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Full Idea
'Red' is surely not going to be opposed to 'Cayster' [name of a river], as abstract to concrete, merely because of discontinuity in geometrical shape?
Gist of Idea
We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape
Source
Willard Quine (Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis [1950], 2)
Book Ref
Quine,Willard: 'From a Logical Point of View' [Harper and Row 1963], p.69
A Reaction
I've been slow to grasp the truth of this. However, Quine assumes that 'red' is concrete because 'Cayster' is, but it is perfectly arguable that 'Cayster' is an abstraction, despite all that water.
| 11092 | A river is a process, with stages; if we consider it as one thing, we are considering a process [Quine] |
| 17595 | To unite a sequence of ostensions to make one object, a prior concept of identity is needed [Quine] |
| 11095 | We should just identify any items which are indiscernible within a given discourse [Quine] |
| 11093 | We don't say 'red' is abstract, unlike a river, just because it has discontinuous shape [Quine] |
| 11096 | Discourse generally departmentalizes itself to some degree [Quine] |
| 11094 | 'Red' is a single concrete object in space-time; 'red' and 'drop' are parts of a red drop [Quine] |
| 11097 | Red is the largest red thing in the universe [Quine] |
| 11101 | General terms don't commit us ontologically, but singular terms with substitution do [Quine] |
| 11099 | Understanding 'is square' is knowing when to apply it, not knowing some object [Quine] |
| 11103 | We aren't stuck with our native conceptual scheme; we can gradually change it [Quine] |
| 11104 | Concepts are language [Quine] |
| 11102 | Apply '-ness' or 'class of' to abstract general terms, to get second-level abstract singular terms [Quine] |