PHIL-360 Chapter Notes - Chapter 3: Logical Truth, Vitalism
9 Nov 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
According to the life-functional analysis of life, life involves having a property or properties. According to vitalism, life involves containing a substance for aristotle soul, for hans dreisch, vital fluid. V1: x is alive at t =df. there is some vital fluid in x at t. Vital fluid is imponderable (has no weight) and invisible. It is therefore impossible to prove it exists. According to v1, the whale is actually therefore alive, because there is vital fluid inside it (inside jonah). Thus the definition is too broad, because it includes dead whales. (also dead people, because there are live maggots and bacteria inside corpses. ) V2: x is alive at t =df. there is some vital fluid inside the cells of x at t. Objection: too broad: virus could be in the cells of the dead whale. Okay, so we need the vital fluid to be in the organism the right way.
