16698
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Days exist, and yet they seem to be made up of parts which don't exist [Burley]
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Full Idea:
I grant that a successive being is composed out of non-beings, as is clear of a day, which is composed of non-entities. Some part of this day is past and some future, and yet this day is.
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From:
Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III text 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
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A reaction:
The dilemma of Aristotle over time infected the scholastic attempt to give an account of successive entities. A day is a wonderfully elusive entity for a metaphysician.
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16690
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Unlike permanent things, successive things cannot exist all at once [Burley]
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Full Idea:
This is the difference between permanent and successive things: that a permanent thing exists all at once, or at least can exist all at once, whereas it is incompatible with a successive thing to exist all at once.
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From:
Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III txt 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1
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A reaction:
Permanent things sound like what are now called 'three-dimensional' objects, but scholastic 'entia successiva' are not the same as spacetime 'worms' or collections of temporal stages.
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20653
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Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
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Full Idea:
There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
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From:
report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
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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?
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5689
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Freud and others have shown that we don't know our own beliefs, feelings, motive and attitudes [Freud, by Shoemaker]
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Full Idea:
Freud persuaded many that beliefs, wishes and feelings are sometimes unconscious, and even sceptics about Freud acknowledge that there is self-deception about motive and attitudes.
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From:
report of Sigmund Freud (works [1900]) by Sydney Shoemaker - Introspection p.396
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A reaction:
This seems to me obviously correct. The traditional notion is that the consciousness is the mind, but now it seems obvious that consciousness is only one part of the mind, and maybe even a peripheral (epiphenomenal) part of it.
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