(November 1, 2021 at 2:40 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Mereological nihilism is an error theory. It doesn't add confusion - it correctly observes that there is confusion. It posits that this confusion in endemic to categorization. It's a problem for the form of the bed as a concept if there are no boundaries to that form. If everything is a bed when we're tired - and nothing is a bed when we're energetic.
When we call something a bed, and say that it has the form of a bed..we are not then talking about the thing..but about ourselves..or a form of the thing, but a need of ourselves.
Okay, I just mean, adding confusion in the sense of adding confusion to say a discussion of Aristotlian causes, because that's about explaining things... if you can't even agree at that point on what a thing is, it seems like it completely ruins, or sidetracks the discussion.
As I said, I do very much sympathise with the position, not just with respect to 'things' but also with say a multitude of final causes... the goals of things mean different things to different people etc, but just that to take 'things' completely off the table, makes discussion here impossible. So, in other words, for the sake of this argument if nothing else, I'm happy to think about things in their most common use form, but another time might delve into these 'mereological' questions.... but just not at the same time, especially since I'm here both to learn about the original arguments themselves, in their own form, as well as address them in my own terms.
