display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 12683 | Objects and substances are a subcategory of the natural kinds of processes [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The category of natural kinds of objects or substances should be regarded simply as a subcategory of the category of the natural kinds of processes. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 3) | |
| A reaction: This is a new, and interesting, proposal from Ellis (which will be ignored by the philosophical community, as all new theories coming from elderly philosophers are ignored! Cf Idea 12652). A good knowledge of physics is behind Ellis's claim. |
| 12670 | A physical event is any change of distribution of energy [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: We may define a physical event as any change of distribution of energy in any of its forms. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (The Metaphysics of Scientific Realism [2009], 2) | |
| A reaction: This seems to result in an awful lot of events. My own (new this morning) definition is: 'An event is a process which can be individuated in time'. Now you just have to work out what a 'process' is, but that's easier than understanding an 'event'. |
| 22427 | To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn] |
| Full Idea: In order that we have available an explanation of the qualities of objects we need to be able to conceive primary qualities as consisting in something other than powers to produce experiences. | |
| From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6 n 52) | |
| A reaction: I suppose if the qualities are nothing more than the source of the experiences, that is Kant's noumenon. Nothing more could be said. The seems to be a requirement for tacit inference here. We infer the interior of the tomato. |