Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Hermarchus, R.B. Braithwaite and Plato

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9 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming

9862	To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato]
	Full Idea: Philosophers must rise up out of becoming and grasp being, if they are ever to become rational.
	From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 525b)
	A reaction: I am never quite sure what 'being' means in such contexts, and it seems suffused with mysticism. In Plato's case, it is obviously related to what is unchanging, but why would something lack 'being', just because it underwent change?

229	The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato]
	Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become.
	From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d)

324	Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato]
	Full Idea: There were, before the world came into existence, being, space, and becoming, three distinct realities.
	From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 52d)

20364	The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato]
	Full Idea: That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state, but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason is always in a process of becoming and perishing, and never really is.
	From: Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28a)
	A reaction: Lots of problems with this, of which I take the main one to be the idea that sensation is 'without reason', as if there were a sharp dichotomy in our ways of evaluating reality. Laws of nature seem to be laws of change, not of stasis.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being

11278	What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato]
	Full Idea: What should the name 'that which is not' be applied to?
	From: Plato (The Sophist [c.359 BCE], 237c)
	A reaction: This leads into a discussion of the problem, in The Sophist. It became a large issue when modern logic was being developed by Frege and Russell.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

1643	If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato]
	Full Idea: When the question was put to us as to the name of 'that which is not', to whatever one must apply it, we got stuck in every kind of perplexity. Are we now in any less perplexity about 'that which is'?
	From: Plato (The Sophist [c.359 BCE], 250d)
	A reaction: Nice. This precapitulates the whole story of modern philosophy of language. What started as a nagging doubt about reference to non-existents ends as bewilderment about everything we say.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being

21818	Being depends on the Good, which is not itself being, but superior to being [Plato]
	Full Idea: Not only do the objects of knowledge owe their being known to the good, but their being is also due to it, although the good is not being, but superior to it in rank and power.
	From: Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE], 509b)
	A reaction: I was surprised to find that in Plotinus the One is not being, because it is the source of being, and thus superior to being. Then a footnote sent me here, and I realise that Plato thought that the Form of the Good is superior to Being.

21821	Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus]
	Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many.
	From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
	A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence

7022	To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato]
	Full Idea: A thing really is if it has any capacity, either by nature to do something to something else or to have even the smallest thing done to it by the most trivial thing, even if it only happens once. I'll define those which are as nothing other than capacity.
	From: Plato (The Sophist [c.359 BCE], 247e)
	A reaction: If philosophy is footnotes to Plato, this should be the foundational remark in all discussions of existence (though Parmenides might claim priority). It seems to say 'to be is to have a causal role (active or passive)'. It also seems essentialist.