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2 ideas
6529 | I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan] |
Full Idea: I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics. | |
From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.0) | |
A reaction: A passing remark in a discussion of functionalism about the mind, but I find it appealing. Causation is basic to materialistic metaphysics, and it creates networks of regular causes. It leaves open the essentialist question of WHY it has that role. |
18921 | Individuals are arranged in inclusion categories that match our semantics [Engelbretsen] |
Full Idea: The natural categories of individuals are arranged in a hierarchy of inclusion relations that is isomorphic with the linguistic semantic structure. | |
From: George Engelbretsen (Trees, Terms and Truth [2005], 5) | |
A reaction: This is the conclusion of a summary of modern Term Logic. The claim is that Sommers discerned this structure in our semantics (via the study of 'terms'), and was pleasantly surprised to find that it matched a plausible structure of natural categories. |