Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Continuity and Irrational Numbers' and 'Grounding Concepts'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
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.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / c. Grounding and explanation
We can learn about the world by studying the grounding of our concepts [Jenkins]
     Full Idea: What concept grounding does for us is ensure that our concepts, like the results of our empirical tests, can be treated as a source of information about the independent world.
     From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.4)
     A reaction: Presumably we learn our concepts hand-in-hand with experience, so learning our concepts is itself learning about the world. Later checking of concepts and their relations largely confirms what we already knew?
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 4. Ontological Dependence
There's essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive dependence [Jenkins, by PG]
     Full Idea: Dependence comes in essential, modal, explanatory, conceptual, metaphysical and constitutive forms.
     From: report of Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 1.2) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: You'll have to look up Jenkins for the details.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact
There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus says there are two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date', ...but 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 13.30
     A reaction: We might say that there are atomic and complex facts, but our atomic facts tend to be much simpler, usually just saying some object has some property.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories
Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: The Stoics proposed a rather modest categorisation of Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.1
7. Existence / E. Categories / 4. Category Realism
The concepts we have to use for categorising are ones which map the real world well [Jenkins]
     Full Idea: Concepts which are indispensably useful for categorising, understanding, explaining, and predicting our sensory input are likely to be ones which map the structure of that input well.
     From: Carrie Jenkins (Grounding Concepts [2008], 4.6)
     A reaction: Anti-realists about classification seem to think that we just invent an array of concepts, and then start classifying with them. The truth seems to be that the actual classes of worldly thing have generated our concepts.