more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
Most materialist ontologies of the past postulate that the world ultimately consists of smallest indivisible component parts that persist because they must; they are permanent.
Gist of Idea
Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent
Source
R.D. Ingthorsson (A Powerful Particulars View of Causation [2021], 2.1)
Book Ref
'Oxford Handbook of Philosophy of Time', ed/tr. Callender,Craig [OUP 2013], p.20
A Reaction
Van Inwagen is notable for this view. Ingthorsson says the theory is to explain medium-sized change, while denying that anything comes to be out of nothing. Theology may lurk in the background. Simple persistance won't explain compound persistance.
| 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] |