ONT Re: Hermeneutic Equivalence Classes
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| Leibniz, "Elements of a Calculus" (cont.)
|
| 13. If neither term is contained in the other
| they are called "disparate"; and then, as
| I have said, they either have something in
| common or they differ totally.
|
| Those terms have something in common which are under
| the same genus, and which you could call "conspecies";
| as "man" and "brute" have the concept of animal in common.
| "Gold" and "silver" have in common the concept of metal,
| "gold" and "vitriol", that of mineral.
|
| From this it is evident that two terms have more or less in common
| as their genus is less or more remote. For if the genus is very
| remote, there will be little that the species have in common.
|
| If the genus is most remote, we say that things are "heterogeneous",
| i.e. that they differ totally, like body and spirit; not because
| they have nothing in common -- for they are both substances, at
| any rate -- but because this common genus is very remote.
|
| From this it is evident that what is to be called heterogeneous or not is
| a relative matter. However, in our calculus it is enough for two things
| to have no concepts in common out of certain fixed concepts which are
| designated by us, even though they may have others in common.
|
| Leibniz, 'Logical Papers', p. 21.
|
| Leibniz, G.W., "Elements of a Calculus" (April, 1679),
| G.H.R. Parkinson (ed.), 'Leibniz: Logical Papers', pp. 17-24,
| Oxford University Press, London, UK, 1966. (Couturat, 49-57).
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