5 ideas
| 17462 | A single object must not be counted twice, which needs knowledge of distinctness (negative identity) [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: One requirement for a successful count is that double counting should be avoided: a single object should not be counted twice. ...but that is to make a knowledgeable judgement of distinctness - to resolve a question of identity in the negative. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt (Concepts and Counting [2002], III) | |
| A reaction: He also notes later (p.65) that you must count all and only the right things. |
| 17461 | Some 'how many?' answers are not predications of a concept, like 'how many gallons?' [Rumfitt] |
| Full Idea: We hit trouble if we hear answers to some 'How many?' questions as predications about concepts. The correct answer to 'how many gallons of water are in the tank?' may be 'ten', but that doesn''t mean ten things instantiate 'gallon of water in the tank'. | |
| From: Ian Rumfitt (Concepts and Counting [2002], I) | |
| A reaction: Rumfitt makes the point that a huge number of things instantiate that concept in a ten gallon tank of water. No problem, says Rumfitt, because Frege wouldn't have counted that as a statement of number. |
| 5060 | All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd. |
| 6017 | Nomos is king [Pindar] |
| Full Idea: Nomos is king. | |
| From: Pindar (poems [c.478 BCE], S 169), quoted by Thomas Nagel - The Philosophical Culture | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the earliest recorded shot in the nomos-physis wars (the debate among sophists about moral relativism). It sounds as if it carries the full relativist burden - that all that matters is what has been locally decreed. |
| 5059 | Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5) | |
| A reaction: Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes. |