Abstraction, inseparability, and identity
Philosophy and Phenomenological Research 57 (2):307-330 (1997)
| Abstract | Berkeley and Hume object to Locke's account of abstraction. Abstraction is separating in the mind what cannot be separated in reality. Their objection is that if a is inseparable in reality from b, then the idea of a is inseparable from the idea of b. The former inseparability is the reason for the latter. In most interpretations, however, commentators leave the former unexplained in explaining the latter. This article assumes that Berkeley and Hume present a unified front against Locke. Hume supplements Berkeley's argument just where there are gaps. In particular, Hume makes explicit something Berkeley leaves implicit: The argument against Locke depends on the principle that things are inseparable if and only if they are identical. Abstraction is thinking of one of an inseparable pair while not thinking of the other. But doing so entails thinking of something while not thinking of it. This is the fundamental objection | |||||||||
| Keywords | No keywords specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Categories | No categories specified (fix it) | |||||||||
| Options |
|
|||||||||
Download options| PhilPapers Archive |
Upload a copy of this paper Check publisher's policy on self-archival Papers currently archived: 5,705 |
| External links |
 |
| Through your library | Configure |
Similar books and articlesRafal Urbaniak (2010). Neologicist Nominalism. Studia Logica 96 (2):149-173.
Cynthia A. Stark (2010). Abstraction and Justification in Moral Theory. Hypatia 25 (4):825-833.
Stewart Shapiro (2004). The Nature and Limits of Abstraction. Philosophical Quarterly 54 (214):166-174.
D. E. Bradshaw (1988). Berkeley and Hume on Abstraction and Generalization. History of Philosophy Quarterly 5 (1):11 - 22.
Walter R. Ott (2004). The Cartesian Context of Berkeley's Attack on Abstraction. Pacific Philosophical Quarterly 85 (4):407–424.
Analytics
Monthly downloads |
Added to index2009-01-28Total downloads13 ( #88,007 of 549,546 )Recent downloads (6 months)3 ( #25,790 of 549,546 )How can I increase my downloads? |
My notes
Discussion
