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Ideas for '', 'Contemporary Political Theory' and 'The Principles of Mathematics'

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7 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 3. Objects in Thought

7781	I call an object of thought a 'term'. This is a wide concept implying unity and existence. [Russell]
	Full Idea: Whatever may be an object of thought, or occur in a true or false proposition, or be counted as one, I call a term. This is the widest word in the philosophical vocabulary, which I use synonymously with unit, individual, entity (being one, and existing).
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §047)
	A reaction: The claim of existence begs many questions, such as whether the non-existence of the Loch Ness Monster is an 'object' of thought.

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Simples

14166	Unities are only in propositions or concepts, and nothing that exists has unity [Russell]
	Full Idea: It is sufficient to observe that all unities are propositions or propositional concepts, and that consequently nothing that exists is a unity. If, therefore, it is maintained that things are unities, we must reply that no things exist.
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §439)
	A reaction: The point, I presume, is that you end up as a nihilist about identities (like van Inwagen and Merricks) by mistakenly thinking (as Aristotle and Leibniz did) that everything that exists needs to have something called 'unity'.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification

14164	The only unities are simples, or wholes composed of parts [Russell]
	Full Idea: The only kind of unity to which I can attach any precise sense - apart from the unity of the absolutely simple - is that of a whole composed of parts.
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §439)
	A reaction: This comes from a keen student of Leibniz, who was obsessed with unity. Russell leaves unaddressed the question of what turns some parts into a whole.

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates

14112	A set has some sort of unity, but not enough to be a 'whole' [Russell]
	Full Idea: In a class as many, the component terms, though they have some kind of unity, have less than is required for a whole.
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §070)
	A reaction: This is interesting because (among many other things), sets are used to stand for numbers, but numbers are usually reqarded as wholes.

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism

14170	Change is obscured by substance, a thing's nature, subject-predicate form, and by essences [Russell]
	Full Idea: The notion of change is obscured by the doctrine of substance, by a thing's nature versus its external relations, and by subject-predicate form, so that things can be different and the same. Hence the useless distinction between essential and accidental.
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §443)
	A reaction: He goes on to object to vague unconscious usage of 'essence' by modern thinkers, but allows (teasingly) that medieval thinkers may have been precise about it. It is a fact, in common life, that things can change and be the same. Explain it!

9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 7. Indiscernible Objects

14107	Terms are identical if they belong to all the same classes [Russell]
	Full Idea: Two terms are identical when the second belongs to every class to which the first belongs.
	From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §026)

11849	It at least makes sense to say two objects have all their properties in common [Wittgenstein on Russell]
	Full Idea: Russell's definition of '=' is inadequate, because according to it we cannot say that two objects have all their properties in common. (Even if this proposition is never correct, it still has a sense).
	From: comment on Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903]) by Ludwig Wittgenstein - Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus 5.5302
	A reaction: This is what now seems to be a standard denial of the bizarre Leibniz claim that there never could be two things with identical properties, even, it seems, in principle. What would Leibniz made of two electrons?