humanities.philosophy.objectivism

David Schwartz wrote:

> On Mar 23, 9:53 am, Jim Klein wrote:
>
>>On Mar 23, 10:44 am, David Schwartz wrote:
>>
>>>So what does "part of the Sun" really mean other than considered part
>>>of the Sun due to reasons of cognitive necessity and convenience?
>>
>>Uh...the part of the Sun that was considered due to those reasons?
>
> Absolutely, except it's no longer part of the Sun.
>
>>When you take away the consideration, you don't take away that
>>part of the Sun. Lemme know when you get it.
>
> No, you take away that it was part of the Sun. It still is just as it
> was before, it's just not part of the Sun anymore.

Of course it would still be part of the Sun! Or at least, it wouldn't
*stop* being part of the Sun just because of some change in the way we
use words or the way we define concepts.

Saying that something is part of the Sun means that it is part of [what
*we* mean by "the Sun" *now*]. As long as we have a sufficiently clear
idea of what we mean by "the Sun" (and/or "being part of the Sun"),
there will be an objective matter of fact about whether or not something
is part of the Sun. Either it *is* part of [what we currently mean by
"the Sun"], or it isn't! And it won't stop being part of [what we
*currently* mean by "the Sun"] as a result of a change in how we use
words or how we define concepts.

> If we stop considering the corona to be part of the Sun, it stops
> being part of the Sun. The same applies to the rest of the Sun.

If we stop considering a dog's right hind leg to be part of the dog,
does the dog stop having four legs? I'm just curious. :-)

Mark