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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap' and 'A Structural Account of Mathematics'

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5 ideas

27. Natural Reality / B. Modern Physics / 4. Standard Model / a. Concept of matter
'Gunk' is an individual possessing no parts that are atoms [Chihara]
     Full Idea: An 'atomless gunk' is defined to be an individual possessing no parts that are atoms.
     From: Charles Chihara (A Structural Account of Mathematics [2004], App A)
     A reaction: [Lewis coined it] If you ask what are a-toms made of and what are ideas made of, the only answer we can offer is that the a-toms are made of gunk, and the ideas aren't made of anything, which is still bad news for the existence of ideas.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time
Relativity is as absolutist about space-time as Newton was about space [Coffa]
     Full Idea: If the theory of relativity might be thought to support an idealist construal of space and time, it is no less absolutistic about space-time than Newton's theory was about space.
     From: J. Alberto Coffa (The Semantic Tradition from Kant to Carnap [1991])
     A reaction: [He cites Minkowski, Weyl and Cartan for this conclusion] Coffa is clearly a bit cross about philosophers who draw naive idealist and relativist conclusions from relativity.
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / h. Presentism
The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: When he wished to be subtle, Chrysippus wrote that the past part of time and the future part do not exist but subsist, and only the present exists.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081f
     A reaction: [from lost On Void] I think I prefer the ontology of Idea 20818. Idea 20819 does not offer an epistemology. Is the present substantial enough to be known? The word 'subsist' is an ontological evasion (even though Russell briefly relied on it).
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Stoics do not allow a minimal time to exist, and do not want to have a partless 'now'; so what one thinks one has grasped as present is in part future and in part past.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081c
     A reaction: [from lost On Parts Bk3-5] I agree with the ontology here, but I take our grasp of the present to be very short-term memory of the past. I ignore special relativity. Chrysippus expressed two views about this; in the other one he was a Presentist.
Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says most clearly that no time is wholly present; for since the divisibility of continuous things is infinite, time as a whole is also subject to infinite divisibility by this method of division.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42
     A reaction: But what is his reason for thinking that time is a continuous thing? There is a minimum time in quantum mechanics (the Planck Time), but do these quantum intervals overlap? Compare Idea 20819.