The Christian Vanguard

The following is a draft of a final paper I had to turn in for my Analytic Philosophy paper. Enjoy.  Russell’s Structural Collapse In this paper, I critically examine Bertrand Russell’s theory on the relationship between our sense-data and physics. Russell aims to show that we construct about the world from our sense-data, we do not infer the world from our sense-data. He does this by arguing from analogy. Since we do away with hypothetical entities in math, then we should do it in physics. The relative property between math and physics in Russell’s view is that physics really is just reducible to math. However, I show that there are problems with the mathematical content of the analogy itself and Russell’s understanding between the relationship of math and physics which absurdly tells little to nothing than what we commonly understand physics tells us, thus making his argument by analogy a weak one.  Russell is out to set out a theory concerning the relationship between sense...

The follow was an essay I wrote for my class. Footnotes were not able to be copied. Explain the argument of Physics Book 1, Chapter 7. Your explanation should address the following: What question(s) is Aristotle attempting to answer? What role do linguistic considerations (considerations concerning “what we say”) play in the argument The question Aristotle is attempting to answer is how to account for change, or coming to be. This includes coming to be in an accidental way and in an unqualified way. A thing is said to come to be from another thing. This is done in a few always by bringing our attention to how we understand a man becoming musical and the distinctions that arise from those considerations. So when we say, “man becomes musical” or “the not-musical man becomes musical” we say this in regards to its simplicity, or it being non-composed. However, these simple things do not survive change. But we also understand that something survives or persists through that change, so now w...

Another assignment for my class. Footnotes have been omitted.  Aristotle thinks it is important to ascertain the function of a man because human happiness is an end of an action. So in order to know what is good and bad for human happiness, we must know what mans function is. To determine what it's function is, we have to determine what kind of soul it has. If the function of a flute player is to play the flute, then playing the flute well is what makes the flute player a good flute player. Likewise with man, whatever our function is, doing that function well is what makes us a good man. The powers and function of man is not to be found in the body alone, but in the soul since material bodies are just potentiality and souls is what actualizes the matter into the kind of bodies that they are. So, as body-soul composites are those which exist by nature, that is they have an internal principle of change, they also have an end, or function. Further, for anything that has a form it ...

The following is a short assignment I turned in for my class. Footnotes are omitted.  Aristotle’s argument for teleology is a disjunctive syllogism. Things are either a result of a coincidence or an end. Things are not the result of coincidences. Therefore, they are a result of an end. Aristotle considers a problem of explaining why things happen. Rain happens but it does so not for the sake of the crops, which do benefit from the rainfall. If it can be said that it happens out of necessity, that is for material causes devoid of final causes, why should it not be said for all else that we think would have an end, like teeth? According to this view, the reason these things are observed is because those with those incidental features happened to survive. Aristotle’s argument against this is to say that it cannot explain why these things, if they are accidents, why they happen regularly. Coincidental causes, as they are causes without an end for the sake of which they strive, can...

I wrote the following for a class assignment. It deals with Book 2, Chapter 1 of the Physics. Footnotes are omitted.  Aristotle’s line of thought is that some things exist by nature and by nature he means that which has an internal principle of change. This principle is to be found within the thing itself and not in an accidental attribute. One account of nature says that the matter which constitutes the thing is what the nature should be identified as. Antiphon, a proponent of this view, points out the wood of a bed is the nature of a bed since if you were to plant the wood of the bed what would sprout is not another bed but wood. Since nature tends to produce more of itself, and wooden beds do not produce other wooden beds but only wood, the bed is only an accidental attribute of the wood. Those who wish to identify nature with the form point out that matter considered by itself is only a potential, and doesn’t exist until it receives some form to inform it to be the kind of...