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All the ideas for 'Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson', 'on Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking'' and '75: Is 'Live Unknown' a Wise Precept?'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
18438 Every worldly event, without exception, is a redistribution of microphysical states [Quine]
     Full Idea: Nothing happens in the world, not the flutter of an eyelid, not the flicker of a thought, without some redistribution of microphysical states.
     From: Willard Quine (on Goodman's 'Ways of Worldmaking' [1978], p.98)
     A reaction: Is this causation, identity, or baffling supervenience?
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
14082 No sortal could ever exactly pin down which set of particles count as this 'cup' [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: Many decent candidates could the referent of this 'cup', differing over whether outlying particles are parts. No further sortal I could invoke will be selective enough to rule out all but one referent for it.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson [2009], 3.1 n8)
     A reaction: I never had much faith in sortals for establishing individual identity, so this point comes as no surprise. The implication is strongly realist - that the cup has an identity which is permanently beyond our capacity to specify it.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 6. Identity between Objects
14081 Identities can be true despite indeterminate reference, if true under all interpretations [Schaffer,J]
     Full Idea: There can be determinately true identity claims despite indeterminate reference of the terms flanking the identity sign; these will be identity claims true under all admissible interpretations of the flanking terms.
     From: Jonathan Schaffer (Deflationary Metaontology of Thomasson [2009], 3.1)
     A reaction: In informal contexts there might be problems with the notion of what is 'admissible'. Is 'my least favourite physical object' admissible?
15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 2. Psuche
5959 Some philosophers say the soul is light [Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Some philosophers hold that the soul is in its essence light.
     From: Plutarch (75: Is 'Live Unknown' a Wise Precept? [c.85], §6)
     A reaction: A nice idea, to rival the stoic view that the soul is fire. It is understandable to propose that the soul is some sort of lightweight and fast moving matter. How else could thought be achieved physically? Nowadays, parallel processing is our only model.