Atomism in Russell (and I assume in the early W.) has to do with atomic
facts, which are expressed by atomic propositions. It is not a physical but
a logical notion. (Russell also had a couple of things to say about nuclear
weapons later on but he made it clear that atomic propositions had nothing
to do with that.)
On Thu, Sep 3, 2015 at 2:34 AM, Redacted sender Jlsperanza@xxxxxxx for
DMARC <dmarc-noreply@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
In a message dated 9/2/2015 4:41:01 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
donalmcevoyuk@xxxxxxxxxxx writes:
a joke made by a comedian, Frankie Boyle, on BBC television
This reminds me of Locke and Democritus (and Leucippus)
As Uzgalis, William, Uzgalis writes in his entry for "John Locke" in The
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy:
"It is from Boyle that Locke learned about atomism** (or the corpuscular
hypothesis) and it is from Boyle's book The Origin of Forms and Qualities
that Locke took the language of primary and secondary qualities."
Uzgalis does not, of course, means Frankie Boyle although both are related
(Boyle and Boyle, I mean; not Uzgalis and Boyle*).
Incidentally, since Locke's theory about primary and secondary qualities
is metaphysical it couldn't be, alla Popper, disproved (or proved for that
matter).
Cheers,
Speranza
* According to Geary, Uzgalis and Boyle are ALSO related ("If fact,
everything is related," he expressed tersely).
** Atomism is used in a different 'sense' (but "do not multiply senses
beyond necessity" so I'm not sure this is a sense) by Witters; but Popper
had
some interesting things to say about atoms, since if the _matter_ of W1 is
matter, modern quantum theory shows that more than atoms we need
wavicles***.
**** 'wavicle' was an expression ('for lack of a better one') coined by
Eddington, to blend a wave and a particle.
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