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Aristotle's Theory Of Universals
Aristotle's Theory of Universals is Aristotle's classical solution to the Problem of Universals, sometimes known as the hylomorphic theory of immanent realism. Universals are the characteristics or qualities that ordinary objects or things have in common. They can be identified in the types, properties, or relations observed in the world. For example, imagine there is a bowl of red apples resting on a table. Each apple in that bowl will have many similar qualities, such as their red coloring or "redness". They will share some degree of the quality of "ripeness" depending on their age. They may also be at varying degrees of age, which will affect their color, but they will all share a universal "appleness". These qualities are the universals that the apples hold in common. The Problem of Universals asks three questions. Do universals exist? If they exist, where do they exist? Also, if they exist, how do we obtain knowledge of them? In Aristotle's view, universals are incorporeal ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platonic And Aristotelian Forms
Plato's influence on Western culture was so profound that several different concepts are linked by being called Platonic or Platonist, for accepting some assumptions of Platonism, but which do not imply acceptance of that philosophy as a whole. It may also refer to: * Platonic love, a relationship that is not sexual in nature * Platonic forms, or the theory of forms, Plato's model of existence * Platonic idealism * Platonic solid, any of the five convex regular polyhedra * Platonic crystal, a periodic structure designed to guide wave energy through thin plates * Platonism, the philosophy of Plato (Classical period) * Middle Platonism, a later philosophy derived from that of Plato (1st century BC to 3rd century AD) * Neoplatonism, a philosophic school of Late Antiquity deriving from Plato (starting in the 3rd century AD) * Platonism in the Renaissance Platonism, especially in its Neoplatonist form, underwent a revival in the Renaissance as part of a general revival of interest in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Platonic Form
Platonic realism is the philosophical position that universals or abstract objects exist objectively and outside of human minds. It is named after the Greek philosopher Plato who applied realism to such universals, which he considered ideal forms. This stance is ambiguously also called Platonic idealism but should not be confused with idealism as presented by philosophers such as George Berkeley: as Platonic abstractions are not spatial, temporal, or mental, they are not compatible with the later idealism's emphasis on mental existence. Plato's Forms include numbers and geometrical figures, making them a theory of mathematical realism; they also include the Form of the Good, making them in addition a theory of ethical realism. Plato expounded his own articulation of realism regarding the existence of universals in his dialogue '' The Republic'' and elsewhere, notably in the ''Phaedo'', the '' Phaedrus'', the ''Meno'' and the ''Parmenides''. Universals In Platonic realism, un ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Epistemology
Epistemology (; ), or the theory of knowledge, is the branch of philosophy concerned with knowledge. Epistemology is considered a major subfield of philosophy, along with other major subfields such as ethics, logic, and metaphysics. Epistemologists study the nature, origin, and scope of knowledge, epistemic justification, the rationality of belief, and various related issues. Debates in epistemology are generally clustered around four core areas: # The philosophical analysis of the nature of knowledge and the conditions required for a belief to constitute knowledge, such as truth and justification # Potential sources of knowledge and justified belief, such as perception, reason, memory, and testimony # The structure of a body of knowledge or justified belief, including whether all justified beliefs must be derived from justified foundational beliefs or whether justification requires only a coherent set of beliefs # Philosophical skepticism, which questions the possibili ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysics (Aristotle)
''Metaphysics'' (Greek: τὰ μετὰ τὰ φυσικά, "things after the ones about the natural world"; Latin: ''Metaphysica'') is one of the principal works of Aristotle, in which he develops the doctrine that is sometimes referred to as ''Wisdom'', sometimes as ''First Philosophy'', and sometimes as ''Theology,'' in English. It is one of the first major works of the branch of western philosophy known as metaphysics. It is a compilation of various texts treating abstract subjects, notably Being, different kinds of causation, form and matter, the existence of mathematical objects and the cosmos. Overview The ''Metaphysics'' is considered to be one of the greatest philosophical works. Its influence on the Greeks, the Muslim philosophers, Maimonides thence the scholastic philosophers and even writers such as Dante was immense. Aristotle gives an epistemology of causation: his theory of four causes to supplement the material and formal causes of earlier theories. Also hi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotelian Realist Philosophy Of Mathematics
In the philosophy of mathematics, Aristotelian realism holds that mathematics studies properties such as symmetry, continuity and order that can be immanently realized in the physical world (or in any other world there might be). It contrasts with Platonism in holding that the objects of mathematics, such as numbers, do not exist in an "abstract" world but can be physically realized. It contrasts with nominalism, fictionalism, and logicism in holding that mathematics is not about mere names or methods of inference or calculation but about certain real aspects of the world. Aristotelian realists emphasize applied mathematics, especially mathematical modeling, rather than pure mathematics as philosophically most important. Marc Lange argues that "Aristotelian realism allows mathematical facts to be explainers in distinctively mathematical explanations" in science as mathematical facts are themselves about the physical world. Paul Thagard describes Aristotelian realism as "the curr ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Abstract Object
In metaphysics, the distinction between abstract and concrete refers to a divide between two types of entities. Many philosophers hold that this difference has fundamental metaphysical significance. Examples of concrete objects include plants, human beings and planets while things like numbers, sets and propositions are abstract objects. There is no general consensus as to what the characteristic marks of concreteness and abstractness are. Popular suggestions include defining the distinction in terms of the difference between (1) existence inside or outside space-time, (2) having causes and effects or not, (3) having contingent or necessary existence, (4) being particular or universal and (5) belonging to either the physical or the mental realm or to neither. Despite this diversity of views, there is broad agreement concerning most objects as to whether they are abstract or concrete. So under most interpretations, all these views would agree that, for example, plants are concrete ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Categories (Aristotle)
The ''Categories'' (Greek Κατηγορίαι ''Katēgoriai''; Latin ''Categoriae'' or ''Praedicamenta'') is a text from Aristotle's ''Organon'' that enumerates all the possible kinds of things that can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition. They are "perhaps the single most heavily discussed of all Aristotelian notions". The work is brief enough to be divided, not into books as is usual with Aristotle's works, but into fifteen chapters. The ''Categories'' places every object of human apprehension under one of ten categories (known to medieval writers as the Latin term ''praedicamenta''). Aristotle intended them to enumerate everything that can be expressed without composition or structure, thus anything that can be either the subject or the predicate of a proposition. The text The antepraedicamenta The text begins with an explication of what Aristotle means by "synonymous", or univocal words, what is meant by "homonymous", or equivocal words, and what is mean ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Common Sense
''Common Sense'' is a 47-page pamphlet written by Thomas Paine in 1775–1776 advocating independence from Great Britain to people in the Thirteen Colonies. Writing in clear and persuasive prose, Paine collected various moral and political arguments to encourage common people in the Colonies to fight for egalitarian government. It was published anonymously on January 10, 1776, at the beginning of the American Revolution and became an immediate sensation. It was sold and distributed widely and read aloud at taverns and meeting places. In proportion to the population of the colonies at that time (2.5 million), it had the largest sale and circulation of any book published in American history. As of 2006, it remains the all-time best-selling American title and is still in print today. ''Common Sense'' made public a persuasive and impassioned case for independence, which had not yet been given serious intellectual consideration. Paine connected independence with common dissenting P ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Instantiation Principle
The instantiation principle or principle of instantiation or principle of exemplification is the concept in metaphysics and logic (first put forward by David Malet Armstrong) that there can be no uninstantiated or unexemplified properties (or universals). In other words, it is impossible for a property to exist which is not had by some object. Consider a chair. Presumably chairs did not exist 150,000 years ago. Thus, according to the principle of instantiation, the property of being a chair did not exist 150,000 years ago either. Similarly, if all red objects were to suddenly go out of existence, then the property of being red would likewise go out of existence. To make the principle more plausible in the light of these examples, the existence of properties or universals is not tied to their actual existence now, but to their existence in space-time considered as a whole. Thus, any property which ''is'', ''has been'', or ''will be'' instantiated exists. The property of being red wou ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Aristotle
Aristotle (; grc-gre, Ἀριστοτέλης ''Aristotélēs'', ; 384–322 BC) was a Greek philosopher and polymath during the Classical period in Ancient Greece. Taught by Plato, he was the founder of the Peripatetic school of philosophy within the Lyceum and the wider Aristotelian tradition. His writings cover many subjects including physics, biology, zoology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, aesthetics, poetry, theatre, music, rhetoric, psychology, linguistics, economics, politics, meteorology, geology, and government. Aristotle provided a complex synthesis of the various philosophies existing prior to him. It was above all from his teachings that the West inherited its intellectual lexicon, as well as problems and methods of inquiry. As a result, his philosophy has exerted a unique influence on almost every form of knowledge in the West and it continues to be a subject of contemporary philosophical discussion. Little is known about his life. Aristotle was born in th ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Relation (metaphysics)
In ontology, the theory of categories concerns itself with the ''categories of being'': the highest ''genera'' or ''kinds of entities'' according to Amie Thomasson. To investigate the categories of being, or simply categories, is to determine the most fundamental and the broadest classes of entities. A distinction between such categories, in making the categories or applying them, is called an ontological distinction. Various systems of categories have been proposed, they often include categories for substances, properties, relations, states of affairs or events. A representative question within the theory of categories might articulate itself, for example, in a query like, " Are universals prior to particulars?" Early development The process of abstraction required to discover the number and names of the categories of being has been undertaken by many philosophers since Aristotle and involves the careful inspection of each concept to ensure that there is no higher category or cate ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Property (metaphysics)
In logic and philosophy (especially metaphysics), a property is a characteristic of an object; a red object is said to have the property of redness. The property may be considered a form of object in its own right, able to possess other properties. A property, however, differs from individual objects in that it may be instantiated, and often in more than one object. It differs from the logical/mathematical concept of class by not having any concept of extensionality, and from the philosophical concept of class in that a property is considered to be distinct from the objects which possess it. Understanding how different individual entities (or particulars) can in some sense have some of the same properties is the basis of the problem of universals. Terms and usage A property is any member of a class of entities that are capable of being attributed to objects. Terms similar to ''property'' include ''predicable'', ''attribute'', ''quality'', ''feature'', ''characteristic'', ''type'' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
