|
15510
|
Classes are a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities [Goodman]
|
|
Full Idea:
I will not willingly use apparatus that peoples the world with a host of ethereal, platonic, pseudo entities.
|
|
From:
Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], II.2), quoted by David Lewis - Parts of Classes 2.1
|
|
A reaction:
This represents the big gap that opened up with Goodman's former comrade in arms, Quine. Lewis quotes it in order to ask whether he means ethereal or platonic, as they are very different. I sympathise with Goodman.
|
|
9920
|
Two objects can apparently make up quite distinct arrangements in sets [Goodman, by Burgess/Rosen]
|
|
Full Idea:
Goodman argues that the set or class {{a}},{a,b}} is supposed to be distinct from the set or class {{b},{a,b}}, even though both are ultimately constituted from the same a and b.
|
|
From:
report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by JP Burgess / G Rosen - A Subject with No Object I.A.2.a
|
|
A reaction:
I'm with Goodman all the way here, even though it is deeply unfashionable, particularly in the circles I move in. If there are trillion grains of sand on a beach, how many sets are we supposed to be committed to?
|
|
10657
|
The counties of Utah, and the state, and its acres, are in no way different [Goodman]
|
|
Full Idea:
A class (counties of Utah) is different neither from the individual (state of Utah) that contains its members, nor from any other class (acres of Utah) whose members exhaust the whole. For nominalists, distinction of entity means distinction of content.
|
|
From:
Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], p.26), quoted by Achille Varzi - Mereology 3.1
|
|
A reaction:
This is a nice credo for the nominalist version of mereology. You can still have a mereology that commits you to the wholes as well as the parts. Cf. Lewis in Idea 10660.
|
|
17447
|
Parsons says counting is tagging as first, second, third..., and converting the last to a cardinal [Parsons,C, by Heck]
|
|
Full Idea:
In Parsons's demonstrative model of counting, '1' means the first, and counting says 'the first, the second, the third', where one is supposed to 'tag' each object exactly once, and report how many by converting the last ordinal into a cardinal.
|
|
From:
report of Charles Parsons (Frege's Theory of Numbers [1965]) by Richard G. Heck - Cardinality, Counting and Equinumerosity 3
|
|
A reaction:
This sounds good. Counting seems to rely on that fact that numbers can be both ordinals and cardinals. You don't 'convert' at the end, though, because all the way you mean 'this cardinality in this order'.
|
|
7956
|
If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
|
|
Full Idea:
According to Goodman's 'companionship difficulty', resemblance nominalism has a problem if, say, all and only the red things were the round things, because we cannot distinguish the two different respects in which the things resemble one another.
|
|
From:
report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
|
|
A reaction:
Goodman opts for extreme linguististic nominalism in response to this (Idea 7952), whereas Russell opts for a sort of Platonism (4441). The current idea gives Russell a further problem, of needing a universal of the respect of the resemblance.
|
|
7957
|
Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
|
|
Full Idea:
Goodman's 'imperfect community' problem for Resemblance Nominalism says that without mention of respects in which things resemble, we end up with a heterogeneous collection with nothing wholly in common (blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock).
|
|
From:
report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
|
|
A reaction:
This suggests Wittgenstein's 'family' resemblance as a way out (Idea 4141), but a blue book and a red clock seem totally unrelated. Nice objection! At this point we start to think that the tropes resemble, rather than the objects.
|
|
1392
|
If we split like amoeba, we would be two people, neither of them being us [Parfit]
|
|
Full Idea:
In the case of the man who, like an amoeba, divides….we can suggest that he survives as two different people without implying that he is those people.
|
|
From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §1)
|
|
A reaction:
Maybe an amoeba is a homogeneous substance for which splitting is insignificant, but when a person has certain parts that are totally crucial, splitting them is catastrophic, and quite different. I'm not sure that splitting a self would leave persons.
|
|
1391
|
Concern for our own lives isn't the source of belief in identity, it is the result of it [Parfit]
|
|
Full Idea:
Egoism, and the fear not of near but of distant death, and the regret that so much of one's life should have gone by - these are not, I think, wholly natural or instinctive. They are strengthened by a false belief in stable identity.
|
|
From:
Derek Parfit (Personal Identity [1971], §6)
|
|
A reaction:
This raises some very nice questions, about the extent to which various aspects of self-concern are instinctive and natural, or culturally induced, and even totally misguided and false. I can worry about the distant death of my guinea pig, or my grandson.
|