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Ideas for 'Perception', 'Positivism and Realism' and 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671'

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5 ideas

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism

16609	Atomists say causation is mechanical collisions, and all true qualities are microscopic [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: The atomist view is that causation is limited to collisions among corpuscles (which is 'mechanism'), and the only bodily qualities are those found at the microcorpuscular level; sensible qualities are in fact sensations.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 05.4)
	A reaction: [Part of a full summary of atomism by Pasnau]

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / a. Early Modern matter

16603	In the 17th C matter became body, and was then studied by science [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: In the seventeenth century, matter becomes body, and body becomes the object of natural science.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 04.5)

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / b. Corpuscles

16592	Atomism is the commonest version of corpuscularianism, but isn't required by it [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: Atomism is the most common version of corpuscular prime matter, but it is not the only option. Indeed, atomism neither entails nor is entailed by the combination of corpuscularianism and the substratum thesis.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 03.2)
	A reaction: The point is that the corpuscles may be endlessly divisible (which Lewis called 'gunk').

16750	If there are just arrangements of corpuscles, where are the boundaries between substances? [Pasnau]
	Full Idea: If all there are corpuscles of various shapes and sizes, variously arranged, it is not easy to see how we might draw the boundary lines, at any given moment, between one substance and another.
	From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 24.2)
	A reaction: We still have precisely that problem, and it leads to the nihilism about ordinary objects found in Unger, Van Inwagen and Merricks. I have so far found modern defences of ordinary objects unpersuasive.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / c. Matter as extension

6519	Locke's solidity is not matter, because that is impenetrability and hardness combined [Robinson,H]
	Full Idea: Notoriously, Locke's filler for Descartes's geometrical matter, solidity, will not do, for that quality collapses on examination into a composite of the dispositional-cum-relational propery of impenetrability, and the secondary quality of hardness.
	From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3)
	A reaction: I would have thought the problem was that 'matter is solidity' turns out on analysis to be a tautology. We have a handful of nearly synonymous words for matter and our experiences of it, but they boil down to some 'given' thing for which we lack words.