8 ideas
| 14217 | The 'standard' view of relations is that they hold of several objects in a given order [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The 'standard' view of relations, held by philosophers and logicians alike, is that we may meaningfully talk of a relation holding of several objects in a given order (which works for examples like 'loves' and 'between'). | |
| From: Kit Fine (Neutral Relations [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: The point of Fine's paper is that there are many relations for which this model seems to fail. |
| 14216 | The 'positionalist' view of relations says the number of places is fixed, but not the order [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: The 'positionalist' view of relations is that each relation is taken to be endowed with a given number of argument places, or positions, in no specified order. [...The argument-places are specific entities, such as 'lover' and 'beloved'] | |
| From: Kit Fine (Neutral Relations [2000], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Fine offers this as an alternative to the 'standard' view of relations, in which the order of the objects matters. He then adds, and favours, the 'anti-positionalist' view, where there are not even a fixed number of places. |
| 14218 | A block on top of another contains one relation, not both 'on top of' and 'beneath' [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: If block a is on block b, it is hard to see how this state of affairs might consist of both 'on top of' and 'beneath'. Surely if the state is a genuine relational complex, there must be a single relation for these relata? | |
| From: Kit Fine (Neutral Relations [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: He has already shown that if such relations imply their converses, then that gives you two separate relations. He goes on to observe that you cannot pick one of the two as correct, because of symmetry. He later offers the 'vertical placement' relation. |
| 14219 | Language imposes a direction on a road which is not really part of the road [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: Roads in the directional sense (A-to-B or B-to-A) are merely roads in the adirectional sense up which a direction has been imposed. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Neutral Relations [2000], 1) | |
| A reaction: This is Fine's linguistic objection to the standard view of relations. It is undeniable that language imposes an order where it may not exist ('Bob and Jane play tennis'), and this fact is very significant in discussing relations. |
| 14220 | Explain biased relations as orderings of the unbiased, or the unbiased as permutation classes of the biased? [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: A 'biased' relation can be taken to be the result of imposing ordering on the argument-places of an unbiased relation, ..or we can take an unbiased relation to be a 'permutation class' of biased relations. This is a familiar metaphysic predicament. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Neutral Relations [2000], 3) | |
| A reaction: 'Biased' relations such as 'on top of' have an ordering to their places, but 'unbiased' relations such as 'vertical placement' do not. This is a nice question in the metaphysics of grounding relations between key concepts. |
| 12887 | A whole must have one characteristic, an internal relation, and a structure [Rescher/Oppenheim] |
| Full Idea: A whole must possess an attribute peculiar to and characteristic of it as a whole; there must be a characteristic relation of dependence between the parts; and the whole must have some structure which gives it characteristics. | |
| From: Rescher,N/Oppenheim,P (Logical Analysis of Gestalt Concepts [1955], p.90), quoted by Peter Simons - Parts 9.2 | |
| A reaction: Simons says these are basically sensible conditions, and tries to fill them out. They seem a pretty good start, and I must resist the temptation to rush to borderline cases. |
| 1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
| 5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
| Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
| From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
| A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |