Hi; may I quote:
""X is a horse" is only true if everything that is true about 'X' is also true about 'horse'"
As you must know too well, there is no physical entity for which every true statement about it is also a true statement about 'horse'. For instance, "horses have four legs" sounds like a true statement about horses, but a horse doesn't cease to be a horse if you cut one of his legs off. A three-legged horse is still a horse, albeit a less-than-ideal one.
My point is simple: the word 'horse' implies a state of perfection and sameness which just doesn't exist in the physical world. A 'horse', by any definition, is a mythical creature. "
It is the nature of the existence of a thing that it is unique. It would be a contradiction to double-book "horse" as both "horse" and the proposed physical entity for which EVERY statement about it is also true of "horse".....?
There is only one "true" horse; as I said: every horse you meet; every perspective YOU have on HORSE: that is a unique MEETING between you and horse.
A generalised definition of horse can be specified more and more by intersection of categories (see "Introduction To Philosophical Analysis" by John Hospers on the nature of definition and explanation). As I rather vaguely recall according to John Hospers; explanations involve a wider context in which things are defined.
Things are explained in terms of other things related to them.
Ultimately things just are. The ultimate explanation appears to be "meeting"; this translates easily to Christianity; being and letting be; freedom meets freedom in freedom; consciousness; God is love.
Regards,
Alan |