« David Graeber, Debt: The First Five Thousand Years | Main | This Year I Betrayed My Country... »

December 28, 2011

Comments

Nick Smyth

Hi Justin! You might be aware of this, but P.F. Strawson made a lot of this distinction. We normally think that "Features" like gold, water, etc. are distinct from sortals like "cat" and "ball". However, Strawson thought that the former category formed a kind of transcendental basis for the latter: conceptual schemes begin only with features, treating even "cat" as an unidfferentiated blob or shape, and then building on these concepts towards sortal ones.

So, one interesting way of drawing the distinction is to say that stuff is (in some odd sense) more primitive than things, that more basic forms of conceptual development do not include the concept of an object.

Nick Smyth

Aaaand you already mentioned Strawson in the post and I somehow missed it. Neeever mind.

Tawrin

Don't forget that for Aristotle the wet/moist is defined by its ability to take on any shape (or form?), but which is not determinable by its own limit; the dry is that which is determinable by limits of its own, but does not (easily?) take on shape. There's your stuff/thing right there, arguably in a more fundamental form, injected straight into the principles of tangible reality.

Verify your Comment

Previewing your Comment

This is only a preview. Your comment has not yet been posted.

Working...
Your comment could not be posted. Error type:
Your comment has been posted. Post another comment

The letters and numbers you entered did not match the image. Please try again.

As a final step before posting your comment, enter the letters and numbers you see in the image below. This prevents automated programs from posting comments.

Having trouble reading this image? View an alternate.

Working...

Post a comment

Your Information

(Name and email address are required. Email address will not be displayed with the comment.)

Books

.