Re: [] Re: Pragmata = Objects?

Jon and Gary,

Classical Greek did not have a word that corresponds to the Latin
'res' for 'thing'.  The two words that come closest to 'thing' --
'pragma' and 'chrêma' -- are both derived from verbal roots.  In
fact, the Latin 'objectus' is also derived from a verbal root.

Following is a discussion of those issues from a paper I wrote
on "Signs, Processes, and Language Games."  You might also check
the book by Wolfgang-Rainer Mann, whom I quoted in that article.

I quoted that point because it supports my preference for
Whitehead's process ontology, which makes processes primary.
For Whitehead, physical things are slowly changing processes
that are recognizable by patterns (i.e., mathematical forms)
that are sufficiently similar at repeated encounters.

John
_______________________________________________________________________

Source: http://www.jfsowa.com/pubs/signproc.htm

The thing-property ontology, which Russell (1918) pushed to the extreme
of treating objects as nothing but "a bundle of properties," is derived
from the substance-property-accident representation of Aristotle's
early philosophy.  In reviewing the development of Greek philosophy,
Wolfgang-Rainer Mann (2000) observed that far from being common sense,
the position Aristotle presented in the Categories was "a revolutionary
metaphysical picture":

    To formulate it most starkly: before the _Categories_ and _Topics_,
    there were no things. Less starkly, things did not show up as
    things, until Aristotle wrote those two works. (p. 4)

The fundamental issue is the nature of the 'beings' or 'entities' (ta 
onta) that are ontologically primary. Both Plato and Aristotle used the 
word ousia for those privileged entities. Plato considered the abstract 
Forms to be ousiai and physical entities to be imperfect copies that 
participate in the Forms. In the Categories, however, Aristotle 
considered physical things, of which his main examples were living 
things, to be ousiai, which Boethius translated into Latin as 
substantiae. But as Mann notes, Aristotle distanced himself from those 
early views in his later philosophy, especially the Metaphysics and De 
Anima. In those books, Aristotle's primary representation of physical 
entities is the form-matter composite, which is more compatible with 
Plato than with his own early philosophy. The main difference between 
Plato and the later Aristotle is over the nature of the combination: 
whether physical entities participate in the Forms or whether the Forms 
inhere in the physical entities.

Besides telling a fascinating story about the development of ancient 
philosophy, Mann raised serious questions about what views might be 
considered "common sense." He also observed that the presocratic 
philosophers had no single word that corresponds to the English word 
thing. The closest words in Greek were derived from verbs: pragma 
literally means what is done, and chrêma means what is used. Other 
languages also use verbal forms for "object": objectus in Latin and 
Gegenstand in German mean something that is thrown against or standing 
in the way. As Mann's analysis indicates, a revolutionary view that 
Aristotle once proposed and later abandoned can hardly be considered so 
obvious that no further justification is required.


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