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2 ideas
| 6550 | Reduction requires that an object's properties consist of its constituents' properties and relations [Sellars] |
| Full Idea: The 'Principle of Reducibility' says if an object is a system of objects, then every property of the object must consist in the fact that its constituents have such and such qualities and such and such relations | |
| From: Wilfrid Sellars (Philosophy and Scientific Image of Man [1962], p.27), quoted by William Lycan - Consciousness | |
| A reaction: This sounds to me a more promising attitude to reduction than all this talk of Ernest Nagel's 'Bridge Laws'. If we ask HOW a higher level property arises because of a lower level property, we can describe a mechanism rather than a law. |
| 11154 | Prior things can exist without posterior things, but not vice versa [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Prior things can have being without posterior things, without the posterior being able to have being without the prior, to adopt Plato's distinction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019a04) | |
| A reaction: Fine quotes this, in expounding Aristotle's account of essence. |