Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Logic and Conversation' and 'The Structure of Objects'

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3 ideas

4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 1. Propositional Logic
Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin]
     Full Idea: In Stoic logic propositions are treated the way atoms are treated in present-day chemistry, where the focus is on the way atoms fit together to form molecules, rather than on the internal structure of the atoms.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2
     A reaction: A nice analogy to explain the nature of Propositional Logic, which was invented by the Stoics (N.B. after Aristotle had invented predicate logic).
4. Formal Logic / B. Propositional Logic PL / 2. Tools of Propositional Logic / e. Axioms of PL
Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus has five indemonstrables that do not need demonstration:1) If 1st the 2nd, but 1st, so 2nd; 2) If 1st the 2nd, but not 2nd, so not 1st; 3) Not 1st and 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 4) 1st or 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 5) 1st or 2nd, not 2nd, so 1st.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.80-81
     A reaction: [from his lost text 'Dialectics'; squashed to fit into one quote] 1) is Modus Ponens, 2) is Modus Tollens. 4) and 5) are Disjunctive Syllogisms. 3) seems a bit complex to be an indemonstrable.
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
The 'aggregative' objections says mereology gets existence and location of objects wrong [Koslicki]
     Full Idea: The 'aggregative' objection to classical extensional mereology is that it assigns simply the wrong, set-like conditions of existence and spatio-temporal location to ordinary material objects.
     From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 5.1)
     A reaction: [She attributes this to Kit Fine] The point is that there is more to a whole than just some parts, otherwise you could scatter the parts across the globe (or even across time) and claim that the object still existed. It's obvious really.