6532
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Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan]
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Full Idea:
If types cannot be reduced to more physical levels, this is not an embarrassment, as long as our institutional categories, our physiological categories, and our physical categories are just alternative groupings of the same tokens.
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From:
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
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A reaction:
This is a self-evident truth about a car engine, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply equally to a brain. Lycan's identification of the type as the thing which cannot be reduced seems a promising explanation of much confusion among philosophers.
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6534
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One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan]
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Full Idea:
One space-time slice may be occupied by a collection of molecules, a metal strip, a key, an allower of entry to hotel rooms, a facilitator of adultery, and a destroyer souls.
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From:
William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
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A reaction:
Desdemona's handkerchief is a nice example. This sort of remark seems to be felt by some philosophers to be heartless wickedness, and yet it so screamingly self-evident that it is impossible to deny.
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21708
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Russell's new logical atomist was of particulars, universals and facts (not platonic propositions) [Russell, by Linsky,B]
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Full Idea:
Russell's new logical atomist ontology was of particulars, universals and facts, replacing the ontology of 'platonic atomism' consisting just of propositions.
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From:
report of Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918]) by Bernard Linsky - Russell's Metaphysical Logic 1
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A reaction:
Linsky cites Peter Hylton as saying that the earlier view was never replaced. The earlier view required propositions to be 'unified'. I surmise that the formula 'Fa' combines a universal and a particular, to form an atomic fact. [...but Idea 6111!]
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6089
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Logical atomism aims at logical atoms as the last residue of analysis [Russell]
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Full Idea:
I call my doctrine logical atomism because, as the last residue of analysis, I wish to arrive at logical atoms and not physical atoms; some of them will be particulars, and others will be predicates and relations and so on.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §I)
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A reaction:
However we judge it, logical atomism is a vital landmark in the history of 'analytical' philosophy, because it lays out the ideal for our assessment. It is fashionable to denigrate analysis, but I think it is simply the nearest to wisdom we will ever get.
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6105
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Logical atoms aims to get down to ultimate simples, with their own unique reality [Russell]
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Full Idea:
Logical atomism is the view that you can get down in theory, if not in practice, to ultimate simples, out of which the world is built, and that those simples have a kind of reality not belonging to anything else.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Philosophy of Logical Atomism [1918], §VIII)
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A reaction:
This dream is to empiricists what the Absolute is to rationalists - a bit silly, but an embodiment of the motivating dream.
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