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3 ideas
3357 | Democritus denies reality to large objects, because atomic entities can't combine to produce new ones [Benardete,JA on Democritus] |
Full Idea: Democritus appears to rule out from his austere ontology all so-called emergent entities - even mountains and rivers - on the ground that two or more entities can never combine to produce a new one. | |
From: comment on Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.24 |
598 | Democritus said that substances could never be mixed, so atoms are the substances [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Democritus claimed that one substance could not be composed from two nor two from one; for him it is the atoms that are the substances. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1039a10 |
9602 | Common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness [Williamson] |
Full Idea: The constraints of common sense and classical logic are often simultaneously abandoned in debates on vagueness. | |
From: Timothy Williamson (The Philosophy of Philosophy [2007], After) | |
A reaction: Wiliamson has described himself (in my hearing) as a 'rottweiller realist', but presumably the problem of vagueness interests a lot of people precisely because it pushes us away from common sense and classical logic. |