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8954
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Geometrical circles cannot identify a circular paint patch, presumably because they lack something [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
The vocabulary of geometry is sufficient to identify the circle, but could not be used to identify any circular paint patch. The reason must be that the circle lacks certain properties that can distinguish paint patches from one another.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
I take this to be support for the traditional view, that abstractions are created by omitting some of the properties of physical objects. I take them to be fictional creations, reified by language, and not actual hidden entities that have been observed.
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8955
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Abstractions are imperceptible, non-causal, and non-spatiotemporal (the third explaining the others) [Szabó]
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Full Idea:
In current discussions, abstract entities are usually distinguished as 1) in principle imperceptible, 2) incapable of causal interaction, 3) not located in space-time. The first is often explained by the second, which is in turn explained by the third.
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From:
Zoltán Gendler Szabó (Nominalism [2003], 2.2)
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A reaction:
Szabó concludes by offering 3 as the sole criterion of abstraction. As Lewis points out, the Way of Negation for defining abstracta doesn't tell us very much. Courage may be non-spatiotemporal, but what about Alexander the Great's courage?
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5845
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Niceratus learnt the whole of Homer by heart, as a guide to goodness [Xenophon]
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Full Idea:
Niceratus said that his father, because he was concerned to make him a good man, made him learn the whole works of Homer, and he could still repeat by heart the entire 'Iliad' and 'Odyssey'.
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From:
Xenophon (Symposium [c.391 BCE], 3.5)
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A reaction:
This clearly shows the status which Homer had in the teaching of morality in the time of Socrates, and it is precisely this acceptance of authority which he was challenging, in his attempts to analyse the true basis of virtue
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