Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Metaphysics: contemporary introduction' and 'Truth and Truthmakers'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 1. Set Theory
18396 The set theory brackets { } assert that the member is a unit [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: The idea is that braces { } attribute to an entity the place-holding, or perhaps determinable, property of unithood.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.5)
     A reaction: I like this. There is Socrates himself, then there is my concept , and then there is the singleton {Socrates}. Those braces must add something to the concept. You can't add braces to Socrates himself.
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 3. Types of Set / b. Empty (Null) Set
18393 For 'there is a class with no members' we don't need the null set as truthmaker [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: The null class is useful in formal set theory, but I hope that does not require that there be a thing called the null class which is truthmaker for the strange proposition .
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1)
     A reaction: It is not quite clear why it doesn't, but then it is not quite clear to philosophers what the status of the null set is, in comparison with sets that have members.
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
13282 Aristotle relativises the notion of wholeness to different measures [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Aristotle proposes to relativise unity and plurality, so that a single object can be both one (indivisible) and many (divisible) simultaneously, without contradiction, relative to different measures. Wholeness has degrees, with the strength of the unity.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.12
     A reaction: [see Koslicki's account of Aristotle for details] As always, the Aristotelian approach looks by far the most promising. Simplistic mechanical accounts of how parts make wholes aren't going to work. We must include the conventional and conceptual bit.