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Friday, November 05, 2021

Absence and Nothing

Consider:

Thing

Concept

Presence

Absence

Operations:

PT

PC

I promised to look at these terms again, in order that I might clarify them. 

Let me note the Operations:

PT means Presence of Thing

PC means Presence of Concept

Think about these and Nothing.

Since Yesterday:

In reflecting upon these terms, I realized that Absence is not synonymous with Nothing. "Absence" retains a residue of nostalgia for the Presence it has lost. "Nothing" retains none of that. 

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2 comments:

  1. Kevin Kim5:52 PM

    Dr. Vallicella wrote something about the ontological status of holes. Let me find the quote. Here:

    Consider a particular hole H in a piece of Swiss cheese. H is not nothing. It has properties. It has, for example, a shape: it is circular. The circular hole has a definite radius, diameter, and circumference. It has a definite area equal to pi times the radius squared: A=πr^2 If the piece of cheese is 1/16th of an inch thick, then the hole is a disk having a definite volume. H has a definite location relative to the edges of the piece of cheese and relative to the other holes. H has causal properties: it affects the texture and flexibility of the cheese and its resistance to the tooth. H is perceivable by the senses: you can see it and touch it. You touch a hole by putting a finger or other appendage into it and experiencing no resistance.

    Now if anything has properties, then it exists. H has properties; so H exists.

    The foregoing was set-up for the question. H exists and the piece of cheese exists. Do they exist in the same way? Not by my lights.

    Down the rabbit hole we go.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Horace Jeffery Hodges6:29 PM

    Uh-o . . .

    Jeffery Hodges

    * * *

    ReplyDelete

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