2003-06-28

D&G- Distance


p483
"""
Meinong and Russel opposed the notion of <i>distance</i> to that of
<i>magnitude</i>. Distances are not, strictly speaking, indivisible: they can
be divided precisely in cases where the situation of one determinations makes
it part of another. But unlike magnitudes, <i>they cannot divide without
changing in nature each time</i>. An intensity, for example, is not composed of
addable and displaceable magnitudes: a temperature is not the sum of two
smaller temperatures, a speed is not the sum of two smaller speeds. Since each
intensity is itself a difference, it divides according  to an order in which
each term of the division differs in nature from the others. Distance is
therefore a set of ordered differences, in other words, differences that are
enveloped in one another in such a way that is it possible to judge which is
larger or smaller, but not their exact magnitudes. For examples, one can divide
movement into the gallop, trot, and walk, but in such a way that what is
divided changes in nature at each moment of the division, without any one of
these moments entering into the composition of any other.
"""

(like the trails in Xanada: a ranking of things, that is all.)