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   {} {resolution}

This involves the finding of contrasts. A low-resolution view finds fewer contrasts than a high-resolution view. When no contrasts are found, the view is unresolved.

The example of resolving power in optics is a convenient starting point to arrive at the generalization expressed by {resolution} but, as with other starting points, only one of a very large number of possible starting points. The viewer using a lens of insufficient resolving power will be unable to distinguish two points. They will seem to be one. If the lens is replaced with one of greater resolving power, then {separation} can be achieved. 

Botany provides many examples. Most people cannot detect any contrasts of botanical species (not species in the special sense used in this glossary) when they look at a buttercup. Botanists do detect contrasts of botanical species, such as 'creeping buttercup' and 'meadow buttercup.' A high-resolution view of a single botanical species may need specialist knowledge. For example, there are about 2 000 varieties or micro-species of blackberry (bramble).

Resolution of colour hues can be very much extended by practice: people who can already detect many shades of green in a garden can learn to appreciate many more, increasingly minute contrasts.

Using the concept of genus and species (in the sense used in this glossary, not in the biological sense), the species are the broad categories, in which further contrasts can be found by resolution.

Courage can be resolved into /physical courage and /moral courage. Most of the German generals during the Second World War could be described as physically courageous but morally cowardly.

'Number' can be resolved. Quoting from the hierachical classification given in Collins Dictionary of Mathematics: 'every number is a complex number: a complex number is the sum of a real number and an imaginary number, the latter itself equal to the product of a real number with i (the square root of -1); a real number in either a rational number or an irrational number; a rational number may be either an integer or a fraction, while an irrational number may be either an algebraic number (as are all rational numbers) or a transcendental number.' This example makes clear the close linkage between {resolution} and {diversification}.

Confusing the different meanings of 'is' amounts to a failure of {resolution}. Frege distinguishes these uses of 'is:' 

(a) identity, eg 'Eric Blair is George Orwell'
(b) existence
(c) predication, as in 'Socrates is wise.'
(d) class inclusion, as in 'a horse is a mammal.'

 

 

About {theme} theory

{modification} is a {theme}. The most important single {theme} is {linkage}, < >, which, like other {themes}, plays a fundamental role in the mind's making sense of experience, as well as concepts not originating in experience. For more detailed information about the {themes} and my approach, a study of Introduction to {theme} theory would be very useful (I have to say, indispensable). From the introduction:  

'{theme} theory is completely general and philosophy is only one application-sphere. These illustrative examples are very diverse in subject matter and  in degree of abstraction: for example ethical argument, concrete problems in applied ethics, Nazi atrocities, Stalin, the death penalty, mathematical and philosophical relations, the completion of a  proof, scientific correlation.  There are also marked differences in tone: the tone appropriate to abstract and systematic subject matter but also forthright criticism, for example of Nietzsche, the juxtaposition sometimes of the abstract and  the impassioned.'

'{theme} theory is based upon the conscious, and justifiable, ignoring in many cases of sphere-boundaries, such as the boundaries separating the material sphere, the conceptual sphere, the spheres of the different senses. A mathematician may attack a problem in the mind just as a soldier may attack an all-too-concrete machine-gun post. A scientific model may be material, the model constructed from materials of different kinds, such as wood and plastic, or the model may be purely conceptual, without material expression. Scientific modelling is an activity which can be practised in material or conceptual ways. Linkages may be material, such as a connecting rod in a mechanical system linking mechanical components or non-material, such as the ties of shared history linking, in some cases, nations.'

List of {themes}:

 {adjustment} Â
{completion}
{contrast} ( )
{direction}
{distance} D
{diversification}
{linkage} < >
{modification}
{ordering} Ô
{resolution} ®
{restriction} ==
{reversal} «
{separation} //
{substitution} S

In the list, the name of each {theme} is followed by the symbol for the {theme}. Clicking on the {theme} gives access to a page which gives instances of the {theme}. These instances show something of the range of {theme} theory, which addresses the most diverse areas of human experience and knowledge.