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3 ideas
15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
9891 | The first demand of logic is of a sharp boundary [Frege] |
Full Idea: The first demand of logic is of a sharp boundary. | |
From: Gottlob Frege (Grundgesetze der Arithmetik 2 (Basic Laws) [1903], §160), quoted by Michael Dummett - Frege philosophy of mathematics Ch.22 | |
A reaction: Nothing I have read about vagueness has made me doubt Frege's view of this, although precisification might allow you to do logic with vague concepts without having to finally settle where the actual boundaries are. |
6861 | What sort of logic is needed for vague concepts, and what sort of concept of truth? [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The problem of vagueness is the problem of what logic is correct for vague concepts, and correspondingly what notions of truth and falsity are applicable to vague statements (does one need a continuum of degrees of truth, for example?). | |
From: Timothy Williamson (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.153) | |
A reaction: This certainly makes vagueness sound like one of the most interesting problems in all of philosophy, though also one of the most difficult. Williamson's solution is that we may be vague, but the world isn't. |