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Ideas for 'Individuals without Sortals', 'Letters to Foucher' and 'Logic (Encyclopedia I)'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers]
     Full Idea: In order to know which event has been ostensively identified by a speaker, the auditor must know the limits intended by the speaker. ...Events do not have natural boundaries.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl')
     A reaction: He distinguishes events thus from natural objects, where the world, to a large extent, offers us the boundaries. Nice point.
7. Existence / E. Categories / 1. Categories
Even simple propositions about sensations are filled with categories [Hegel]
     Full Idea: Categories, like 'being', or 'individuality', are already mingled into every proposition, even when it has a completely sensible content, such as "this leaf is green".
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §246 Add), quoted by Stephen Houlgate - Hegel p.95
     A reaction: This is the source of the idea that observation is theory-laden (which tracks back to Kant). Not Duhem, who gets the credit among analytic philosophers. Quine obviously never read Hegel. But the idea is overrated.
Thought about particulars is done entirely through categories [Hegel]
     Full Idea: As an activity of the particular, thinking has the categories as its only product and content.
     From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Logic (Encyclopedia I) [1817], §62)
     A reaction: There seems to be an interesting implication in this remark (taken in isolation!) that one can somehow transcend the categories when one begins to think about the universal. Are the universal and the categories not connected?