Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Topics', '09: Galatians' and 'How the Laws of Physics Lie'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
There are ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: The four main types of predicates fall into ten categories: essence, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, activity, passivity.
     From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 103b20)
     A reaction: These are the standard ten categories of Aristotle. He is notable for the divisions not being sharp, and ten being a rough total. He is well aware of the limits of precision in such matters.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
Causality indicates which properties are real [Cartwright,N]
     Full Idea: Causality is a clue to what properties are real.
     From: Nancy Cartwright (How the Laws of Physics Lie [1983], 9.3)
     A reaction: An interesting variant on the Shoemaker proposal that properties actually are causal. I'm not sure that there is anything more to causality that the expression in action of properties, which I take to be powers. Structures are not properties.