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Structure and Quality

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Duration: 0:47:19 | Added: 23 Aug 2013
A talk from Galen Strawson, Professor of Philosophy, University of Texas.

Structure considered just as such is an abstract, purely logico-mathematically characterisable phenomenon. It appears to follow that if a structure is concretely realised then it must be concretely realised by something that isn't itself just a matter of structure. So there must be more to concrete reality than structure. It's arguable, however, that a thing's structural nature must completely fix its non-structural nature in any world to which the notion of structure is generally applicable. Is this correct? If it is, what follows? Is Max Newman right when he says that 'it seems necessary to give up the 'structure-quality' division of knowledge in its strict form'.

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