3 ideas
| 9123 | Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen] |
| Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in. | |
| From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3 | |
| A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'? |
| 8972 | What in the real world could ground the distinction between the sets {A,{A,B}} and {B,{A,B}}? [Inwagen] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in the world of nominalistically acceptable things could ground or explain the non-identity of the set {A,{A,B}} with the set {B,{A,B}}. | |
| From: Peter van Inwagen (Existence,Ontological Commitment and Fictions [2003], p.154) | |
| A reaction: [He cites Goodman for this thought] Van Inwagen is offering this to show that the existence of sets is abstract, whereas Goodman was denying the existence of sets altogether. I'm with Goodman. Nice example. |
| 15143 | Kind essences are the categorical bases of a thing's causal powers [Bhaskar, by Chakravartty] |
| Full Idea: Bhaskar identifies kind essences with underlying properties, often called 'categorical bases', of the causal powers of things. | |
| From: report of Roy Bhaskar (A Realist Theory of Science [1975], p.212) by Anjan Chakravarrty - Inessential Aristotle: Powers without Essences 1 | |
| A reaction: The problem with this, it always seems to me, is the something inherently passive is said to give rise to something which is inherently active. Couldn't two individuals with a kind have slightly different categorical bases? |