Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim, Max Stirner and Nicole Oresme

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these philosophers

---

4 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 9. Qualities

16705	Whiteness isn't created in an alteration, because it is just this-being-white [Oresme]
	Full Idea: If it is said that whiteness begins to be through alteration, this does not hold, because whiteness is nothing other than this-being-white.
	From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Generation and Corruption' [1349], I.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 19.3
	A reaction: This innocent-looking remark is dynamite, because it rejects the separability of qualities, which threatens the doctrine of Transubstantiation.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things

16695	Successive entities are in flux, flowing in existence, with different parts at different times [Oresme]
	Full Idea: For any time, some of a successive entity exists in one of its parts, and a totally different such exists in another part. …It is in continuous flux and transition, ..and flows in existence if it does not have the same existence over a whole time.
	From: Nicole Oresme (On 'Physics' [1346], III.6, dist.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1
	A reaction: Pasnau says the successive entity is the whole made up of these changing parts, so it sounds very like the temporal stages view of Sider and Hawley.

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

20653	Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
	Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
	From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
	A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?

23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 6. Authentic Self

7073	I am a creative nothing, out of which I myself create everything [Stirner]
	Full Idea: I am not nothing in the sense of emptiness, but I am the creative nothing, the nothing out of which I myself as creator create everything.
	From: Max Stirner (The Ego and Its Own [1844]), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Ch.2
	A reaction: This appears to be the germ of the entire existentialist view, which gives a helpful gloss on the concept of 'nothing' - as the motivation for human creation, the vacuum in the mind that has to be filled. Call it 'creative boredom'.