Philosophy Dictionary of ArgumentsHome | |||
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Atomism (philosophy, logic): A) Atomism is the assumption that the facts can be represented by elementary sentences. Thus the question of the independence of facts is raised. See also Atomic sentences, Humean supervenience, Causality.
B) In relation to the world, the atomism of ancient philosophy assumes that there are smallest units, the atoms. These are sometimes thought of as having a particular shape._____________Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments. | |||
Author | Concept | Summary/Quotes | Sources |
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Logic Texts on Atomism - Dictionary of Arguments
Read III 28ff Atomism: the leading thought is that facts are autonomous. The truth of the conjunction is simply the result of the truth of each member of the conjunction. Reduction: each link corresponds to a fact. >Conjunction, >Truth, >Fact, >Reduction. The dream of the logical atomists, Russell and Wittgenstein, was to thus retain the truth of atomic and elementary statements after a great reduction. Wittgenstein later abandoned atomism (as well as realism and correspondence theory). >Realism, >Correspondence theory. VsReductionism: this would have to explain the truth of a negative statement like "Ruby did not kill Kennedy" as the result of the truth of another statement that would be inconsistent with "Ruby killed Kennedy". RussellVsVs: Russell objected to such argumentation that recourse is threatened: "B is incompatible with A" is itself a negative statement. To explain its truth, we would need a third statement C, which would be incompatible with "C is incompatible with A", and so on. Read III 31 ReadVsRussell: this is a strange objection, because it would also apply against any conjunction. And then truth conditions for conjunctive and disjunctive statements must not be conjunctive or disjunctive. >Disjunction, >Conjunction, >Truth condition._____________Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition. |
Logic Texts Me I Albert Menne Folgerichtig Denken Darmstadt 1988 HH II Hoyningen-Huene Formale Logik, Stuttgart 1998 Re III Stephen Read Philosophie der Logik Hamburg 1997 Sal IV Wesley C. Salmon Logic, Englewood Cliffs, New Jersey 1973 - German: Logik Stuttgart 1983 Sai V R.M.Sainsbury Paradoxes, Cambridge/New York/Melbourne 1995 - German: Paradoxien Stuttgart 2001 Re III St. Read Thinking About Logic: An Introduction to the Philosophy of Logic. 1995 Oxford University Press German Edition: Philosophie der Logik Hamburg 1997 |