more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
It is sufficient to observe that all unities are propositions or propositional concepts, and that consequently nothing that exists is a unity. If, therefore, it is maintained that things are unities, we must reply that no things exist.
Gist of Idea
Unities are only in propositions or concepts, and nothing that exists has unity
Source
Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §439)
Book Ref
Russell,Bertrand: 'Principles of Mathematics' [Routledge 1992], p.467
A Reaction
The point, I presume, is that you end up as a nihilist about identities (like van Inwagen and Merricks) by mistakenly thinking (as Aristotle and Leibniz did) that everything that exists needs to have something called 'unity'.
11209 | The simple's whatness is its very self [Avicenna] |
13170 | The analysis of things leads to atoms of substance, which found both composition and action [Leibniz] |
14166 | Unities are only in propositions or concepts, and nothing that exists has unity [Russell] |
23467 | Objects are simple [Wittgenstein] |
17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
16070 | There are no objects with proper parts; there are only mereological simples [Unger, by Wasserman] |
14593 | Quantum field theory suggests that there are, fundamentally, no individual things [Swoyer] |
6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |