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All the ideas for 'Individuals without Sortals', 'fragments/reports' and 'Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis'

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19 ideas

5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 1. Paradox
If you know your father, but don't recognise your father veiled, you know and don't know the same person [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The 'undetected' or 'veiled' paradox of Eubulides says: if you know your father, and don't know the veiled person before you, but that person is your father, you both know and don't know the same person.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: Essentially an uninteresting equivocation on two senses of "know", but this paradox comes into its own when we try to give an account of how linguistic reference works. Frege's distinction of sense and reference tried to sort it out (Idea 4976).
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / a. The Liar paradox
If you say truly that you are lying, you are lying [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The liar paradox of Eubulides says 'if you state that you are lying, and state the truth, then you are lying'.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.95) Don't say it, then. These kind of paradoxes of self-reference eventually lead to Russell's 'barber' paradox and his Theory of Types.
5. Theory of Logic / L. Paradox / 6. Paradoxes in Language / b. The Heap paradox ('Sorites')
Removing one grain doesn't destroy a heap, so a heap can't be destroyed [Eubulides, by Dancy,R]
     Full Idea: The 'sorites' paradox of Eubulides says: if you take one grain of sand from a heap (soros), what is left is still a heap; so no matter how many grains of sand you take one by one, the result is always a heap.
     From: report of Eubulides (fragments/reports [c.390 BCE]) by R.M. Dancy - Megarian School
     A reaction: (also Cic. Acad. 2.49) This is a very nice paradox, which goes to the heart of our bewilderment when we try to fully understand reality. It homes in on problems of identity, as best exemplified in the Ship of Theseus (Ideas 1212 + 1213).
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 4. Using Numbers / d. Counting via concepts
Counting 'coin in this box' may have coin as the unit, with 'in this box' merely as the scope [Ayers]
     Full Idea: If we count the concept 'coin in this box', we could regard coin as the 'unit', while taking 'in this box' to limit the scope. Counting coins in two boxes would be not a difference in unit (kind of object), but in scope.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting')
     A reaction: This is a very nice alternative to the Fregean view of counting, depending totally on the concept, and rests more on a natural concept of object. I prefer Ayers. Compare 'count coins till I tell you to stop'.
If counting needs a sortal, what of things which fall under two sortals? [Ayers]
     Full Idea: If we accepted that counting objects always presupposes some sortal, it is surely clear that the class of objects to be counted could be designated by two sortals rather than one.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii)
     A reaction: His nice example is an object which is both 'a single piece of wool' and a 'sweater', which had better not be counted twice. Wiggins struggles to argue that there is always one 'substance sortal' which predominates.
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
Events do not have natural boundaries, and we have to set them [Ayers]
     Full Idea: In order to know which event has been ostensively identified by a speaker, the auditor must know the limits intended by the speaker. ...Events do not have natural boundaries.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl')
     A reaction: He distinguishes events thus from natural objects, where the world, to a large extent, offers us the boundaries. Nice point.
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / a. Individuation
To express borderline cases of objects, you need the concept of an 'object' [Ayers]
     Full Idea: The only explanation of the power to produce borderline examples like 'Is this hazelnut one object or two?' is the possession of the concept of an object.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Counting')
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 5. Individuation / e. Individuation by kind
Speakers need the very general category of a thing, if they are to think about it [Ayers]
     Full Idea: If a speaker indicates something, then in order for others to catch his reference they must know, at some level of generality, what kind of thing is indicated. They must categorise it as event, object, or quality. Thinking about something needs that much.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro)
     A reaction: Ayers defends the view that such general categories are required, but not the much narrower sortal terms defended by Geach and Wiggins. I'm with Ayers all the way. 'What the hell is that?'
We use sortals to classify physical objects by the nature and origin of their unity [Ayers]
     Full Idea: Sortals are the terms by which we intend to classify physical objects according to the nature and origin of their unity.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl')
     A reaction: This is as opposed to using sortals for the initial individuation. I take the perception of the unity to come first, so resemblance must be mentioned, though it can be an underlying (essentialist) resemblance.
Seeing caterpillar and moth as the same needs continuity, not identity of sortal concepts [Ayers]
     Full Idea: It is unnecessary to call moths 'caterpillars' or caterpillars 'moths' to see that they can be the same individual. It may be that our sortal concepts reflect our beliefs about continuity, but our beliefs about continuity need not reflect our sortals.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vi)
     A reaction: Something that metamorphosed through 15 different stages could hardly required 15 different sortals before we recognised the fact. Ayers is right.
Recognising continuity is separate from sortals, and must precede their use [Ayers]
     Full Idea: The recognition of the fact of continuity is logically independent of the possession of sortal concepts, whereas the formation of sortal concepts is at least psychologically dependent upon the recognition of continuity.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro)
     A reaction: I take this to be entirely correct. I might add that unity must also be recognised.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers]
     Full Idea: The abstract question arises of whether the same matter could be subject to more than one principle of unity simultaneously, or unified by more than one 'form'.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii)
     A reaction: He suggests that the unity of the sweater is destroyed by unravelling, and the unity of the thread by cutting.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / c. Statue and clay
If there are two objects, then 'that marble, man-shaped object' is ambiguous [Ayers]
     Full Idea: The statue is marble and man-shaped, but so is the piece of marble. So not only are the two objects in the same place, but two marble and man-shaped objects in the same place, so 'that marble, man-shaped object' must be ambiguous or indefinite.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob')
     A reaction: It strikes me as basic that it can't be a piece of marble if you subtract its shape, and it can't be a statue if you subtract its matter. To treat a statue as an object, separately from its matter, is absurd.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 5. Essence as Kind
Sortals basically apply to individuals [Ayers]
     Full Idea: Sortals, in their primitive use, apply to the individual.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl')
     A reaction: If the sortal applies to the individual, any essence must pertain to that individual, and not to the class it has been placed in.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 5. Temporal Parts
You can't have the concept of a 'stage' if you lack the concept of an object [Ayers]
     Full Idea: It would be impossible for anyone to have the concept of a stage who did not already possess the concept of a physical object.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Concl')
Temporal 'parts' cannot be separated or rearranged [Ayers]
     Full Idea: Temporally extended 'parts' are still mysteriously inseparable and not subject to rearrangement: a thing cannot be cut temporally in half.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob')
     A reaction: A nice warning to anyone accepting a glib analogy between spatial parts and temporal parts.
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 1. Concept of Identity
Some say a 'covering concept' completes identity; others place the concept in the reference [Ayers]
     Full Idea: Some hold that the 'covering concept' completes the incomplete concept of identity, determining the kind of sameness involved. Others strongly deny the identity itself is incomplete, and locate the covering concept within the necessary act of reference.
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], Intro)
     A reaction: [a bit compressed; Geach is the first view, and Quine the second; Wiggins is somewhere between the two]
9. Objects / F. Identity among Objects / 3. Relative Identity
If diachronic identities need covering concepts, why not synchronic identities too? [Ayers]
     Full Idea: Why are covering concepts required for diachronic identities, when they must be supposed unnecessary for synchronic identities?
     From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Prob')
14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction
Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson]
     Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles.
     From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro'
     A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture?