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Single Idea 1687
[filed under theme 9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
]
Full Idea
Why will a man be a two-footed terrestrial animal and not an animal and terrestrial? Assumptions do not make it necessary that what is predicated form a unity - rather, it is as if the same man were musical and literate.
Clarification
'Predicated' means 'having characteristics assigned' to something
Gist of Idea
Why are being terrestrial and a biped combined in the definition of man, but being literate and musical aren't?
Source
Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 92a30)
Book Ref
Aristotle: 'Posterior Analytics (2nd ed)', ed/tr. Barnes,Jonathan [OUP 1993], p.54
The
29 ideas
with the same theme
[denial that there are such things as unified objects]:
13782
|
Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast
[Heraclitus]
|
13209
|
There is no coming-to-be of anything, but only mixing and separating
[Empedocles, by Aristotle]
|
15855
|
If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it
[Plato]
|
1687
|
Why are being terrestrial and a biped combined in the definition of man, but being literate and musical aren't?
[Aristotle]
|
12953
|
Fluidity is basic, and we divide into bodies according to our needs
[Leibniz]
|
7189
|
Maybe there are only subjects, and 'objects' result from relations between subjects
[Nietzsche]
|
18314
|
In language we treat 'ego' as a substance, and it is thus that we create the concept 'thing'
[Nietzsche]
|
18987
|
A 'thing' is simply carved out of reality for human purposes
[James]
|
13935
|
We only accept 'things' within a language with formation, testing and acceptance rules
[Carnap]
|
8969
|
We should abandon absolute identity, confining it to within some category
[Geach, by Hawthorne]
|
15272
|
The good criticism of substance by Humeans also loses them the vital concept of a thing
[Harré/Madden]
|
17565
|
Nihilism says composition between single things is impossible
[Inwagen]
|
14228
|
If there are no tables, but tables are things arranged tablewise, the denial of tables is a contradiction
[Liggins on Inwagen]
|
14468
|
Actions by artefacts and natural bodies are disguised cooperations, so we don't need them
[Inwagen]
|
13384
|
Objects need conventions for their matter, their temporal possibility, and their spatial possibility
[Jubien]
|
13385
|
Basically, the world doesn't have ready-made 'objects'; we carve objects any way we like
[Jubien]
|
4206
|
Conventionalists see the world as an amorphous lump without identities, but are we part of the lump?
[Lowe]
|
14229
|
Merricks agrees that there are no composite objects, but offers a different semantics
[Merricks, by Liggins]
|
6142
|
The 'folk' way of carving up the world is not intrinsically better than quite arbitrary ways
[Merricks]
|
14472
|
If atoms 'arranged baseballwise' break a window, that analytically entails that a baseball did it
[Merricks, by Thomasson]
|
14469
|
Overdetermination: the atoms do all the causing, so the baseball causes no breakage
[Merricks]
|
21652
|
Our perceptual beliefs are about ordinary objects, not about simples arranged chair-wise
[Hofweber]
|
14927
|
Physics seems to imply that we must give up self-subsistent individuals
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
14944
|
There is no single view of individuals, because different sciences operate on different scales
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
14946
|
There are no cats in quantum theory, and no mountains in astrophysics
[Ladyman/Ross]
|
21651
|
It is analytic that if simples are arranged chair-wise, then there is a chair
[Thomasson, by Hofweber]
|
14467
|
Ordinary objects are rejected, to avoid contradictions, or for greater economy in thought
[Thomasson]
|
14479
|
To individuate people we need conventions, but conventions are made up by people
[Thomasson]
|
14486
|
Eliminativists haven't found existence conditions for chairs, beyond those of the word 'chair'
[Thomasson]
|