Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Particulars in Particular Clothing', 'Mathematics is Megethology' and 'Against the Physicists (two books)'

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32 ideas

4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 1. Set Theory
Mathematics reduces to set theory, which reduces, with some mereology, to the singleton function [Lewis]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 3. Types of Set / b. Empty (Null) Set
We can accept the null set, but not a null class, a class lacking members [Lewis]
The null set plays the role of last resort, for class abstracts and for existence [Lewis]
The null set is not a little speck of sheer nothingness, a black hole in Reality [Lewis]
4. Formal Logic / F. Set Theory ST / 3. Types of Set / c. Unit (Singleton) Sets
What on earth is the relationship between a singleton and an element? [Lewis]
Are all singletons exact intrinsic duplicates? [Lewis]
4. Formal Logic / G. Formal Mereology / 1. Mereology
Megethology is the result of adding plural quantification to mereology [Lewis]
5. Theory of Logic / E. Structures of Logic / 6. Relations in Logic
We can use mereology to simulate quantification over relations [Lewis]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 4. Axioms for Number / a. Axioms for numbers
Mathematics is generalisations about singleton functions [Lewis]
6. Mathematics / B. Foundations for Mathematics / 7. Mathematical Structuralism / e. Structuralism critique
We don't need 'abstract structures' to have structural truths about successor functions [Lewis]
8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 13. Tropes / a. Nature of tropes
Internal relations combine some tropes into a nucleus, which bears the non-essential tropes [Simons, by Edwards]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts
Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts [Sext.Empiricus]
I say that absolutely any things can have a mereological fusion [Lewis]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect [Sext.Empiricus]
15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length [Sext.Empiricus]
17. Mind and Body / D. Property Dualism / 4. Emergentism
The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / c. Tenses and time
Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / c. Intervals
Time is divisible, into past, present and future [Sext.Empiricus]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 3. Parts of Time / e. Present moment
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death) [Sext.Empiricus]
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good [Sext.Empiricus]
God must suffer to understand suffering [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 3. Divine Perfections
The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 1. Proof of God
God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / b. Ontological Proof critique
God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God [Sext.Empiricus]
God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 4. God Reflects Humanity
The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind [Sext.Empiricus]
28. God / C. Attitudes to God / 5. Atheism
Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions [Sext.Empiricus]
An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God [Sext.Empiricus]
29. Religion / A. Polytheistic Religion / 1. Animism
It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods [Sext.Empiricus]