From: Brian Holtz [brian@holtz.org] Sent: Saturday, May 18, 2002 6:53 AM To: alt.atheism.moderated Subject: Re: Science & atheism are cultures. "Paul Holbach" wrote: > What would be the substance of *the empty world*? I don't believe "substance" is a useful ontological concept. > > > In order to be able to construct an empty world you would have > > > to posit at least something ontologically positive firstly whose > > > existence you would then have to negate secondly. > > > > Why would I "have to"? > > Because thereŽd be no other way to do so. That's a restatement of your assertion, not an answer to my question. > > whether a world is logically possible is independent > > of any mind. > > ThereŽs a difference between "formal being" and "material being", the > former being attributed to the being of concepts whose contents are > mind-dependent and irreal (formal or irreferential concepts), and the > latter to concepts whose contents are mind-independent and real > (material or referential concepts). If you're denying that the logical possibility of a world is independent of particular minds, then prove it: identify a world and two distinct minds for which that world is and is not logically possible, respectively. > a nominalist regards as a formal concept, there being > no language-independent thing *set* Are you claiming that the notion of set is different in different human languages? Are you claiming that speakers of some human languages could not e.g. recognize Russell's paradox? -- brian@holtz.org http://humanknowledge.net