Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Letters to De Vries' and 'Science without Numbers'

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2 ideas

18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 5. Rationality / c. Animal rationality
Aristotle and the Stoics denied rationality to animals, while Platonists affirmed it [Aristotle, by Sorabji]
     Full Idea: Aristotle, and also the Stoics, denied rationality to animals. …The Platonists, the Pythagoreans, and some more independent Aristotelians, did grant reason and intellect to animals.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Richard Sorabji - Rationality 'Denial'
     A reaction: This is not the same as affirming or denying their consciousness. The debate depends on how rationality is conceived.
18. Thought / E. Abstraction / 4. Abstracta by Example
'Abstract' is unclear, but numbers, functions and sets are clearly abstract [Field,H]
     Full Idea: The term 'abstract entities' may not be entirely clear, but one thing that does seem clear is that such alleged entities as numbers, functions and sets are abstract.
     From: Hartry Field (Science without Numbers [1980], p.1), quoted by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.1.a
     A reaction: Field firmly denies the existence of such things. Sets don't seem a great problem, if the set is a herd of elephants, but the null and singleton sets show up the difficulties.