display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
| 18498 | Abstract objects wouldn't be very popular without the implicit idea of truthmakers [Heil] |
| Full Idea: It would be difficult to understand the popularity of 'abstract entities' - numbers, sets, propositions - in the absence of an implicit acknowledgement of the importance of truthmakers. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 08.07) | |
| A reaction: I love Idea 18496, because it leads us towards a better account of modality, but dislike this one because it reveals that the truthmaking idea has led us to a very poor theory. Truthmaking is a good question, but not much of an answer? |
| 18507 | Substances bear properties, so must be simple, and not consist of further substances [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Substances, as property bearers, must be simple; substances of necessity lack constituents that are themselves substances. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 01.3) | |
| A reaction: How can he think that this is a truth of pure metaphysics? A crowd has properties because we think of it as a simple substance, not because it actually is one. Can properties have properties? Are tree and leaf both substances? |
| 18515 | Spatial parts are just regions, but objects depend on and are made up of substantial parts [Heil] |
| Full Idea: An object is not made up of its spatial parts: spatial parts are regions of some object. ...Complex objects, wholes, are made up of, and so depend on, their substantial parts. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: Presumably objects also 'depend on' their spatial parts, so I am not convinced that we have a sharp distinction here. |
| 18516 | A 'gunky' universe would literally have no parts at all [Heil] |
| Full Idea: Blancmange 'gunky' universes are not just universes with an endless number of parts. Rather a blancmange universe is a universe with no simple parts, no parts themselves lacking parts. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.3) | |
| A reaction: Hm. Lewis seemed to think it was parts all the way down. Is gunk homogeneous stuff, or what is endlessly subdividable, or an infinite shrinking of parts? We demand clarity. |
| 18514 | Many wholes can survive replacement of their parts [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A whole - or some wholes - might be thought to survive gradual replacement of its parts, perhaps, but not their elimination. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.1) | |
| A reaction: You can't casually replace the precious golden parts of a statue with cheap lead ones. It depends on whether the parts matter. Nevertheless this is a really important idea in metaphysics. It enables the s=Ship of Theseus to survive some change. |
| 18517 | Dunes depend on sand grains, but line segments depend on the whole line [Heil] |
| Full Idea: A sand dune depends on the individual grains of sand that make it up. In an important sense, however, a line's segments depend on the line rather than it on them. | |
| From: John Heil (The Universe as We Find It [2012], 03.4) | |
| A reaction: The illustrations are not clear cut. As you cut off segments of the line, you reduce its length. Heil is hoping for something neat here, but I don't think he has quite got. The difficulty of trying to do pure metaphysics! |