Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Universal Prescriptivism', 'Elements of Mathematical Logic' and 'On What There Is'

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9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 1. Physical Objects
Treating scattered sensations as single objects simplifies our understanding of experience [Quine]
     Full Idea: By bringing together scattered sense events and treating them as perceptions of one object, we reduce the complexity of our stream of experience to a manageable conceptual simplicity.
     From: Willard Quine (On What There Is [1948], p.17)
     A reaction: If, however, our consideration of tricky cases, such as vague objects, or fast-changing objects, or spatially coinciding objects made it all seem too complex, then Quine's argument would be grounds for abandoning objects. See Merricks.