Thursday, September 09, 2004

Aristotle's kicking my ass.

As a student of philosophy, I should expect that there are concepts with which I will struggle. The most baffeling i have encountered to date is one of Aristotle's foundational points (found in "Categories").

when considering the 'third man' problem that Plato may have been open to, Aristotle proposed a response. generally, he figured that if he didn't assume both 'non-identity' and 'self-predication' at the same time, he would avoid the problem. consider:

plato is white.
socrates is white.
white is white.

and

plato is a man.
socrates is a man.
man is (a) man.

apparently these two are different. unfourtunately, i haven't seen this difference as of yet.

i know this has been a horrible first post. perhaps i will figure this one out before the categories thing...

pax

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