4chan archive /lit/ (index)
2012-09-23 10:54 3002831 Anonymous (Student-chair-for-school.jpg 864x1152 59kB)
Does a chair have the property of being a chair?

3 min later 3002841 Anonymous
Is a chair a chair?

4 min later 3002842 Anonymous
That's up to you to decide.

5 min later 3002846 Anonymous
>>3002841 yes

6 min later 3002847 Anonymous
if I wear it on my head,does that make it a hat?

7 min later 3002848 Anonymous
>>3002847 Is a hat a hat?

9 min later 3002852 Anonymous
>>3002848 Define "a".

10 min later 3002856 Anonymous
>>3002852 Something that is a.

10 min later 3002857 Anonymous
>>3002848 I would believe so, but does it cease to be a chair if its on my head?

12 min later 3002860 Anonymous
"chair" is just a practical name we give to the assemblage of its parts. /your life

12 min later 3002861 Anonymous (1341808488470.jpg 352x564 75kB)
"Things" are an illusion. There is no chair, there is no person, there is no such thing as that separation and certainly there is no such thing as something you can say to define the edges of things, for there are no edges, no definition and no things which are not imaginary. What happends is the sitting. That's the real thing. "Chair" being the name we give to the object in which we sit our buts. The illusion relies on how much we cling to the name "chair" instead of sitting or standing up. Is a lump on the ground a chair? What if I sit on it? Is the product in a picture still a chair if no one ever sitted on it? If I cut it in half, will it be a chair or half a chair? The only thing one has to realize here is that these names are limited and they will never be able to encompass reality. You sit, you stand up. You have conventions on where to sit and how to sit and these are cultural and fluid. Names and words are not as fluid, they cristalyze properties of things which are not there and you might be dissapointed to see that having potential and history is not the same as being. Having a name is not the same as existing. And sitting in a chair confuses you into thinking you are not the chair itself, as much as everything else and nothing at all. Stop talking about the chair, it embarasses it. Sit down.

13 min later 3002863 OP
ok new one in the room around me there are five things that are black. That is, they have the property of being black. So "black" is located in 5 different places at once. That sounds weird. Normal things can't be located in 5 different places. How can something even be in a place if it doesn't have any spatial parts (do properties have spatial parts)?

15 min later 3002868 OP
>>3002861 one of the worst posts I've ever read cringed hard

23 min later 3002879 Anonymous
>>3002861 Yeah, that came from Aristotle, I believe, though it may have been Socrates. He though there was only one perfect example of everything, existing presumably in heaven. So there is only ever 1 chair, or 1 bed, everything else is an imperfect, crude imitation. nfortunately this fell apart when he realised the perfect version of the number 2 has to have the properties of both great and small. What you are arguing is language. We form different mental images as language helps to form our ego and perception. Two people will view the same chair, and usually form two slightly different subjective views of it.

24 min later 3002880 Anonymous (back-to-the-future-04_610.jpg 610x411 130kB)
>>3002861

25 min later 3002884 Anonymous
>>3002879 Not sure if troll...

28 min later 3002889 Anonymous
>>3002879 I know nothing about philosophy, but I'm reading an introductory book about it and that sounds more like Plato or Socrates than Aristotle.

30 min later 3002893 Anonymous
>>3002889 Thinking about it it might have been Socrates, i'm pretty sure it wasn't Plato. I read that in 'History of Western Philosophy' a few years ago, so may have ruined the logic.

31 min later 3002896 OP
>>3002863 please respond

32 min later 3002900 Anonymous
>>3002893 Remember Aristotle was one of the first empiricists so he would've thought talk about ideal forms and stuff was claptrap.

38 min later 3002912 Anonymous
>>3002831 No. There is no such thing as 'chairness'. If you want a better explanation, read the following: http://www.igewem.tu-dresden.de/die_tu_dresden/fakultaeten/philosophische_fakultaet/iph/thph/braeuer /lehre/metameta/Quine%20-%20On%20What%20There%20Is.pdf

41 min later 3002918 Anonymous
>>3002863 >in the room around me there are five things that are black. That is, they have the property of being black. What are these five things, and why is color the only 'property' they have? >Normal things can't be located in 5 different places. Look up uncertainty principal, or double slit experiment. Physical things that should behave like solid particles can and do occupy multiple regions of spacetime.

43 min later 3002925 Anonymous
>>3002831 Is this Joseph? If so then kindly fuck off.

48 min later 3002938 OP
>>3002918 >What are these five things, and why is color the only 'property' they have? I didn't say that >Look up uncertainty principal, or double slit experiment. Physical things that should behave like solid particles can and do occupy multiple regions of spacetime. yawn "bro double slit bro cat is both dead and alive bro wow amazing consiouness collapses the wave function ermergerd we have souls erm immortal bro get pussy bro fuck yeah pussy drink bud light faggot get on my level, motherfucker we are the universe becoming aware of itself, stardust bro, fucking stardust 420blaze it"

49 min later 3002942 Anonymous
>So "black" is located in 5 different places at once. That sounds weird. Normal things can't be located in 5 different places. What? That is not weird at all. I know 5 people, that means peopleness is in 5 places at once. Wow. I know a blue thing which is also round. That means blue and round are occupying the same place. Hurr. This thread is a mess. Read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzche, Wittgenstein, eastern philosophy, then come back.

54 min later 3002952 OP
>>3002942 >I know 5 people, that means peopleness is in 5 places at once. You just restated the problem with the assumption that 'peopleness' is a real entity. If it's an entity (i.e. a thing with distinct and independent existence) then where is located? >Read Plato, Aristotle, Kant, Nietzche, Wittgenstein, eastern philosophy, then come back. "read the book faggot you are so dumb I've read the book which means I'm more intelligent than you what a fucking dummy you are read the book motherfucker im so smart get on my fucking level"

57 min later 3002963 Anonymous
>>3002952 Real is not the same as physical. "Peopleness" and "black" will follow characteristics of language, not of physics. I don't know why you expected that to be the case.

1 hours later 3002974 Anonymous (121f4879826eeda5d21b2b427cb71b1f.png 428x46 2kB)
>>3002938 >"bro double slit bro cat is both dead and alive bro wow amazing consiouness collapses the wave function ermergerd we have souls erm immortal bro get pussy bro fuck yeah pussy drink bud light faggot get on my level, motherfucker we are the universe becoming aware of itself, stardust bro, fucking stardust 420blaze it" wut. Do you not understand this equation, kid? Why are you babbling about souls?

1 hours later 3002982 Anonymous
Plato was discoursing on his theory of ideas and, pointing to the cups on the table before him, said while there are many cups in the world, there is only one `idea' of a cup, and this cupness precedes the existence of all particular cups. "I can see the cup on the table," interupted Diogenes, "but I can't see the `cupness'". "That's because you have the eyes to see the cup," said Plato, "but", tapping his head with his forefinger, "you don't have the intellect with which to comprehend `cupness'." Diogenes walked up to the table, examined a cup and, looking inside, asked, "Is it empty?" Plato nodded. "Where is the `emptiness' which procedes this empty cup?" asked Diogenes. Plato allowed himself a few moments to collect his thoughts, but Diogenes reached over and, tapping Plato's head with his finger, said "I think you will find here is the `emptiness'."

1 hours later 3002985 OP
Guys, I got one more. Okay, there's like a table but there is no light so you cant see the table, how do you know it's there? I mean, like, even if you feel the table, how do you know it's the same table, it could be a pink table and the first one was green.

1 hours later 3002999 Anonymous
>>3002985 You started with a bad question, that's understandable. You don't have to make them progressively worse.

1 hours later 3003011 OP
>>3002999 why was the first question bad? and also that was a fake OP

1 hours later 3003016 Anonymous
>>3003011 Because you have no understanding of philosophy, science, or linguistic semantics.

1 hours later 3003017 Anonymous
>>3002985 You don't. Anything else?

1 hours later 3003018 Anonymous
>>3002863 Isn't this the problem of universals?

1 hours later 3003028 Anonymous
>open /lit/ >first thread >Does a chair have the property of being a chair? Why do you guys tolerate this bullshit? This is a board for literature. Seems like you can ask any question on here and people will pander to it because they believe they have some kind of profound answer to give when they apply their first year philosophy knowledge to.

1 hours later 3003029 OP
>>3003017 >Anything else? Yeah, one more. I have realized that objective morality doesn't exist, but I decide to integrate into society - I choose to kill animals, but not kill people - and decide that I will make my own happiness my personal goal. Is it better to follow my reason or emotion?

1 hours later 3003039 Anonymous
>>3003029 >reason/emotion dichotomy >after Romanticism

1 hours later 3003052 Anonymous
Does a stool have the properties of a chair?

1 hours later 3003083 OP
does a property have the property of being a property?

1 hours later 3003101 Anonymous
>>3003052 Yeah, but it's the other way around. The chair is the square, the stool, the rectangle.

2 hours later 3003239 Anonymous
>>3003052 no i dont shit where i sit

3 hours later 3003290 Anonymous
why don't you ask the chair? get Clint Eastwood to translate

4 hours later 3003520 Anonymous
>>3002863 Blackness is a social construct you racist

4 hours later 3003522 Anonymous (1270776295101.jpg 267x229 10kB)
THERE IS NOT PROPERTY

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