6532
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Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan]
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Full Idea:
If types cannot be reduced to more physical levels, this is not an embarrassment, as long as our institutional categories, our physiological categories, and our physical categories are just alternative groupings of the same tokens.
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From:
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
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A reaction:
This is a self-evident truth about a car engine, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply equally to a brain. Lycan's identification of the type as the thing which cannot be reduced seems a promising explanation of much confusion among philosophers.
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6534
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One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan]
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Full Idea:
One space-time slice may be occupied by a collection of molecules, a metal strip, a key, an allower of entry to hotel rooms, a facilitator of adultery, and a destroyer souls.
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From:
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
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A reaction:
Desdemona's handkerchief is a nice example. This sort of remark seems to be felt by some philosophers to be heartless wickedness, and yet it so screamingly self-evident that it is impossible to deny.
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16045
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General facts supervene on particular facts, but cannot be inferred from them [Russell, by Bennett,K]
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Full Idea:
Russell noted that you cannot arrive at general facts by inference from numerous particular facts, ..but general facts logically supervene on particular ones. So the general facts supervene, but are not entailed.
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From:
report of Bertrand Russell (On Relations of Universals and Particulars [1911]) by Karen Bennett - Supervenience §3.2
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A reaction:
The belief that the general facts supervene on the particular ones then seems to be more a matter of faith than of fact. Or maybe it is analytic, depending on what we understand by 'general'. Universal, or generalised?
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