> On Dec 2, 2015, at 9:56 AM, Jerry LR Chandler <jerry_lr_chand...@me.com> > wrote: > > From my perspective, this argument, ignores the nature of nature - that is, > of part whole relationships, known as mereology in logic and philosophy and > as "scaling" in physics. > > A noun is what? a part of a sentence? an object? a singularity? a relative? > a grammatical structure? > > If an atom is a noun, does it inherently have a structure? When was the > concept of the structure of an atom introduced into science? philosophy? > > If a molecule is a noun, is it a "firstness"? does it inherently have a > structure? Is modal logic necessary to describe the relationship between > atoms and molecules? Is the inherence of "thing in itself" necessary for this > relation? > > In short, does a concept of "firstness", as a "thing in itself" inherently > require a metaphysical view of all nouns? > > If a unit is a firstness, then: > > The union of units unifies the unity. > > Is this logically True? or False? > What is your reasoning for your conclusion? >
I think we can consider things in their unity and then separately in their parts. Depending upon the analysis in question that’d be a firstness of something and a thirdness or secondness of something - often of an other type of third. If we are talking about scientific objects which are themselves composed of habit then this would be a firstness of thirdness. As I said, I think it all depends upon the type of analysis one is doing. If we are talking basic ontology then firstness is whatever is in itself at a basic level. Seconds would be existence. Thirdness would be laws/structures. However in practice we’re rarely talking about basic ontology. I think usually we’re analyzing things that are far more complex and that could be broken down much further. I’d think that for most t types of analysis we’re really talking about categories of thirdness in various ways. Those will themselves be broken down into three categories and so forth. So to your example, I think we can analyze nouns as unities but also recognize nouns are tied to other written symbols. So for example grammatical rules (formal or informal) relate a noun and a verb and thus are a sign relation. We can take nouns as referring to generals of various sorts. So the noun is the sign. To answer your main question, I don’t think we’re usually doing metaphysics in all this although if we conduct our analysis far enough we typically run up against metaphysical assumptions.
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