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Single Idea 3334

[filed under theme 27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 3. Points in Space ]

Full Idea

Rationalists have been happier with an ontology of points, and empiricists with an ontology of regions.

Gist of Idea

Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions

Source

José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.16)

Book Ref

Benardete,José A.: 'Metaphysics: The Logical Approach' [OUP 1989], p.119

The 26 ideas from José A. Benardete

3358 Metaphysics focuses on Platonism, essentialism, materialism and anti-realism [Benardete,JA]
3304 Why should packed-together particles be a thing (Mt Everest), but not scattered ones? [Benardete,JA]
3306 The clearest a priori knowledge is proving non-existence through contradiction [Benardete,JA]
3308 In the ontological argument a full understanding of the concept of God implies a contradiction in 'There is no God' [Benardete,JA]
3310 If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA]
12793 Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA]
3309 If a soldier continues to exist after serving as a soldier, does the wind cease to exist after it ceases to blow? [Benardete,JA]
3312 There are the 'is' of predication (a function), the 'is' of identity (equals), and the 'is' of existence (quantifier) [Benardete,JA]
3314 Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA]
3323 Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA]
3326 Set theory attempts to reduce the 'is' of predication to mathematics [Benardete,JA]
3327 The set of Greeks is included in the set of men, but isn't a member of it [Benardete,JA]
3329 Presumably the statements of science are true, but should they be taken literally or not? [Benardete,JA]
3330 Negatives, rationals, irrationals and imaginaries are all postulated to solve baffling equations [Benardete,JA]
3332 Greeks saw the science of proportion as the link between geometry and arithmetic [Benardete,JA]
3334 Rationalists see points as fundamental, but empiricists prefer regions [Benardete,JA]
3337 Natural numbers are seen in terms of either their ordinality (Peano), or cardinality (set theory) [Benardete,JA]
3335 The standard Z-F Intuition version of set theory has about ten agreed axioms [Benardete,JA, by PG]
3345 Appeals to intuition seem to imply synthetic a priori knowledge [Benardete,JA]
3349 If we know truths about prime numbers, we seem to have synthetic a priori knowledge of Platonic objects [Benardete,JA]
3341 Logical positivism amounts to no more than 'there is no synthetic a priori' [Benardete,JA]
3344 Assertions about existence beyond experience can only be a priori synthetic [Benardete,JA]
3350 Could a horse lose the essential property of being a horse, and yet continue to exist? [Benardete,JA]
3351 One can step into the same river twice, but not into the same water [Benardete,JA]
3352 Analytical philosophy analyses separate concepts successfully, but lacks a synoptic vision of the results [Benardete,JA]
3353 If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA]