow and continuous events (like balding or tree-growth) are called 'processes', not 'events' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Some changes are slow and continuous and are called 'processes' rather than events; the growth of a tree or the greying of John's hair. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 3.2) | |
| A reaction: So making a loaf of bread is an event rather than a process, and World War I was a process rather than an event? If you slow down a dramatic event (on film), you see that it is really a process. I take 'process' to be a much more illuminating word. |
| 8981 | Maybe processes behave like stuff-nouns, and events like count-nouns [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There is arguably a parallel between the mass-count distinction among meanings of nouns and the process-event distinction among meanings of verbs. Processes, like stuff, do not connote criteria for counting, whereas events, like things, do. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: Hm. You can have several processes, and a process can come to an end - but then you can have several ingredients of a cake, and you can run out of one of them. This may be quite a helpful distinction. |
| 12882 | A wave is maintained by a process, but it isn't a process [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A wave is maintained by a process transferring motion from particle to particle of the medium, but it is not identical with this process. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: I'm inclined to think of the mind as a process. There are some 'things' which only seem to exist if they have a duration. Bricks can be instantaneous, but minds and waves can't. A wave isn't a continuant. A hill isn't a wave. |
| 12880 | Moments are things like smiles or skids, which are founded on other things [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A 'moment' is something which is founded on something else. Examples are legion: smiles, headaches, gestures, skids, collisions, fights, thought, all founded on their participants, the continuants involved in them. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: The idea of a 'moment' and 'foundation' come from Husserl Log. Inv. 3. Simons says moments 'have a bright future in ontology'. It would be better if fewer of his examples involved human beings and their perceptions. |
| 12883 | Moving disturbances are are moments which continuously change their basis [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Moving disturbances are a special and interesting kind of continuant: moments which continuously change their fundaments. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: [a smile is a moment, and the face its fundament] I'm thinking he's got this wrong. Compare Idea 12882. Disturbances can't be continuants, because the passing of time is essential to them, but not to a continuant. |
| 12881 | A smiling is an event with causes, but the smile is a continuant without causes [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A smiling, being an event, has causes and effects, whereas the smile thereby produced is a continuant, and has itself neither causes nor effects. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.5) | |
| A reaction: This is dogmatic, hopeful and a bit dubious. Simons is very scathing about processes in ontology. There seem to be two descriptions, with distinctive syntax, but it is hard to believe that in reality we have two types of thing present. |
| 12840 | I do not think there is a general identity condition for events [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Like Anscombe (1979) I do not think there is such a creature as a general identity condition for events. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.1 n1) | |
| A reaction: My working definition of an event is 'any part of a process which can be individuated'. This leaves you trying to define a process, and define individuate, and then to realise that individuation is not an objective matter. |
| 8973 | Einstein's relativity brought events into ontology, as the terms of a simultaneity relationships [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The ontology of events rose in philosophy with the rise of relativity theory in physics. Einstein postulated the relativity of simultaneity to an observer's state of motion. The terms of the relation of simultaneity must be events or their parts. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Events [2003], 1.1.2) | |
| A reaction: Intriguing. Philosophers no doubt think they are way ahead of physicists in such a metaphysical area. Personally I regard the parentage of the concept as good grounds for scepticism about it. See Idea 7621 for my reason. |
| 12839 | Relativity has an ontology of things and events, not on space-time diagrams [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A closer examination of the concepts and principles of relativity shows that they rest squarely on an ontology of things and events (not on convenient 'space-time diagrams'). Acceleration concerns non-zero mass, but only continuants can have a mass. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that fans of four-dimensionalism like to claim that they are more in touch with modern physics, because 'time is just another dimension, like space, so objects are spread across it'. Simons sounds right about this. |
| 12879 | Independent objects can exist apart, and maybe even entirely alone [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An object a is ontologically independent of b if a can exist without b, if there is a possible world in which in which a exists and b does not. In the strongest sense, an object is independent if it could be all there is. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.4) | |
| A reaction: Simons calls the strongest version a 'startling' one which maybe not even God could achieve. |
| 17995 | Basic is the potentially perceptible, then comes the contrary qualities, and finally the 'elements' [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: We must recognise three 'originative sources': first that which is potentially perceptible body, secondly the contrarities (e.g hot and cold), and thirdly Fire, Water, and the like. Only thirdly, however, for these bodies change into one another. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]), quoted by Aristotle - The History of Animals 529a34 | |
| A reaction: The 'potentially perceptible' seems to be matter. The surprise here is that the contraries are more basic than the elements, rather than being properties of them. Reality is modes of matter, it seems. |
| 12847 | Mass nouns admit 'much' and 'a little', and resist 'many' and 'few'. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Syntactic criteria for mass nouns include that they admit 'much' and 'a little', and resist 'many' and 'few'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.6) | |
| A reaction: That is, they don't seem to be countable. Sortal terms are those which pick out countables. |
| 12862 | Gold is not its atoms, because the atoms must be all gold, but gold contains neutrons [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The mass of gold cannot be identified with the gold atoms, because whatever is part of the gold atoms is gold, whereas not every part of the gold is gold (for example, the neutrons in it are not gold). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: There is something too quick about arguments like this. It comes back to nominal v real essence. We apply 'gold' to the superficial features of the stuff, but deep down we may actually mean the atomic structure. See Idea 12812. |
| 12863 | Mass terms (unlike plurals) are used with indifference to whether they can exist in units [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Mass terms and plural terms differ principally in the indifference of mass terms to matters of division. A mass term can be used irrespective of how, indeed whether, the denotatum comes parcelled in units. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: It seems more to the point to say that mass terms (stuff) don't need units to exist, and you can disperse the units (the cups of water) without affecting the identity of the stuff. You can't pulverise a pile of stones and retain the stones. |
| 12858 | Mixtures disappear if nearly all of the mixture is one ingredient [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If a cupful of dirty water is mixed evenly with a ton of earth, no dirty water remains, and the same goes if we mix it evenly with a lake of clean water. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: This means that a mixture is a vague entity, subject to the sorites paradox. If the dirt was cyanide, we would consider the water to be polluted by it down to a much lower level. |
| 12859 | A mixture can have different qualities from its ingredients. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The qualities of a mixture need not be those of its ingredients in isolation. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.2) | |
| A reaction: It depends on what you mean by a quality. Presumably we can give a reductive account of the qualities of the mixture, as long as no reaction has taken place. The taste of a salad is just the sum of its parts. |
| 18431 | Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards] |
| Full Idea: Simons's 'nuclear' option blends features of the substratum and bundle theories. First we have tropes collected by virtue of their internal relations, forming the essential kernel or nucleus. This nucleus then bears the non-essential tropes. | |
| From: report of Peter Simons (Particulars in Particular Clothing [1994], p.567) by Douglas Edwards - Properties 3.5 | |
| A reaction: [compression of Edwards's summary] This strikes me as being a remarkably good theory. I am not sure of the ontological status of properties, such that they can (unaided) combine to make part of an object. What binds the non-essentials? |
| 12850 | To individuate something we must pick it out, but also know its limits of variation [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We have not finished deciding what Fido is when we can pick him out from his surroundings at any one time. ...Knowing what Fido is depends on knowing roughly within what limits his flux of parts is tolerable. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: I like this. We don't know the world until we know its modal characteristics (its powers or dispositions). Have you 'individuated' a hand grenade if you think it is a nice ornament? |
| 12860 | Sortal nouns for continuants tell you their continuance- and cessation-conditions [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A sortal noun for a kind of continuant tells us, among other things, under what conditions the object continues to exist and under what conditions it ceases to exist. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.3) | |
| A reaction: This sounds blatantly false. If you know something is a 'snake', that doesn't tell you how hot it must get before the snakes die. Obviously if you know all about snakes (from studying individual snakes!), then you know a lot about the next snake. |
| 12886 | A whole requires some unique relation which binds together all of the parts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A whole must at least approximate to this condition: every member of some division of the object stands in a certain relation to every other member, and no member bears this relation to anything other than members of the division. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Simons proceeds to formalise this, and I suspect that he goes for this definition because (unlike looser ones) it can be formalised. See Simons's Idea 12865. We'll need to know whether these are internal or external relations. |
| 12835 | Does Tibbles remain the same cat when it loses its tail? [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The cat is 'Tibbles' with a tail; 'Tib' is Tibbles after the loss of the tail. 1) Tibbles isn't Tib at t; 2) Tibbles is Tib at t'; 3) Tibbles at t is Tibbles at t'; 4) Tib at t is Tib at t'; so 5) Tibbles at t is Tib at t (contradicting 1). What's wrong? | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: [The example is in Wiggins 1979, from Geach, from William of Sherwood] Simons catalogues nine assumptions which are being made to produce the contradiction. 1) rests on Leibniz's law. Simons says two objects are occupying Tibbles. |
| 12857 | Tibbles isn't Tib-plus-tail, because Tibbles can survive its loss, but the sum can't [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There mere fact that Tibbles can survive the mutilation of losing a tail, whereas the sum of Tib and the tail cannot, is enough to distinguish them, even if no such mutilation ever occurs. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.1) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12835 for details of the Tibbles example. Either we go for essentialism here, or the whole notion of identity collapses. But the essential features of a person are not just those whose loss would kill them. |
| 12820 | Without extensional mereology two objects can occupy the same position [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If we reject extensionality in mereology, it has as a consequence that more than one object may have exactly the same parts at the same time, and hence occupy the same position. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons defends this claim. I'm unconvinced that we must choose between the two views. The same parts should ensure the same physical essence, which seems to guarantee the same identity. Not any old parts generate an essence. |
| 12866 | Composition is asymmetric and transitive [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Composition is asymmetric and transitive: if a is made up of b, and b of c, then a is made up of c; and if a is made of b, then b is not made up of a. We cannot say the snow is made up of the snowball. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: ...And snowballs composed of snow can then compose a snowman (transitivity). |
| 12867 | A hand constitutes a fist (when clenched), but a fist is not composed of an augmented hand [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Composition entails constitution, but does the converse hold? A hand constitutes a fist in virtue of being clenched, but it is not obvious that it composes a fist, and certainly a fist is not composed of a hand plus some additional part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.5) | |
| A reaction: There are subtleties of ordinary usage in 'compose' and 'constitute' which are worth teasing apart, but that isn't the last word on such relationships. 'Compose' seems to point towards matter, while 'constitute' seems to point towards form. |
| 12864 | We say 'b is part of a', 'b is a part of a', 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: There are four cases of possible forms of expression when a is made up of b: we say 'b is part of a', or 'b is a part of a', or 'b are a part of a', or 'b are parts of a'. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 6.4) | |
| A reaction: Personally I don't want to make much of these observations of normal English usage, but they are still interesting, and Simons offers a nice discussion of them. |
| 12814 | Classical mereology says there are 'sums', for whose existence there is no other evidence [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Either out of conviction or for reasons of algebraic neatness, classical extensional mereology asserts the existence of certain individuals, mereological sums, for whose existence in general we have no evidence outside the theory itself. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Observing that we have no evidence for sums 'outside the theory' is nice. It is a nice ontological test, with interesting implications for Quinean ontological commitment. |
| 12817 | 'Mereological extensionality' says objects with the same parts are identical [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Classical extensional mereology won't extend well to temporal and modal facts, because of 'mereological extensionality', which is the thesis that objects with the same parts are identical (by analogy with the extensionality of sets). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Simons challenges this view, claiming, for example, that the Ship of Theseus is two objects rather than one. I suppose 'my building bricks' might be 'your sculpture', but this is very ontologically extravagant. This is a mereological Leibniz's Law. |
| 12833 | If there are c atoms, this gives 2^c - 1 individuals, so there can't be just 2 or 12 individuals [Simons] |
| Full Idea: In classical mereology, if there are c atoms, where c is any cardinal number, there are 2^c - 1 individuals, so the cardinality of models is restricted. There are no models with cardinality 2, 12 or aleph-0, for example. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: The news that there is no possible world containing just 2 or just 12 individuals ought to worry fans of extensional mereology. A nice challenge for God - create a world containing just 12 individuals. |
| 12849 | Sums are more plausible for pluralities and masses than they are for individuals [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We are on stronger grounds in asserting the general existence of sums when considering pluralities and masses than when considering individuals. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.2) | |
| A reaction: I was thinking that the modern emphasis on referring to plurals was precisely to resist the idea that we must 'sum' them into one thing. If so, we wouldn't want to then sum several plurals. If a mass isn't a sum, how can we sum some masses? |
| 12877 | Sums of things in different categories are found within philosophy. [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Cross-categorial sums are not unknown in philosophy. A body and the events which befall it are intimately connected, and the mysterious four-dimensional blocks might be mereological sums of the body and its life. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 8.1) | |
| A reaction: Simons here ventures into the territory of abstracta, which he said he wouldn't touch. Presumably his first example has 'a biography' as its whole, which is not just a philosophical notion. Why will some categories sum, and others won't? |
| 12888 | The wholeness of a melody seems conventional, but of an explosion it seems natural [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The example of a melody shows that what counts as a temporal individual is partly a matter of human stipulation. But with a natural event like an explosion there is little or no room for decision about what is a part, and whether it is a single event. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: You could have a go at giving a natural account of the wholeness of a melody, in terms of the little aesthetic explosion that occurs in the brain of a listener. |
| 12871 | Objects have their essential properties because of the kind of objects they are [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An object has the essential properties it has in virtue of being the kind of object it is. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: He attributes this to Husserl and Wiggins. I just don't get it. What makes something the 'kind of object it is'? They've got it the wrong way round. Does God announce that this thing is a tiger, and is then pleasantly surprised to discover its stripes? |
| 12870 | We must distinguish the de dicto 'must' of propositions from the de re 'must' of essence [Simons] |
| Full Idea: We must distinguish the 'must' of necessity as applied to a proposition or state of affairs (de dicto) from the 'must' of essence, concerning the way in which an object has an attribute (de re). | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.1) | |
| A reaction: A helfpful distinction, but a possible confusion of necessity and essentiality (Simons knows this). Modern logicians seem to run them together, because they only care about identity. I don't, because I care about explanations. |
| 12873 | Original parts are the best candidates for being essential to artefacts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Original parts are the best candidates for being essential to artefacts. It is hard to conceive how an object could have as essential a part which was attached at some time after the object had come into being. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Without its big new memory upgrade my computer would be hopelessly out of date. Simons is awesome in some ways, but seems rather confused when it comes to discussing essence. I think Wiggins may have been a bad influence on him. |
| 12874 | An essential part of an essential part is an essential part of the whole [Simons] |
| Full Idea: An essential part of an essential part is an essential part of the whole. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.4) | |
| A reaction: Sounds beyond dispute, but worth pondering. It seems to be only type-parts, not token-parts, which are essential. Simons is thinking of identity rather than function, but he rejects Chisholm's idea that all parts are essential. So which ones are? |
| 12837 | Four dimensional-objects are stranger than most people think [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The strangeness of four-dimensional objects is almost always underestimated in the literature. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 3.4) | |
| A reaction: See Idea 12836, where he has criticised process ontologists for smuggling in stages and process as being OF conventional objects. |
| 12856 | Intermittent objects would be respectable if they occurred in nature, as well as in artefacts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: If we could show that intermittence could occur not only among artefacts and higher-order objects, but also among natural things, then we should have given it a secure place on the ontological map. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.7) | |
| A reaction: Interesting ontological test. Having identified fairly clear intermittent artefacts (Idea 12851), if we then fail to find any examples in nature, must we revisit the artefacts and say they are not intermittents? He suggests freezing an organ in surgery. |
| 12885 | Objects like chess games, with gaps in them, are thereby less unified [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Temporal objects which are scattered in time - i.e. have temporal gaps in them, like interrupted discussions or chess games - are less unified than those without gaps. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Is he really saying that a discussion or a chess game is less unified if there is even the slightest pause in it? Otherwise, how long must the pause be before it disturbs the unity? Do people play internet chess, as they used to play correspondence chess? |
| 12854 | An entrepreneur and a museum curator would each be happy with their ship at the end [Simons] |
| Full Idea: At the end of the Ship of Theseus story both an entrepreneur and a museum curator can be content, each having his ship all to himself, ..because each was all along claiming a different object from the other. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: Simons has the entrepreneur caring about function (for cruises), and the curator caring about matter (as a relic of Theseus). It is bold of Simons to say on that basis that it starts as two objects, one 'matter-constant', the other 'form-constant'. |
| 12855 | The 'best candidate' theories mistakenly assume there is one answer to 'Which is the real ship?' [Simons] |
| Full Idea: The 'best candidate' theories get into difficulty because it is assumed that there is a single uniquely correct answer to the question 'Which is the real ship?' | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 5.5) | |
| A reaction: My own example supports Simons. If Theseus discards the old planks as rubbish, then his smart new ship is the original. But if he steals his own ship (to evade insurance regulations) by substituting a plank at a time, the removed planks are the original. |
| 12872 | The zygote is an essential initial part, for a sexually reproduced organism [Simons] |
| Full Idea: It is essential to an organism arising from sexual reproduction that it has its zygote as initial improper part. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.3) | |
| A reaction: It can't be necessary that an organism which appears to be sexually reproduced actually is so (if you don't believe that, read more science fiction). It may well just be analytic that sexual reproduction involves a zygote. Nothing to do with essence. |
| 12889 | The limits of change for an individual depend on the kind of individual [Simons] |
| Full Idea: What determines the limits of admissible change and secures the identity of a continuant is a matter of the kind of object in question. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.6) | |
| A reaction: This gives some motivation for the sortal view of essence, which I find hard to take. However, if my statue were pulverised it would make good compost. |
| 20802 | Snow is not white, and doesn't even appear white, because it is made of black water [Anaxagoras, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras not only denied that snow was white, but because he knew that the water from which it was composed was black, even denied that it appeared white to himself. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Academica II.100 | |
| A reaction: Not ridiculous. Can you deny that red and yellow balls look orange from a distance? A failure of discrimination on your part. It sounds okay to say 'what I am really perceiving is red and yellow'. [see 'Anaxagoras' poem by D.H.Lawrence!] |
| 13257 | The senses are too feeble to determine the truth [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Owing to the feebleness of the sense, we are not able to determine the truth. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B21), quoted by Patricia Curd - Anaxagoras 5.1 | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras offers a corresponding elevation of the power of mind (Idea 13256), so I now realise that he is, along with Pythagoras and Parmenides, one of the fathers of rationalism in philosophy. They probably overrate reason. |
| 22761 | We reveal unreliability in the senses when we cannot discriminate a slow change of colour [Anaxagoras, by Sext.Empiricus] |
| Full Idea: Our lack of sureness in the senses is shown if we take two colours, back and white, and pour one into the other drop by drop, we are unable to distinguish the gradual alterations although they subsist as actual facts. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) I.090 | |
| A reaction: [Sextus calls Anaxagoras 'the greatest of the physicists'] I'm not sure what this proves. People with bad eyesight can distinguish very little, but that doesn't prove scepticism. And there are things too small for anyone to see. |
| 13256 | Nous is unlimited, self-ruling and pure; it is the finest thing, with great discernment and strength [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Nous is unlimited and self-ruling and has been mixed with no thing, but is alone itself by itself. ...For it is the finest of all things and the purest, and indeed it maintains all discernment about everything and has the greatest strength. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B12), quoted by Patricia Curd - Anaxagoras 3.3 | |
| A reaction: Anaxagoras seems to have been a pioneer in elevating the status of the mind, which is a prop to the rationalist view, and encourages dualism. More naturalistic accounts are, in my view, much healthier. |
| 13784 | Mind is self-ruling, pure, ordering and ubiquitous [Anaxagoras, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says that mind is self-ruling, mixes with nothing else, orders the things that are, and travels through everything. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plato - Cratylus 413c | |
| A reaction: This elevation of the mind in the natural scheme of things by Anaxagoras looks increasingly significant in western culture to me. Without this line of thought, Descartes and Kant are inconceivable. |
| 5118 | Anaxagoras says mind remains pure, and so is not affected by what it changes [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says that intellect (which is a cause of change) is not affected by or mixed in with anything else; for this is the only way in which it can cause change, while being itself changeless, and control things without mixing with them. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 256b24 | |
| A reaction: I suggest that this is the germ of the original concept of freewill - of the mind as somehow outside the causal processes of the world, so that it can initiate change without itself being affected by other causes. Aristotle says he's right; I disagree. |
| 18883 | Any equivalence relation among similar things allows the creation of an abstractum [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Whenever we have an equivalence relation among things - such as similarity in a certain respect - we can abstract under the equivalence and consider the abstractum. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.19) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as dressing up old-fashioned psychological abstractionism in the respectable clothing of Fregean equivalences (such as 'directions'). We can actually do what Simons wants without the precision of partitioned equivalence classes. |
| 18884 | Abstraction is usually seen as producing universals and numbers, but it can do more [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Abstraction as a cognitive tool has been associated predominantly with the metaphysics of universals and of mathematical objects such as numbers. But it is more widely applicable beyond this standard range. I commend its judicious use. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Modes of Extension: comment on Fine [2008], p.21) | |
| A reaction: Personally I think our view of the world is founded on three psychological principles: abstraction, idealisation and generalisation. You can try to give them rigour, as 'equivalence classes', or 'universal quantifications', if it makes you feel better. |
| 12843 | With activities if you are doing it you've done it, with performances you must finish to have done it [Simons] |
| Full Idea: Action theorists distinguish between activity verbs such as 'weep' and 'talk' (where continuous entails perfect - John is weeping so John has now wept), and performance verbs like 'wash', where John is washing doesn't yet mean John has washed. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 4.2) | |
| A reaction: How to distinguish them, bar examples? In 'has wept' and 'has washed', I'm thinking that it is the 'has' which is ambiguous, rather than the more contentful word. One is 'has participated' and the other is 'has completed'. I've participated in washing! |
| 12875 | One false note doesn't make it a performance of a different work [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A performance of a certain work with a false note is still a performance of that work, albeit a slightly imperfect one, and not (as Goodman has argued) a performance of a different work. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 7.6) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly right, but invites the question of how many wrong notes are permissable. One loud very wrong note could ruin a very long performance (but of that work, presumably). This is about classical music, but think about jazz. |
| 18231 | Anaxagoras said a person would choose to be born to contemplate the ordered heavens [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: When Anaxagoras was asked what it was for which a person would choose to be born rather than not, he said it would be to apprehend the heavens and the order in the whole universe. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], 1216), quoted by Aristotle - Eudemian Ethics 8 'Finality' | |
| A reaction: [Anaxagoras, quoted by Aristotle, quoted by Korsgaard, quoted by me, and then quoted by you, perhaps] |
| 631 | For Anaxagoras the Good Mind has no opposite, and causes all movement, for a higher reason [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras says the good is a principle as the source of movement, in the form of Mind. However it does it for the sake of something else, which is a further factor. And he allows no opposite to the good Mind. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1075b |
| 22727 | Mind creates the world from a mixture of pure substances [Anaxagoras, by ] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras assumed that Mind, which is God, is the efficient principle, and the multi-mixture of homoeomeries is the material principle. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by - I.6 | |
| A reaction: The choice of homoeomeries as basic is a good one. They are much better candidates than materials which are made of parts of a quite different kind, where the parts are a better candidate than the whole. |
| 550 | Anaxagoras said that the number of principles was infinite [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras said that the number of principles was infinite. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 984a |
| 21383 | The ultimate constituents of reality are the homoeomeries [Anaxagoras, by Vlastos] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras contrasts with other thinkers in the formula that his 'elements' were not the air of Anaximenes or the fire of Heraclitus or the roots of Empedocles or the atoms of Leucippus, but the infinite variety of homoiomereia. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras III | |
| A reaction: Not sure about the 'roots' of Empedocles. Anaxagoras is particularly thinking of the basic stuffs that make up the body, such as hair, bone and blood. It is plausible to reduce everything to stuffs that seem to have no further structure. |
| 13208 | Anaxagoreans regard the homoeomeries as elements, which compose earth, air, fire and water [Anaxagoras, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The followers of Anaxagoras regard the 'homoeomeries' as 'simple' and elements, whilst they affirm that Earth, Fire, Water and Air are composite; for each of these is (according to them) a 'common seminary' of all the homoeomeries. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 314a28 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 13207. Aristotle is amused that the followers of Empedocles and of Anaxagoras have precisely opposite views on this subject. |
| 367 | Anaxagoras says mind produces order and causes everything [Anaxagoras, by Plato] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras asserted that it is mind that produces order and is the cause of everything. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plato - Phaedo 097d |
| 21381 | Germs contain microscopic organs, which become visible as they grow [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: In the germ there are hair, nails, arteries, sinews, bones, which are not manifest because of the smallness of their parts, but become distinct little by little as they grow. For how could hair come from not-hair, or flesh from non-flesh. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B10), quoted by Gregory Vlastos - The Physical Theory of Anaxagoras I | |
| A reaction: Compare Aristotle's apparent view that the physical world has no microscopic structure, and Democritus's view that hair can come from not-hair by the organisation of atoms. Is this the first suggestion that we need to know what is microscopic? |
| 22726 | When things were unified, Mind set them in order [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: All things were together, and Mind came and set them in order. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) | |
| A reaction: This is presumably the source for the passionate belief of Plato in the importance of order. Existence seems like chaos, with order residing beneath it, but we can wonder whether if we go even deeper it is chaos again. |
| 2629 | Anaxagoras was the first to say that the universe is directed by an intelligence [Anaxagoras, by Cicero] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras, pupil of Anaximenes, was the first to maintain that the form and motion of the universe was determined and directed by the power and purpose of an infinite intelligence. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') I.26 |
| 480 | Past, present and future, and the movements of the heavens, were arranged by Mind [Anaxagoras] |
| Full Idea: Whatever was then in existence which is not now, and all things that now exist, and whatever shall exist - all were arranged by Mind, as also the revolution followed now by the stars, the sun and the moon. | |
| From: Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B12), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 164.24 |
| 7488 | Anaxagoras was the first recorded atheist [Anaxagoras, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras was the first recorded atheist. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Peter Watson - Ideas Ch.25 | |
| A reaction: He was a very lively character, right in the middle of the Athenian golden age. |
| 5956 | Anaxagoras was charged with impiety for calling the sun a lump of stone [Anaxagoras, by Plutarch] |
| Full Idea: Anaxagoras was charged with impiety because he called the sun a lump of stone. | |
| From: report of Anaxagoras (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE]) by Plutarch - 14: Superstition §9 | |
| A reaction: The point is that he was supposed to say that the sun is a god. |