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On the Need for Properties: The Road to Pythagoreanism and Back

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Abstract

The development of a compositional model shows the incoherence of such notions as levels of being and both bottom-up and top-down causality. The mathematization of nature through the partial considerations of physics qua quantities is seen to lead to Pythagoreanism, if what is not included in the partial consideration is denied. An ontology of only probabilities, if not Pythagoreanism, is equivalent to a world of primitive dispositionalities. Problems are found with each. There is a need for properties as well as quantities and these properties must be qualitative as well as dispositional. So there is a need for physical qualia (qualities) for the depiction of the intrinsic character of the finest interstices of nature.

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  1. Department of Philosophy, University of Calgary, Calgary, Alberta, Canada

    C. B. Martin

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  1. C. B. Martin
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Martin, C.B. On the Need for Properties: The Road to Pythagoreanism and Back. Synthese 112, 193–231 (1997). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1004983524345

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