6 ideas
| 14979 | Being alone doesn't guarantee intrinsic properties; 'being alone' is itself extrinsic [Lewis, by Sider] |
| Full Idea: The property of 'being alone in the world' is an extrinsic property, even though it has had by an object that is alone in the world. | |
| From: report of David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983]) by Theodore Sider - Writing the Book of the World 01.2 | |
| A reaction: I always choke on my cornflakes whenever anyone cites a true predicate as if it were a genuine property. This is a counterexample to Idea 14978. Sider offers another more elaborate example from Lewis. |
| 15454 | Extrinsic properties come in degrees, with 'brother' less extrinsic than 'sibling' [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: Properties may be more or less intrinsic; being a brother has more of an admixture of intrinsic structure than being a sibling does, yet both are extrinsic. | |
| From: David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983], I) | |
| A reaction: I suppose the point is that a brother is intrinsically male - but then a sibling is intrinsically human. A totally extrinsic relation would be one between entities which shared virtually no categories of existence. |
| 15455 | Total intrinsic properties give us what a thing is [Lewis] |
| Full Idea: The way something is is given by the totality of its intrinsic properties. | |
| From: David Lewis (Extrinsic Properties [1983], I) | |
| A reaction: No. Some properties are intrinsic but trivial. The 'important' ones fix the identity (if the identity is indeed 'fixed'). |
| 16776 | Substance is an intrinsic thing, so parts of substances can't also be intrinsic things [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: Substance ...is an ens per se. No part of a substance is an ens per se when it is part of a substance, because then it would be a particular thing, and one substance would be a particular thing from many things, which does not seem to be true. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (In Praed. [1300], 15.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.1 | |
| A reaction: The tricky bit is 'when it is a part of a substance', meaning a substance must cease to be a substance when it is subsumed into some greater substance. Maybe. Drops of water? Molecules? Bricks? Cells? |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |