18946
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Unreflectively, we all assume there are nonexistents, and we can refer to them [Reimer]
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Full Idea:
As speakers of the language, we unreflectively assume that there are nonexistents, and that reference to them is possible.
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From:
Marga Reimer (The Problem of Empty Names [2001], p.499), quoted by Sarah Sawyer - Empty Names 4
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A reaction:
Sarah Swoyer quotes this as a good solution to the problem of empty names, and I like it. It introduces a two-tier picture of our understanding of the world, as 'unreflective' and 'reflective', but that seems good. We accept numbers 'unreflectively'.
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16695
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Successive entities are in flux, flowing in existence, with different parts at different times [Oresme]
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Full Idea:
For any time, some of a successive entity exists in one of its parts, and a totally different such exists in another part. …It is in continuous flux and transition, ..and flows in existence if it does not have the same existence over a whole time.
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From:
Nicole Oresme (On 'Physics' [1346], III.6, dist.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1
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A reaction:
Pasnau says the successive entity is the whole made up of these changing parts, so it sounds very like the temporal stages view of Sider and Hawley.
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