Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'A Problem about Substitutional Quantification?' and 'The Unimportance of Identity'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
20860 Whatever participates in substance exists [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Zeno says that whatever participates in substance exists.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.05a
     A reaction: This seems Aristotelian, implying that only objects exist. Unformed stuff would not normally qualify as a 'substance'. So does mud exist? See the ideas of Henry Laycock.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction
5516 Reduction can be by identity, or constitution, or elimination [Parfit, by PG]
     Full Idea: We can distinguish Identifying Reductionism (as in 'persons are bodies'), or Constitutive Reductionism (as in 'persons are distinct, but consist of thoughts etc.'), or Eliminative Reductionism (as in 'there are no persons, only thoughts etc.').
     From: report of Derek Parfit (The Unimportance of Identity [1995], p.295) by PG - Db (ideas)
     A reaction: Constitutive Reductionism seems the most common one, as in 'chemistry just consists of lots of complicated physics'. He doesn't mention bridge laws, which are presumably only required in more complicated cases of constitutive reduction.