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Gunk (mereology)
In mereology, an area of metaphysics, the term gunk applies to any whole whose parts all have further proper parts. That is, a gunky object is not made of indivisible ''atoms'' or '' simples''. Because parthood is transitive, any part of gunk is itself gunk. The term was first used by David Lewis in his work ''Parts of Classes'' (1991), in which he conceived of the possibility of "atomless gunk", which was shortened to "gunk" by later writers. Dean W. Zimmerman defends the possibility of atomless gunk. If point-sized objects are always simple, then a gunky object does not have any point-sized parts, and may be best described by an approach such as Whitehead's point-free geometry. By usual accounts of gunk, such as Alfred Tarski's in 1929, three-dimensional gunky objects also do not have other degenerate parts shaped like one-dimensional curves or two-dimensional surfaces. Gunk is an important test case for accounts of the composition of material objects: for instance, Ted Sider ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mereology
Mereology (; from Greek μέρος 'part' (root: μερε-, ''mere-'') and the suffix ''-logy'', 'study, discussion, science') is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, also called ''parthood relationships''. As a branch of metaphysics, mereology examines the connections between parts and their wholes, exploring how components interact within a system. This theory has roots in ancient philosophy, with significant contributions from Plato, Aristotle, and later, medieval and Renaissance thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Mereology was formally axiomatized in the 20th century by Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski, who introduced it as part of a comprehensive framework for logic and mathematics, and coined the word "mereology". Mereological ideas were influential in early , and formal mereology has continued to be used by a minority in works on the . Different axiomatizations of mereology have been applied in , used in to analyze "mass terms", use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
René Descartes
René Descartes ( , ; ; 31 March 1596 – 11 February 1650) was a French philosopher, scientist, and mathematician, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and Modern science, science. Mathematics was paramount to his method of inquiry, and he connected the previously separate fields of geometry and algebra into analytic geometry. Descartes spent much of his working life in the Dutch Republic, initially serving the Dutch States Army, and later becoming a central intellectual of the Dutch Golden Age. Although he served a Dutch Reformed Church, Protestant state and was later counted as a Deism, deist by critics, Descartes was Roman Catholicism, Roman Catholic. Many elements of Descartes's philosophy have precedents in late Aristotelianism, the Neostoicism, revived Stoicism of the 16th century, or in earlier philosophers like Augustine of Hippo, Augustine. In his natural philosophy, he differed from the Scholasticism, schools on two major point ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Endurantism
Endurantism or endurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity. According to the endurantist view, material objects are persisting three-dimensional individuals wholly present at every moment of their existence, which goes with an A-theory of time. This conception of an individual as always present is opposed to perdurantism or four-dimensionalism, which maintains that an object is a series of temporal parts or stages, requiring a B-theory of time. The use of "endure" and "perdure" to distinguish two ways in which an object can be thought to persist can be traced to David Lewis. One serious problem of endurantism is the problem of temporary intrinsics raised by David Lewis. Lewis claims that intrinsic properties of objects would change over time. Thus, endurantism cannot harmonize identity with change and then cannot explain persistence clearly even if endurantists appeal to intrinsic properties. Endurantists may argue that intrinsic properties are ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Perdurantism
Perdurantism or perdurance theory is a philosophical theory of persistence and identity.Temporal parts – Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy In the debate over persistence currently involves three competing theories—one three-dimensionalist theory called "endurantism" and two four-dimensionalist theories called "perdurantism" and "exdurantism". For a perdurantist, all objects are considered to be four-dimensional worms and they make up the different regions of spacetime. It is a fusion of all the perdurant's instantaneous time slices compiled and blended into a complete mereological whole. Perdurantism posits that temporal parts alone are what ultimately change. [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mereological Essentialism
In philosophy, mereological essentialism is a mereological thesis about the relationship between wholes, their parts, and the conditions of their persistence. According to mereological essentialism, objects have their parts necessarily. If an object were to lose or gain a part, it would no longer be the original object. Definitions Mereological essentialism is typically taken to be a thesis about concrete material objects, but it may also be applied to abstract objects, such as a set or proposition. If mereological essentialism is correct, a proposition, or thought, has its parts essentially; in other words, it has ontological commitments to all its conceptual components. Endurantism and Perdurantism The two prominent, competing material models of mereological essentialism are endurantism and perdurantism. It is important to note that neither endurantism nor perdurantism imply mereological essentialism. One may advocate for either model without being committed to accepting mer ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mereological Nihilism
In philosophy, mereological nihilism (also called compositional nihilism) is the metaphysical thesis that there are no objects with proper parts. Equivalently, mereological nihilism says that mereological simples, or objects without any proper parts, are the only material objects that exist. Mereological nihilism is distinct from ordinary nihilism insofar as ordinary nihilism typically focuses on the nonexistence of common metaphysical assumptions such as ethical truths and objective meaning, rather than the nonexistence of composite objects. Explanation Our everyday perceptual experience suggests that we are surrounded by macrophysical objects that have other, smaller objects as their proper parts. For example, there seem to be such objects as tables, which appear to be composed of various other objects, such as the table-legs, a flat surface, and perhaps the nails or bolts holding those pieces together. Those latter objects, in turn, appear to be composed of still smaller ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mereology
Mereology (; from Greek μέρος 'part' (root: μερε-, ''mere-'') and the suffix ''-logy'', 'study, discussion, science') is the philosophical study of part-whole relationships, also called ''parthood relationships''. As a branch of metaphysics, mereology examines the connections between parts and their wholes, exploring how components interact within a system. This theory has roots in ancient philosophy, with significant contributions from Plato, Aristotle, and later, medieval and Renaissance thinkers like Thomas Aquinas and John Duns Scotus. Mereology was formally axiomatized in the 20th century by Polish logician Stanisław Leśniewski, who introduced it as part of a comprehensive framework for logic and mathematics, and coined the word "mereology". Mereological ideas were influential in early , and formal mereology has continued to be used by a minority in works on the . Different axiomatizations of mereology have been applied in , used in to analyze "mass terms", use ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Mereological Nihilism
In philosophy, mereological nihilism (also called compositional nihilism) is the metaphysical thesis that there are no objects with proper parts. Equivalently, mereological nihilism says that mereological simples, or objects without any proper parts, are the only material objects that exist. Mereological nihilism is distinct from ordinary nihilism insofar as ordinary nihilism typically focuses on the nonexistence of common metaphysical assumptions such as ethical truths and objective meaning, rather than the nonexistence of composite objects. Explanation Our everyday perceptual experience suggests that we are surrounded by macrophysical objects that have other, smaller objects as their proper parts. For example, there seem to be such objects as tables, which appear to be composed of various other objects, such as the table-legs, a flat surface, and perhaps the nails or bolts holding those pieces together. Those latter objects, in turn, appear to be composed of still smaller ob ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Physics
Physics is the scientific study of matter, its Elementary particle, fundamental constituents, its motion and behavior through space and time, and the related entities of energy and force. "Physical science is that department of knowledge which relates to the order of nature, or, in other words, to the regular succession of events." It is one of the most fundamental scientific disciplines. "Physics is one of the most fundamental of the sciences. Scientists of all disciplines use the ideas of physics, including chemists who study the structure of molecules, paleontologists who try to reconstruct how dinosaurs walked, and climatologists who study how human activities affect the atmosphere and oceans. Physics is also the foundation of all engineering and technology. No engineer could design a flat-screen TV, an interplanetary spacecraft, or even a better mousetrap without first understanding the basic laws of physics. (...) You will come to see physics as a towering achievement of ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Adolf Grünbaum
Adolf Grünbaum (; ; May 15, 1923 – November 15, 2018) was a German-American philosopher of science and a critic of both psychoanalysis and Karl Popper's philosophy of science. He was the first Andrew Mellon Professor of Philosophy at the University of Pittsburgh from 1960 until his death, and also served as co-chairman of its Center for Philosophy of Science (from 1978), research professor of psychiatry (from 1979), and primary research professor in the department of history and philosophy of science (from 2006). His works include '' Philosophical Problems of Space and Time'' (1963), '' The Foundations of Psychoanalysis'' (1984), and ''Validation in the Clinical Theory of Psychoanalysis'' (1993). Life and career Being Jewish, Adolf Grünbaum's family left Nazi Germany in 1938 and emigrated to the United States. Grünbaum received a B.A. with twofold High Distinction in philosophy and in mathematics from Wesleyan University, Middletown, Connecticut, in 1943. During the Seco ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Cardinalities
In mathematics, the cardinality of a finite set is the number of its elements, and is therefore a measure of size of the set. Since the discovery by Georg Cantor, in the late 19th century, of different sizes of infinite sets, the term ''cardinality'' was coined for generalizing to infinite sets the concept of the number of elements. More precisely, two sets have the same cardinality if there exists a one-to-one correspondence between them. In the case of finite sets, the common operation of ''counting'' consists of establishing a one-to-one correspondence between a given set and the set of the first natural numbers, for some natural number . In this case, is the cardinality of the set. A set is ''infinite'' if the counting operation never finishes, that is, if its cardinality is not a natural number. The basic example of an infinite set is the set of all natural numbers. The great discovery of Cantor is that infinite sets of apparently different size may have the same cardina ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
Georg Cantor
Georg Ferdinand Ludwig Philipp Cantor ( ; ; – 6 January 1918) was a mathematician who played a pivotal role in the creation of set theory, which has become a foundations of mathematics, fundamental theory in mathematics. Cantor established the importance of one-to-one correspondence between the members of two sets, defined infinite set, infinite and well-order, well-ordered sets, and proved that the real numbers are more numerous than the natural numbers. Cantor's method of proof of this theorem implies the existence of an infinity of infinities. He defined the cardinal number, cardinal and ordinal number, ordinal numbers and their arithmetic. Cantor's work is of great philosophical interest, a fact he was well aware of. Originally, Cantor's theory of transfinite numbers was regarded as counter-intuitive – even shocking. This caused it to encounter resistance from mathematical contemporaries such as Leopold Kronecker and Henri Poincaré and later from Hermann Wey ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] [Amazon] |
