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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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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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13231
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Explanatory proofs rest on 'characterizing properties' of entities or structure [Steiner,M]
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Full Idea:
My proposal is that an explanatory proof makes reference to the 'characterizing property' of an entity or structure mentioned in the theorem, where the proof depends on the property. If we substitute a different object, the theory collapses.
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From:
Mark Steiner (Mathematical Explanation [1978], p.34)
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A reaction:
He prefers 'characterizing property' to 'essence', because he is not talking about necessary properties, since all properties are necessary in mathematics. He is, in fact, reverting to the older notion of an essence, as the core power of the thing.
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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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15877
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The aim of science is just to create a comprehensive, elegant language to describe brute facts [Poincaré, by Harré]
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Full Idea:
In Poincaré's view, we try to construct a language within which the brute facts of experience are expressed as comprehensively and as elegantly as possible. The job of science is the forging of a language precisely suited to that purpose.
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From:
report of Henri Poincaré (The Value of Science [1906], Pt III) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 2
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A reaction:
I'm often struck by how obscure and difficult our accounts of self-evident facts can be. Chairs are easy, and the metaphysics of chairs is hideous. Why is that? I'm a robust realist, but I like Poincaré's idea. He permits facts.
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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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