3 ideas
| 17619 | We renounce all abstract entities [Goodman/Quine] |
| Full Idea: We do not believe in abstract entities..... We renounce them altogether. | |
| From: Goodman,N/Quine,W (Steps Towards a Constructive Nominalism [1947], p.105), quoted by Penelope Maddy - Defending the Axioms | |
| A reaction: Goodman always kept the faith here, but Quine decided to embrace sets, as a minimal commitment to abstracta needed for mathematics, which was needed for science. My sympathies are with Goodman. This is the modern form of 'nominalism'. |
| 6005 | Animals are dangerous and nourishing, and can't form contracts of justice [Hermarchus, by Sedley] |
| Full Idea: Hermarchus said that animal killing is justified by considerations of human safety and nourishment and by animals' inability to form contractual relations of justice with us. | |
| From: report of Hermarchus (fragments/reports [c.270 BCE]) by David A. Sedley - Hermarchus | |
| A reaction: Could the last argument be used to justify torturing animals? Or could we eat a human who was too brain-damaged to form contracts? |
| 20919 | How can things without weight compose weight? [Alexander] |
| Full Idea: How could weight come about out of things composed of what is without weight? | |
| From: Alexander (On Aristotle's Metaphysics Book 2 [c.200], p.36.21-27) | |
| A reaction: This is obviously why Epicurus added weight to the features of atoms. Alexander seems unaware of this move. |