14 ideas
| 15842 | An ad hominem refutation is reasonable, if it uses the opponent's assumptions [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: Judicious use of an opponent's assumptions is quite capable of producing a perfectly reasonable ad hominem refutation of the opponent's thesis. | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 1.6) |
| 15841 | Mereology began as a nominalist revolt against the commitments of set theory [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: Historically, the evolution of mereology was associated with the desire to find alternatives to set theory for those with nomimalist qualms about the commitment to abstract objects like sets. | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 1.2) | |
| A reaction: Goodman, for example. It is interesting to note that the hardline nominalist Quine, pal of Goodman, eventually accepted set theory. It is difficult to account for things by merely naming their parts. |
| 15858 | Traditionally, the four elements are just what persists through change [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: Earth, air, fire and water, viewed as elements, are, by tradition, the leading candidates for being the things that persist through change. | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 4.4) | |
| A reaction: Physics still offers us things that persist through change, as conservation laws. |
| 15848 | Mereology treats constitution as a criterion of identity, as shown in the axiom of extensionality [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: Mereologists do suppose that constitution is a criterion of identity. This view is enshrined in the Mereological axiom of extensionality; that objects with the same parts are identical. | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 3.1) | |
| A reaction: A helpful explanation of why classical mereology is a very confused view of the world. It is at least obvious that a long wall and a house are different things, even if built of identical bricks. |
| 15837 | What exactly is a 'sum', and what exactly is 'composition'? [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: The difficulty with the claim that a whole is (just) the sum of its parts is what are we to understand by 'the sum'? ...If we say wholes are 'composites' of parts, how are we to understand the relation of composition? | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 1.1) |
| 15839 | If something is 'more than' the sum of its parts, is the extra thing another part, or not? [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: Holism inherits all the difficulties associated with the term 'sum' and adds one of its own, when it says a whole is 'more than' the sum of its parts. This seems to say it has something extra? Is this something extra a part? | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Most people take the claim that a thing is more than the sum of its parts as metaphorical, I would think (except perhaps emergentists about the mind, and they are wrong). |
| 15838 | The problem with the term 'sum' is that it is singular [Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: For my money, the real problem with the term 'sum' is that it is singular. | |
| From: Verity Harte (Plato on Parts and Wholes [2002], 1.1) | |
| A reaction: Her point is that the surface grammar makes you accept a unity here, with no account of what unifies it, or even whether there is a unity. Does classical mereology have a concept (as the rest of us do) of 'disunity'? |
| 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. |
| 21275 | Unlike a stone, the parts of a watch are obviously assembled in order to show the time [Paley] |
| Full Idea: When we come to inspect a watch we perceive (what we could not discover in a stone) that its several parts are put together for a purpose, to produce motion, and that motion so regulated as to point out the hour of the day. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: Microscopic examination of the stone would have surprised Paley. Should we infer a geometer because the sun is spherical? Crytals look designed, but are explained by deeper chemistry. |
| 21276 | From the obvious purpose and structure of a watch we must infer that it was designed [Paley] |
| Full Idea: The inference is inevitable that the watch had a maker; that there must have existed, at some time, an artificer or artificers who formed it for the purpose which we find it actually to answer, who designed its use. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: It rather begs the question to refer to an ordered structure as a 'design'. Why do we think it is absurd to think the the 'purpose' of the sun is to benefit mankind? Suppose we found a freakish natural sundial in the woods. |
| 21277 | Even an imperfect machine can exhibit obvious design [Paley] |
| Full Idea: It is not necessary that a machine be perfect, in order to show with what design it was made. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch 1) | |
| A reaction: This encounters Hume's point that you will then have to infer that the designer contains similar imperfections. If you look at plagues, famines and mothers dying in childbirth (see Mill), you might wish the designer had never started. |
| 21278 | All the signs of design found in a watch are also found in nature [Paley] |
| Full Idea: Every indication of contrivance, every manifestation of design, which existed in the watch, exists in the works of nature. | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], Ch.3) | |
| A reaction: This is far from obvious. It was crucial to the watch analogy that we immediately see its one self-evident purpose. No one looks at nature and says 'Aha, I know what this is all for'. |
| 21357 | No organ shows purpose more obviously than the eyelid [Paley] |
| Full Idea: The eyelid defends the eye; it wipes it; it closes it in sleep. Are there, in any work of art whatever, purposes more evident than those which this organ fulfils? | |
| From: William Paley (Natural Theology [1802], p.24), quoted by Armand Marie LeRoi - The Lagoon: how Aristotle invented science 031 | |
| A reaction: Nice to have another example, in addition to the watch. He is not wholly wrong, because it is impossible to give an evolutionary account of the development of the eyelid without referring to some sort of teleological aspect. The eyelid has a function. |