Category: Matter
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God, Evil, Matter, and Mind
How both theists and atheists stand pat in the face of objections. Top o' the Stack.
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Are Holes Material Items?
Here is a version of materialism: 1) All and only material things exist. My question: are there decisive (philosophically dispositive) counterexamples to (1)? I hold that (1) is very reasonably rejected. But what I want to know is whether it can be 'blown clean out of the water,' i.e., refuted beyond the shadow of any…
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On ‘Materialize’ and Materialism
It is interesting that 'materialize' is often used in ordinary English as an intransitive verb to mean: come to be real. "Rain clouds materialized on the horizon." "The Hezbollah counterattack never materialized." A thing or state of affairs is real if and only if it exists independently of (finite) mind. To be real is…
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What is a Limit Concept? The Example of Prime Matter
In an earlier entry I suggested that the concept God is a limit concept or Grenzbegriff. I now need to back up a few steps and clarify the concept limit concept and give some non-divine examples. If I cannot supply any non-divine examples, then I might justifiably be accused of ad-hoc-ery. Terminological note: The term…
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Are Cats Liquid?
Meow
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Thinking Meat?
Question: Is it my brain that feels and thinks when I feel and think? Argument A. Meat can't think. My brain is meat. Therefore, what thinks in me when I think is not my brain. A in Reverse: What thinks in me when I think is my brain. My brain is meat. Therefore, meat can…
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Bare Particulars and Prime Matter: Similarities and Differences
This entry continues the discussion of prime matter begun here. That post is a prerequisite for this one. Similarities between Bare Particulars and Prime Matter S1. Bare particulars in themselves are property-less while prime matter in itself is formless. The bare particular in a thing is that which exemplifies the thing's properties. But in itself…
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Substantial Change, Prime Matter, and Individuation
Eric Levy wants to talk about prime matter. I am 'primed' and my powder's dry: Nihil philosophicum a me alienum putamus. "I consider nothing philosophical to be foreign to me." Change, Accidental and Substantial There is no change without a substrate of change which, in respect of its existence and identity, does not change during…