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13166 | Essences are no use in mathematics, if all mathematical truths are necessary [Mancosu] |
Full Idea: Essences and essential properties do not seem to be useful in mathematical contexts, since all mathematical truths are regarded as necessary (though Kit Fine distinguishes between essential and necessary properties). | |
From: Paolo Mancosu (Explanation in Mathematics [2008], §6.1) | |
A reaction: I take the proviso in brackets to be crucial. This represents a distortion of notion of an essence. There is a world of difference between the central facts about the nature of a square and the peripheral inferences derivable from it. |
1212 | Replacing timbers on Theseus' ship was the classic illustration of the problem of growth and change [Plutarch] |
Full Idea: At intervals they removed old timbers from the preserved ship and replaced them with sound ones, so the ship became a classic illustration for the philosophers of the disputed question of growth and change, some saying it was the same, others different. | |
From: Plutarch (Life of Theseus [c.85], 23) |