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Full Idea
What is it about the universal carbon that gets it involved in necessary connections with methane? Why not rubidium instead? The universal 'carbon' has nothing more in common with the universal methane than the universal rubidium has!
Gist of Idea
If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals
Source
David Lewis (Against Structural Universals [1986], 'The magical')
Book Ref
Lewis,David: 'Papers in Metaphysics and Epistemology' [CUP 1999], p.101
A Reaction
This is his objection to the 'magical' unity of structural universals. The point is that if methane is an atomic unity, as claimed, it can't have anything 'in common' with its components.
Related Idea
Idea 15448 The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis]
| 15465 | Structures don't explain dispositions, because they consist of dispositions [Martin,CB] |
| 15476 | Structural properties involve dispositionality, so cannot be used to explain it [Martin,CB] |
| 12685 | Categorical properties depend only on the structures they represent [Ellis] |
| 15800 | All events and objects are dispositional, and hence all structural properties are dispositional [Fetzer] |
| 15452 | We could not uphold a truthmaker for 'Fa' without structures [Lewis] |
| 15448 | The 'magical' view of structural universals says they are atoms, even though they have parts [Lewis] |
| 15449 | If 'methane' is an atomic structural universal, it has nothing to connect it to its carbon universals [Lewis] |
| 15439 | The 'pictorial' view of structural universals says they are wholes made of universals as parts [Lewis] |
| 15441 | The structural universal 'methane' needs the universal 'hydrogen' four times over [Lewis] |
| 15445 | Butane and Isobutane have the same atoms, but different structures [Lewis] |
| 15434 | Structural universals have a necessary connection to the universals forming its parts [Lewis] |
| 15437 | We can't get rid of structural universals if there are no simple universals [Lewis] |
| 11917 | Structural properties are derivate properties [Molnar] |
| 11955 | There are no 'structural properties', as properties with parts [Molnar] |
| 14535 | Pandispositionalists say structures are clusters of causal powers [Mumford/Anjum] |