Jaką postać mogłoby mieć rozwiązanie paradoksu sorites przez Bertranda Russella?

• Authors: Marek Nowak

Title variants

EN

What could be a Bertrand Russell’s solution of sorites paradox?

Abstracts

EN

The mathematical connections between microscale and macroscale models of a given piece of physical reality (compare e.g., statistical mechanics with thermodynamics) justify the following correlation thesis: a small change of value of a microscopic parameter (e.g. a change of number of molecules in a given volume of ideal gas) is correlated with a change of value of the associated macroscopic parameter (e.g. a change of temperature of ideal gas). The thesis stands in contradiction to one of the two premises in the sorites paradox, called here the condition of small change (cf. Paul Égré’s ‘tolerance principle’), according to which a small change of value of a microscopic parameter has negligible impact on a change of value of a corresponding macroscopic parameter. Acceptance of the correlation thesis results in a waiving of the condition of small change, and consequently provides a solution of the paradox. The correlation thesis coincides with Bertrand Russell’s view expressed in Vagueness (1923) where he argues that that vagueness in the macroscopic parameter is not of an ontological nature but only of an epistemological character, and is caused by looking at the physical system from a far-away perspective. This inexact picture results in an acquiescence with the inexact conditions that determine the impact of a small ontic change on its representation by the macroscopic ontic parameter. The macroscopic parameter is partly governed by its own conditions, according to the correlation thesis.

Keywords

PL

nieostrość; paradoks „sorites”; teza o korelacji; warunek małej zmiany; własność epistemiczna; własność ontyczna

• Publisher: Polska Akademia Nauk
• Journal: Przegląd Filozoficzny. Nowa Seria
• Year: 2022
• Issue: 3
• Pages: 41-58

Dates

published

2022

Contributors

author

Marek Nowak

• Uniwersytet Łódzki, Instytut Filozofii, Łódź

• https://orcid.org/0000000331316051

Identifiers

DOI

10.24425/pfns.2022.143324

Biblioteka Nauki

55789350