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Single Idea 12065

[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 4. Objectification ]

Full Idea

It seems mandatory to an observer of soldiers to give 'the final touch of unity' to their aggregate entity (the army). ...Similar claims arise with the ontological and explanatory claims of other corporate entities.

Gist of Idea

Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation

Source

David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.13.3)

Book Ref

'Philosophy: a Guide Through the Subject', ed/tr. Grayling,A.C. [OUP 1995], p.245

A Reaction

Wiggins must say (following Leibniz Essays II.xxiv,1) that we add the unity, but I take the view that an army has powers, and hence offers explanations, which are lacking in a merely group of disparate soldiers. So an army has an essence and identity.

The 14 ideas from 'Substance'

12057 Matter underlies things, composes things, and brings them to be [Wiggins]
12047 We refer to persisting substances, in perception and in thought, and they aid understanding [Wiggins]
12056 An ancestral relation is either direct or transitively indirect [Wiggins]
12055 Sortal predications are answers to the question 'what is x?' [Wiggins]
12059 A river may change constantly, but not in respect of being a river [Wiggins]
12063 Sortal classification becomes science, with cross reference clarifying individuals [Wiggins]
12064 The category of substance is more important for epistemology than for ontology [Wiggins]
12065 Seeing a group of soldiers as an army is irresistible, in ontology and explanation [Wiggins]
12049 Naming the secondary substance provides a mass of general information [Wiggins]
12050 Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins]
12052 We never single out just 'this', but always 'this something-or-other' [Wiggins]
12051 If the kinds are divided realistically, they fall into substances [Wiggins]
12053 'Human being' is a better answer to 'what is it?' than 'poet', as the latter comes in degrees [Wiggins]
12054 Secondary substances correctly divide primary substances by activity-principles and relations [Wiggins]