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7548
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Classes, grouped by a convenient property, are logical constructions [Russell]
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Full Idea:
Classes or series of particulars, collected together on account of some property which makes it convenient to be able to speak of them as wholes, are what I call logical constructions or symbolic fictions.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.125)
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A reaction:
When does a construction become 'logical' instead of arbitrary? What is it about a property that makes it 'convenient'? At this point Russell seems to have built his ontology on classes, and the edifice was crumbling, thanks to Wittgenstein.
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13127
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Categories can't overlap; they are either disjoint, or inclusive [Sommers, by Westerhoff]
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Full Idea:
Fred Sommers, in his treatment of types, says that two ontological categories cannot overlap; they are either disjoint, or one properly includes the other. This is sometimes referred to as Sommers' Law.
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From:
report of Fred Sommers (Types and Ontology [1963], p.355) by Jan Westerhoff - Ontological Categories §24
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A reaction:
The 'types', of course, go back to Bertrand Russell's theory of types, which is important in discussions of ontological categories. Carnap pursued it, trying to derive ontological categories from grammatical categories. 85% agree with Sommers.
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19347
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Substance needs independence, unity, and stability (for individuation); also it is a subject, for predicates [Perkins]
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Full Idea:
For individuation, substance needs three properties: independence, to separate it from other things; unity, to call it one thing, rather than an aggregate; and permanence or stability over time. Its other role is as subject for predicates.
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From:
Franklin Perkins (Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed [2007], 3.1)
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A reaction:
Perkins is describing the Aristotelian view, which is taken up by Leibniz. 'Substance' is not a controversial idea, if we see that it only means that the world is full of 'things'. It is an unusual philosopher wholly totally denies that.
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7549
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If my body literally lost its mind, the object seen when I see a flash would still exist [Russell]
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Full Idea:
My meaning may be made plainer by saying that if my body could remain in exactly the same state in which it is, though my mind had ceased to exist, precisely that object which I now see when I see a flash would exist, though I should not see it.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.126)
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A reaction:
Zombies, 70 years before Robert Kirk! Sense-data are physical. It is interesting to see a philosopher as committed to empiricism, anti-spiritualism and the priority of science as this, still presenting an essentially dualist picture of perception.
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7546
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A man is a succession of momentary men, bound by continuity and causation [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The real man, I believe, however the police may swear to his identity, is really a series of momentary men, each different one from the other, and bound together, not by a numerical identity, but by continuity and certain instrinsic causal laws.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.124)
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A reaction:
This seems to be in the tradition of Locke and Parfit, and also follows the temporal-slices idea of physical objects. Personally I take a more physical view of things, and think the police are probably more reliable than Bertrand Russell.
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7550
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We could probably, in principle, infer minds from brains, and brains from minds [Russell]
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Full Idea:
It seems not improbable that if we had sufficient knowledge we could infer the state of a man's mind from the state of his brain, or the state of his brain from the state of his mind.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.131)
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A reaction:
This strikes me as being a very good summary of the claim that mind is reducible to brain, which is the essence of physicalism. Had he been born a little later, Russell would have taken a harder line with physicalism.
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7552
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Six dimensions are needed for a particular, three within its own space, and three to locate that space [Russell]
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Full Idea:
The world of particulars is a six-dimensional space, where six co-ordinates will be required to assign the position of any particular, three to assign its position in its own space, and three to assign the position of its space among the other spaces.
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From:
Bertrand Russell (The Ultimate Constituents of Matter [1915], p.134)
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A reaction:
Not a proposal that has caught on. One might connect the idea with the notion of 'frames of reference' in Einstein's Special Theory. Inside a frame of reference, three co-ordinates are needed; but where is the frame of reference?
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