On Thu, September 27, 2012 23:56, Pat Hayes wrote:
> On Sep 27, 2012, at 4:32 PM, doug foxvog wrote:
>> On Thu, September 27, 2012 06:21, William Frank wrote:
>>> On Thu, Sep 27, 2012 at 12:13 AM, doug foxvog <doug@xxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
>>>> On Wed, September 26, 2012 17:03, John F Sowa wrote:
>>>>> ...
>>>>> AS
>>>>>> Rom Harre:Behind the mereological
>>>>>> fallacy. Philosophy, 87(341):329–352, 2012. (01)
>>>>>> According to Harre p 351-2, mereology’s lack of the ability to model
>>>>>> contexts has led to mereological fallacies, where contexts are
>>>>>> confusingly mixed: (02)
>>>>> RM
>>>>>> “the brain is not a part of a person in the way that a grain of sand
>>>>>> is part of a beach. It is part of a person’s body and a person’s
>>>>>> body is not a part of that person in the relevant sense. (03)
>>>> I would consider this philosophical game playing. I'm guessing that
>>>> RM is discussing a person as a "soul",
>>>> a "life force" or event. I'm not
>>>> sure if he considers a person not to be an animal,
>>>> or an animal not to have a body as a part. (04)
>>> If a body is a *part* of an animal, what is the other part??? (05)
>> Note that i am responding to the RM quote that says that "a person’s
>> body
>> is not a part of that person in the relevant sense." His statement was
>> part of an argument based on the transitivity of parthood:
>> * A brain is part of a body;
>> * A part of a body would be part of a person IFF the body were part of
>> the person; (06)
> IF, but surely not IFF. (if (Part X Y)(Part X Z)) does not imply (Part Y
> Z) (07)
Sure, Pat. That is logic. I am analyzing the argument. If this were only
IF, instead of IFF, the statement would not be a support of the thesis. (08)
This is certainly a fallacy in the argument -- which i left to the reader to
detect. (09)
>> * A body is not part of a person;
>> * Ergo, a brain is not part of a person. (010)
>> Note that in many systems, parthood is reflexive. I mentioned that
>> elsewhere. If we accept this reflexive meaning of parthood, there
>> need not be any other part. The whole is the maximal part of an
>> object under this meaning of parthood. (011)
>> But back to your question: "what is the other part?" (012)
>> The body would be THE physical part of the animal. A non-physical part
>> of the animal would be its "life force" -- or whatever you want to call
>> it. (013)
>> When the animal dies, its "life force" ceases to exist, although its
>> body may still exist. (014)
>> With such a model you can say that the animal ceases to exist when it
>> dies, even if the physical part of the animal -- its body -- continues
>> to exist. (015)
> ... The world is not just made of lumps of stuff occupying space:
> it is also comprised of energy fields, momentums, pressures,
> movements and all the other dynamic processes which animate
> the stuff in the space. Whether we call them "parts" or not, they
> certainly exist, and certainly play a necessary role in how we
> conceptualize reality. (016)
Agreed. (017)
-- doug foxvog (018)
> OK, now someone mention Whitehead.
>
> Pat
> ...
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