Concept
Water
Overview
chemical compound whose molecules are formed by two hydrogen atoms and one oxygen atom
Overview adapted from Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0; see the article history for authors).
Possible passages
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Strictly speaking, it does not indicate the objective relations of water any more than does a statement that water is transparent, fluid, without taste or odor, satisfying to thirst, etc. It is just as true that water has these relations as that it is constituted by two molecules of hydrogen in combination with one of oxygen. But for the particular purpose of conducting discovery with a view to ascertainment of…
John Dewey, Democracy and Education
Names Water several times; states what Water is.
The idea of chemical composition is an idea of transformation, but of a transformation which is incomplete; since we consider the oxygen and hydrogen to be present in the water _as_ oxygen and hydrogen, and capable of being discovered in it if our senses were sufficiently keen: a supposition (for it is no more) grounded solely on the fact that the weight of the water is the sum of the separate weights of the two…
John Stuart Mill, A System of Logic, Ratiocinative and Inductive
Names Water several times; states what Water is.
Superficially looked at, this seems just like the combination of H_2 and O into water, but looked at more closely, the analogy halts badly. When a chemist tells us that two atoms of hydrogen and one of oxygen combine themselves of their own accord into the new compound substance 'water,' he knows (if he believes in the mechanical view of nature) that this is only an elliptical statement for a more complex fact. That…
William James, A Pluralistic Universe
Names Water several times; opens on Water.
Philosophers who discussed Water
Related ideas
- Evaporation
- Mantle (geology)
- Artificial intelligence
- Greenland
- Hinduism
- Hydrosphere
- Speed of sound
- James Joyce
- Neptune
- Monism
- Mercury (planet)
- Dutch language
- Water cycle
- Mesopotamia
- Atmosphere
- Metabolism
- Visual perception
- UNESCO
- Old English
- Plato
- Rome
- Rotterdam
- Sun
- Soviet Union
Place in the tradition
Part of Atomism.