Economics Dictionary of Arguments

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Flux: flow, process, change.
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Annotation: The above characterizations of concepts are neither definitions nor exhausting presentations of problems related to them. Instead, they are intended to give a short introduction to the contributions below. – Lexicon of Arguments.

 
Author Concept Summary/Quotes Sources

John Bigelow on Flux - Dictionary of Arguments

I 71
Flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: cooperates very well with the Cartesian law of inertia. Thereafter, the same speed is not a change.
Defintion law of inertia/Descartes/Bigelow/Pargetter: an object moves at a constant velocity when no forces act on it.
Change/Bigelow/Pargetter: if we assume that any change needs a cause, the Flux doctrine revises the Aristotelian view of the movement. (FluxVsAristotle).
>Change/Aristotle
.
Change/Flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: the Flux-Doctrine states that a change of location is an extrinsic change for a body, because the intrinsic property of speed does not have to change for this.
Flux/explanation: for most changes flux is the better explanation.
I 72
Change/Bigelow/Pargetter: for a few changes, Ockham's explanation ((s) is not a vector for instantaneous velocity) better: for example twilight, for example, cooling, for example, moral improvement, simply much that people contemplated about in the Middle Ages.
Impulse/Ockham/Bigelow/Pargetter: has a body according to the Ockhamists because it had that and that position at the time.
Problem: this requires that, e.g. a meteor has a "memory".
Acceleration/Ockham/Bigelow/Pargetter: the problem becomes more difficult when e.g. the meteor has still an acceleration, because this still needs additional assumptions. Then the movement of the meteor depends on the distances of points in space.
Ockham/Bigelow/Pargetter: that the movement depends on the prehistory, cannot simply be lead ad absurdum. Only the flux doctrine is more elegant.
Impulse/Shock/Flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: The meteor has the impulse according to the flux doctrine due to its instantaneous properties.
Prehistory/Bigelow/Pargetter: can play an epistemic role to explain why the body has its instantaneous speed.
Cause/Bigelow/Pargetter: the causal cause, however, is the instantaneous velocity and not the prehistory.
>Cause, >Causality.
VsOckhamism/VsOckham/Bigelow/Pargetter: Problem: For example, the perfectly homogeneous, rotating disk.
I 73
Motion/Bigelow/Pargetter: the movement of this disk does not lead to any change in the distribution of qualities. Nevertheless, it differs from an inactive disk. The two are distinguished by their causal forces.
Explanation: change the material parts. Time sections of the rotating disk provide circles, the ones of the stationary disk do not.
Identity/Bigelow/Pargetter: the concept of identity that is used here is controversial. It does not rely on the possibility of qualitative distinction or tracking back in time cannot rely on tracking an identifiable piece of matter. This leads to haecceitas
Haecceitism/Bigelow/Pargetter: is based on the assumption that identity cannot always be based on the same qualities. For example a perfectly rotating homogeneous disk.
Haecceitas: This-ness.
Identity/Bigelow/Pargetter: we do not resist against non-qualitative identity. We accept that the rotating disk has a pattern of changing identities.
>Haecceitism, >Identity.
Solution/Bigelow/Pargetter: this is not the whole story:
Causal forces: e.g. the rotating disk: are not provided by the non-qualitative identities.
Solution/flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: the individual parts of the homogeneous disk have an instantaneous speed.
I 74
These lead to the fact that the time sections describe circles.
Universals/Physics/Bigelow/Pargetter: this is the reason why we say that instantaneous speed - a vector with magnitude and direction - is a universal that body at a time can possess. It is an intrinsic property.
>Universals, >Intrinsic.
Property/Problem/Bigelow/Pargetter: but we have to explain what kind of property this is that has a size and direction.
Size/Direction/flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: according to the flux doctrine, the size and direction of a vector are more difficult to explain. We cannot explain the necessary instantaneous velocity by the pattern of the earlier positions.
>Vectors.
Solution/flux/Bigelow/Pargetter: we need a theory of relations between properties.
Size/direction/vector/Ockham/Bigelow/Pargetter: can simply say that both are given by the previous history of the earlier positions.

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Explanation of symbols: Roman numerals indicate the source, arabic numerals indicate the page number. The corresponding books are indicated on the right hand side. ((s)…): Comment by the sender of the contribution. Translations: Dictionary of Arguments
The note [Concept/Author], [Author1]Vs[Author2] or [Author]Vs[term] resp. "problem:"/"solution:", "old:"/"new:" and "thesis:" is an addition from the Dictionary of Arguments. If a German edition is specified, the page numbers refer to this edition.

Big I
J. Bigelow, R. Pargetter
Science and Necessity Cambridge 1990


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