display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
| A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
| 12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
| A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
| 14504 | The Kripke/Putnam approach to natural kind terms seems to give them excessive stability [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Theoretical terms such as 'mass', 'force', 'motion', 'species' and 'phlogiston' seem to indicate that the Kripke/Putnam approach to natural kind terms is committed to an excessive amount of stability in the meaning and reference of such expressions. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 8.6.2) | |
| A reaction: This sounds right to me. The notion of 'rigid' designation gives a nice framework for modal logic, but it doesn't seem to fit the shifting patterns of scientific thought. |
| 13285 | Natural kinds support inductive inferences, from previous samples to the next one [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Natural kinds are said to stand out from other classifications because they support legitimate inductive inferences ...as when we observe that past samples of copper conduct electricity and infer that the next sample will too. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 8.3.1) | |
| A reaction: A slightly more precise version of the Upanishad definition of natural kinds which I favour (Idea 8153). If you can't predict the next one from the previous one, it isn't a natural kind. You can't quite predict the next tiger from the previous one. |
| 13287 | Concepts for species are either intrinsic structure, or relations like breeding or ancestry [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Candidate species concepts can be intrinsic: morphological, physiological or genetic similarity; or relational: biology such as interbreeding and reproductive isolation, ecology, such as mate recognition in a niche, or phylogenetics (ancestor relations). | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 8.4.1) | |
| A reaction: She says the relational ones are more popular, but I gather they all hit problems. See John Dupré on the hopelessness of the whole task. |
| 13284 | Should vernacular classifications ever be counted as natural kind terms? [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: It is controversial whether classificatory expressions from the vernacular should ever really be counted as genuine natural kind terms. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 8.2) | |
| A reaction: This is a similar confrontation between the folk and the scientific specialist as we find in folk psychology. There are good defences of folk psychology, and it looks plausible to defend the folk classifications as having priority. |
| 13286 | There are apparently no scientific laws concerning biological species [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: It has been observed that there are apparently no scientific laws concerning biological species. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 8.4.1) | |
| A reaction: The central concept of biology I take to be a 'mechanism'. and I suspect that this view of science is actually applicable in physics and chemistry, with so-called 'laws' being a merely superficial description of what is going on. |