sortal

=Sortal=

toc Read here about sortal, a formal term from philosophy that may be helpful to considerations of scale.

=Overview=

A sortal is an expression that can take a numerical modifier. Stanford Encyc. Of Philosophy gives the example of ice cube: Thus ‘ice cube’ is a sortal because the adjectives associated with it are numerical—we say "two ice cubes", but ‘water’ is not a sortal since the usual modifiers are mass terms, i.e., we ask for "two cups of water". Or in slightly different terms, we ask "How many ice cubes do you want?" but "How much water do you want?" Of course we can often make sense of ‘how many’ questions about non-sortals if a suitable measure is understood. Thus "How many coffees would you like?" is really understood as "How many cups …?" Many words have two distinct though related meanings, one of which is sortal and one of which is not. For example, we can ask both "How many chickens do you want?" and "How much chicken do you want?" This linguistic distinction is often called the "count noun/mass noun" distinction by both philosophers and linguists. Although in many cases the distinction matches with more philosophical distinctions about the kind of item the noun refers to, the distinction is a linguistic one. For example, ‘furniture’ is a mass noun even though all of the things it is true of are also referred to by count nouns such as ‘table’ or ‘chair’. And words vary across langauges; ‘spaghetti’ is a mass noun in English, but is the plural of the count noun ‘spaghetto’ in Italian.

=Sortal Distinctions=

The Encyc. Goes on to give six distinctions. BROAD DISTINCTIONS: (two closely connected statements) > 1. A sortal gives a criterion for counting the items of that kind > 2. A sortal gives a criterion of identity and non-identity among items of that kind

OTHER DISTINCTIONS > 3. A sortal gives a criterion for the continued existence of an item of that kind (connect set 1,2 to set 3,4,5) (part of the set of closely connected statements 3,4,5 since specifying the essence of a thing is a good way of answering the question "What is it?", and if a characteristic is part of the essence then an object cannot lack that without ceasing to exist.) > 4. A sortal answers the question "what is it?" for things of that kind (part of the set of closely connected statements 3,4,5 since specifying the essence of a thing is a good way of answering the question "What is it?", and if a characteristic is part of the essence then an object cannot lack that without ceasing to exist.) > 5. A sortal specifies the essence of things of that kind (part of the set of closely connected statements 3,4,5 since specifying the essence of a thing is a good way of answering the question "What is it?", and if a characteristic is part of the essence then an object cannot lack that without ceasing to exist.) > 6. A sortal does not apply to parts of things of that kind (closely connected to set 1,2)