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2 ideas
| 10279 | Can we discover whether a deck is fifty-two cards, or a person is time-slices or molecules? [Shapiro] |
| Full Idea: Can we 'discover' whether a deck is really identical with its fifty-two cards, or whether a person is identical with her corresponding time-slices, molecules, or space-time points? This is like Benacerraf's problem about numbers. | |
| From: Stewart Shapiro (Philosophy of Mathematics [1997]) | |
| A reaction: Shapiro is defending the structuralist view, that each of these is a model of an agreed reality, so we cannot choose a right model if they all satisfy the necessary criteria. |
| 5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
| Full Idea: Chrysippus regarded power to act and be acted upon as the criterion for existence or being - a test satisfied by bodies alone. | |
| From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Chrysippus | |
| A reaction: This defines existence in terms of causation. Is he ruling out a priori a particle (say) which exists, but never interacts with anything? If so, he is inclining towards anti-realism. |