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Ponte Academic Journal
Dec 2019, Volume 75, Issue 12

THE CHALLENGE TO ACCOUNT FOR THE\r\nMULTIPLE ASPECTS OF REALITY

Author(s): Danie Strauss

J. Ponte - Dec 2019 - Volume 75 - Issue 12
doi: 10.21506/j.ponte.2019.12.6



Abstract:
Since the world in which we live is not merely populated by things (entities), such as material things (elementary particles, atoms molecules macro-molecules and macro systems), plants, animals and humans, we are also aware of multiple aspects and properties. We experience things with attributes in relation. Philosophy wrestled with a systematic account of aspects. Yet it never launched a thorough analysis of the distinction between aspects and entities or investigated the nature of an aspect as such. Looking at what the WEB says about �aspects� presents to us a mixture of terms for aspects, entities and figurative designations, largely embedded in the distinction between entity and property. Within early Greed philosophy entities are even identified with one of their spatial properties, namely their place. Within these developments we also encounter the distinction between primary and secondary qualities. What continuously surfaced more and more is use of different modes of explanation. Apart from number and space motion and physical change also occupied an important role in this regard. Galileo restricted himself to number, space and movement but still did not consider force to be a valid mode of explanation, a view still found in the thought of Hertz and Russel. However, in the course of the 20th century it was soon recognized that force has a physical meaning. In addition, we should recognize an intrinsic connection between different experiential aspects, expressed in what could be labelled as backward-pointing (retrocipatory) and forward-pointing (anticipatory) analogies between them. Employing this insight enables the possibility to analyse the order-relation between the various aspects of reality, occupying a main part of this article. In the final section we propose a definition of an aspect, with special reference to a proposal made by Roy Clouser: �A basic kind of properties and laws.�
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