3 ms·
Does an apple exist? You can show me an apple, but I would wag my finger in exactly the same way you are to people trying to show you “one”. The apple you’re sh
by johnfn 8y ago
Does an apple exist? You can show me an apple, but I would wag my finger in exactly the same way you are to people trying to show you “one”. The apple you’re showing me is not the same thing as the word “apple” which is an abstract category that encompasses all types of apples - honeycrisp, Granny Smith, etc. You could say a honeycrisp is like an instance of apple which is a base class, so then it is indeed an apple. But then youd have to say an apple is also a “fruit” and also a “food” even though those words also encompass broad categories of things.
If you buy the above, you’d have to say that a single apple is also “one”. After all, it’s just another broad category that a single apple fits in to. If not, I think you’d have to reject the fact that a honeycrisp is an apple, which seems untenable.
- carapace 8y agoReflecting on this stuff is my golf... Even if I agree that THE number "one" is "just another broad category that a single apple fits in to", I think the epistemological status of the Broad Category is then itself just as problematical, existence-wise, as the original concept of "number", eh? We can at least display a pair of apples and "count" to "two" with them, etc. What hope do we have of enumerating (no pun intended) the Broad Category of "one"? And what do we gain from introducing it?