[lit-ideas] Re: Argumentum Ornithologicum
- From: Robert Paul <rpaul@xxxxxxxx>
- To: lit-ideas@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
- Date: Thu, 02 Jul 2009 14:16:53 -0700
JL writes
Consider apples and cardinals.
Surely I have an idea of 7,689,878 apples. Although I do not have an
impression_ of that.
Hume offers an explanation of this in the Treatise (Book I, Part I,
Section VII). It's part of his account of abstract ideas, which would
have to understand in order to make any sense of it.
'To explain the ultimate causes of our mental actions is impossible.
'Tis sufficient, if we can give any satisfactory account of them from
experience and analogy.
'First then I observe, that when we mention any great number, such as a
thousand, the mind has generally no adequate idea of it, but only a
power of producing such an idea, by its adequate idea of the decimals,
under which the number is comprehended. This imperfection, however, in
our ideas, is never felt in our reasonings; which seems to be an
instance parallel to the present one of universal ideas.'
Indeed, Jorge Luis Borges (and there was this lit-ideas member who said
there was no talented Hispanic!) argued from that, that God exists:
I close my eyes and see a flock of birds. The vision lasts a second, or
perhaps less; I am not sure how many birds I saw. Was the number of birds
definite or indefinite? The problem involves the existence of God. If God
exists, the number is definite, because God knows how many birds I saw. If God
does not exist, the number is indefinite, because no one can have counted.
In this case I saw fewer than ten birds (let us say) and more than one, but
did not see nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, or two birds. I
saw a number between ten and one which was not nine, eight, seven, six, five,
etc. That integer--not-nine, not-eight, not-seven, not-six, not-five,
etc.--is inconceivable. Ergo, God exists.
There is no indefinite number of countable things. 'I'm not sure how
many birds I saw,' does not entail 'The birds in that particular
space-time slice could never be counted.' Counting is a mostly human
activity. Birds and numbers are what they are independently of this.
Robert Paul,
keeping cool somewhere south of Reed College
------------------------------------------------------------------
To change your Lit-Ideas settings (subscribe/unsub, vacation on/off,
digest on/off), visit www.andreas.com/faq-lit-ideas.html
Other related posts:
