display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
54 ideas
| 16656 | The separation from here to there is not the same as the separation from there to here [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Even though two separated things have a single interval between them, still the separation from here to there is not one and the same as the separation from there to here. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 202b19) | |
| A reaction: His example is the road from Athens to Thebes. Since we tend to quantify distances between places more than Aristotle did, we are less impressed by this distinction, which seems a bit subjective. Aristotle seems to be thinking of vectors. |
| 21345 | Aristotle said relations are not substances, so (if they exist) they must be accidents [Aristotle, by Heil] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle categorised relations as accidents - Socrates's whiteness, the sphericity of this ball - entities dependent on substances. Relations are not substances, so they must be, if anything at all, accidents. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], §7) by John Heil - Relations 'Historical' | |
| A reaction: Heil says this thought encouraged anti-realist views of relations, which became the norm until Russell. |
| 12282 | An individual property has to exist (in past, present or future) [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If it does not at present exist, or, if it has not existed in the past, or if it is not going to exist in the future, it will not be a property [idion] at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 129a27) | |
| A reaction: This seems to cramp our style in counterfactual discussion. Can't we even mention an individual property if we believe that it will never exist. Utopian political discussion will have to cease! |
| 7935 | There cannot be uninstantiated properties [Aristotle, by Macdonald,C] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle held that there could be no uninstantiated properties. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 04) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things | |
| A reaction: This is obviously a right hook aimed at Plato. Clearly we can think about uninstantiated properties, but the literal truth of Aristotle's view I would take to be tautological. To exist is to be instantiated. |
| 16161 | Properties are just the ways in which forms are realised at various times [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: On Aristotle's new theory it is forms that exist in their own right, whereas properties merely constitute the way forms of a certain kind are realized at some point of time in their existence. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.80 | |
| A reaction: I'm not sure that 'merely' gives us enough of a story here. I never understand the word 'realised' (or 'instantiated', come to that). What does x have to do to realise y? Is that a relation between a real and a non-real thing? |
| 15109 | The 'propriae' or 'necessary accidents' of a thing are separate, and derived from the essence [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle conceives of the necessary features of objects, traditionally known as the 'propria' or 'necessary accidents', as being distinct and derivate from, the essential features of objects. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Kathrin Koslicki - Essence, Necessity and Explanation 13.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a vague area, because Aristotle says very little about it. See Ideas 12266 and 12262. A particular shape of mole might be yours alone, but not part of your essence. That may be an 'idion' rather than a 'propria' (or are they the same?). |
| 17849 | For two things to differ in some respect, they must both possess that respect [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: That which is different is different from something under some aspect, so that there must be something the same in respect of which they differ. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b26) |
| 16155 | Aristotle promoted the importance of properties and objects (rather than general and particular) [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Categories' Aristotle is taking a first step in making the distinction between objects and properties central to ontology. This plays virtually no role in Plato, and was overshadowed by the distinction between general and particular. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Michael Frede - Individuals in Aristotle I | |
| A reaction: Frede says he gets in a tangle because he mixes the earlier and the new views. Because we are nowadays in a total muddle about properties, I'm thinking we should go back to the earlier view! Modern commentators make him a trope theorist. |
| 12264 | An 'accident' is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to a thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: An 'accident' [sumbebekos] is something which may possibly either belong or not belong to any one and the self-same thing, such as 'sitting posture' or 'whiteness'. This is the best definition, because it tells us the essential meaning of the term itself. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 102b07) | |
| A reaction: Thus a car could be red, or not red. Accidents are contingent. It does not follow that necessary properties are essential (see Idea 12262). There are accidents [sumbebekos], propria [idion] and essences [to ti en einai]. |
| 18910 | To seek truth, study the real connections between subjects and attributes [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If, however, one is aiming at truth, one must be guided by the real connexions of subjects and attributes. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 81b22), quoted by George Engelbretsen - Trees, Terms and Truth 3 | |
| A reaction: I take this to be a warning that predicates that indicate mere 'Cambridge properties' (such as relations, locations, coincidences etc) have nothing to do with ontology. See Shoemaker on properties. |
| 7686 | For Aristotle, there are only as many properties as actually exist [Aristotle, by Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: In Aristotle's metaphysics of substance, there are only as many properties as actually inhere in existent spatiotemporal particulars. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], props) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This would mean, oddly, that squareness ceased to be a property if the last square thing vanished. But then how do we establish the existence of unrealised properties? Is 'bigger than the biggest existent object' a property? |
| 11032 | Some things said 'of' a subject are not 'in' the subject [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Of things there are, some are said of a subject, but are not in any subject. For example, man is said of a subject, the individual man, but is not in any subject. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 01a20) | |
| A reaction: See? 'Being a man' is not a property of a man! Only the properties which are 'in' the man are properties of the man. The rest are things which are said 'of' men, usually as classifications. A classification is not a property. |
| 11038 | We call them secondary 'substances' because they reveal the primary substances [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is reasonable that, after the primary substances, their species and genera should be the only other things called (secondary) substances. For only they, of things predicated, reveal the primary substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b29) | |
| A reaction: This is the key passage in all of Aristotle for sortal essentialists like Wiggins, especially the word 'only'. I take it that this observation is superseded by the Metaphysics. Definition is the route to substance (which involves general terms). |
| 10947 | Whiteness can be explained without man, but femaleness cannot be explained without animal [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Whiteness can be explained without man, but femaleness cannot be explained without animal. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1030b28) | |
| A reaction: This has to be a key basic distinction in any discussion of properties. But does the difference in explanation entail a difference in fundamental nature? Femaleness is structural. |
| 16644 | The features of a thing (whether quality or quantity) are inseparable from their subjects [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to separate [affections/accidents], both in respect of quantity and of quality - of quantity, because there is no minimum magnitude, and of quality, because affections are inseparable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 188a11) | |
| A reaction: This is an aspect of his famous view that universals, if there are such, are inherent in objects, and can't float free. It was important for scholastic philosophers, who need accidents to float free for the doctrine of Transubstantiation. |
| 16739 | Four species of quality: states, capacities, affects, and forms [Aristotle, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In Categories 8 there are four species of qualities: States and conditions, Natural capacities and incapacities, Affective qualities or affections, and Shape and external form. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], Ch.8) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 |
| 10956 | If we only saw bronze circles, would bronze be part of the concept of a circle? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose we only ever saw bronze circles - would that make the bronze a formal part of the circle? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1036b01) | |
| A reaction: This is Aristotle spotting the problem of coextensionality (the renate/cordate problem) 2300 years ago. Don't underestimate those Greeks. |
| 5117 | Heavy and light are defined by their tendency to move down or up [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the nature of light and heavy things to tend in certain directions, and this is what it is to be light or heavy; to be light is defined by an upwards tendency, and to be heavy is defined by a downwards tendency. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 255b14) | |
| A reaction: The discredited 'teleological' view of gravity, and yet if we define 'heavy' in Newtonian terms we are in danger of circularity, and of proposing laws which are bafflingly imposed from outside. Hence the 'New Essentialists' prefer Aristotle's view. |
| 16113 | Potentiality is a principle of change, in another thing, or as another thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality [dunamis] is a principle of change either (a) for something else or (b) for the thing that it is in qua something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1046a10) | |
| A reaction: Gill emphasises that it is partly an active principle of change. It seems like an ability to affect, or to be affected. |
| 16114 | Active 'dunamis' is best translated as 'power' or 'ability' (rather than 'potentiality') [Aristotle, by Gill,ML] |
| Full Idea: When Aristotle uses the word 'dunamis' in the active sense, we might prefer the translation 'power', 'ability', or 'capacity' to 'potentiality'. He uses the same word to indicate both active power and passive responsiveness. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Theta) by Mary Louise Gill - Aristotle on Substance Ch.6 | |
| A reaction: This gives licence to a direct link between Aristotle's account of potential and modern ascriptions of powers in scientific essentialism. |
| 11387 | The main characteristic of the source of change is activity [energeia] [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle undoubtedly considered the central characteristic of the ultimate cause of change to be activity [energeia]. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Bk 12) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 8.8 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle identifies this, of course, with his 'God', but it strikes me that the word 'power' (as in Molnar) seems to capture Aristotle's concept. We just need some fundamental active force to get the whole shebang going. |
| 15773 | Actualities are arranged by priority, going back to what initiates process [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One actuality always has temporal priority over another, going back to that which always, and in a primary way, initiates process. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050b05) | |
| A reaction: I am not clear from the context whether he is referring to things which have fundamental powers, or whether he is referring to the one great First Cause. |
| 16752 | Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If the eye were an animal, sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed it is no longer an eye,except in name. | |
| From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b18) | |
| A reaction: This is a drastic view of form as merely function, which occasionally appears in Aristotle. To say a blind eye is not an eye is a tricky move in metaphysics. So what is it? In some sense it is still an eye. |
| 16753 | Giving the function of a house defines its actuality [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Those who propose that a house is 'a receptacle to shelter chattels and living beings', or something of the sort, speak of the actuality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1043a16) | |
| A reaction: This, with Idea 16752, endorses the idea that the function is the essence of something. The eye is natural, the house is an artifact. This seems different from the concept of form implied elsewhere. He says materials of a house are just potential. |
| 15780 | Potentiality in geometry is metaphorical [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Potentiality in geometry is spoken of metaphorically. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1019b31) | |
| A reaction: The point here is that if one wanted to give an account of properties in an active way (perhaps in accord with causation, as Shoemaker suggests), then the properties of mathematics could also be included in this Aristotelian way. |
| 11938 | The Megarans say something is only capable of something when it is actually doing it [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is a popular view in Megara, that x is capable of being/doing the F only when it actually is/does the F. So the non-builder is no bearer of a potentiality for building - but only when the builder is engaged in his building. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1046b28) | |
| A reaction: This Megaran view is the extreme denial of dispositions are real features of the world. They seem to reduce to mere descriptions, when the reality is the actual activity itself. Megarans would now be called 'actualists'. |
| 15766 | Megaran actualism is just scepticism about the qualities of things [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In the Megaran view, there will be nothing cold or hot or pleasant or perceptible at all unless someone is currently observing it. So this Megaran wisdom turns out to boil down to rehashed Protagoras. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047a10) | |
| A reaction: I don't think you can defeat the rejection of modal features of reality that easily. The Megarans might, I suppose, be called verificationists. What is the semantic value of a statement about potential? |
| 15767 | Megaran actualists prevent anything from happening, by denying a capacity for it to happen! [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: I take it that anything deprived of its potential lacks capacity. But then anything not currently happening will lack the capacity to happen. ...Our brilliant Megaran friends will now have done away with all process and generation! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1047a15) | |
| A reaction: The reply, implied in Idea 15490, is that you answer this by examining more closely exactly what is meant by a 'capacity', and showing that it can only boil to down to what is actual. |
| 11379 | Substance is not a universal, as the former is particular but a universal is shared [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substance of each thing is something that is peculiar to each thing, not pertaining to anything else, whereas the universal is something common. Indeed, a thing is said to be a universal just if its nature pertains to a plurality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b10) | |
| A reaction: This should be a warning to those who talk of the 'Aristotelian' view of properties as universals instantiated in the particulars. Once one has pinpointed the substance, the subject of predication, and the essence, no room is left for universals. |
| 12096 | Universals are indeterminate and only known in potential, because they are general [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: The notion of generality provides an explanation for Aristotle's position that the universal - every universal - is indeterminate and, hence, the object of potential knowledge. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], univs) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 5.3 | |
| A reaction: [See Idea 12095 for knowledge of potential and actual] Now you're talking! The idea that universals are central to true knowledge seems wildly misguided. All knowledge is rooted in particulars, where the highest certainties are to be found. |
| 1675 | Separate Forms aren't needed for logic, but universals (one holding of many) are essential [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There need be no forms (one item apart from the many) for demonstrations. But there must be universals, where one thing holds of the many. Without universals there are no middle terms, and so no demonstrations. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 77a05) |
| 649 | The acquisition of scientific knowledge is impossible without universals [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The acquisition of scientific knowledge is impossible without universals. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1086b03) |
| 12094 | No universals exist separately from particulars [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: No universal exists over and above, and separately from, the particulars. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1040b27) | |
| A reaction: [At last I have found one of Aristotle's most famous ideas!] His hallmark of a universal is that it is found in many particulars, but then we ask whether they are identical (universals) or merely resembling (tropes). |
| 11037 | Colour must be in an individual body, or it is not embodied [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Colour is in body and therefore also in an individual body; for were it not in some individual body it would not be in body at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE], 02b02) | |
| A reaction: This may be just a truism, or it may be the Aristotelian commitment to universals only existing if they are instantiated. |
| 10948 | Forms are said to be substances to which nothing is prior [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Suppose that there are certain substances to which neither other substances nor other natures are prior. It is such substances that certain philosophers assert the Forms to be. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1031a30) | |
| A reaction: Then there is the difficulty of explaining 'prior', which presumably must be an objective relation, not a mere priority in human understanding or explanation or definition. |
| 643 | How can the Forms both be the substance of things and exist separately from them? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: How can the Forms, while being the substances of things, have being separately from them? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1080a01) |
| 633 | If you accept Forms, you must accept the more powerful principle of 'participating' in them [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If you accept the theory of Forms, you must allow that there is also another more powerful principle. Only thus can you answer the question why something has come to participate, or is participating. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1075b18) |
| 16110 | If partaking explains unity, what causes participating, and what is participating? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: On account of the difficulty [about unity] some philosophers have espoused participation, though this plunges them into difficulties about what the cause of the participation is, or indeed what participating is anyway. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045b07) | |
| A reaction: The target here is Plato, and I agree with the criticism. Exactly the same problems face those who talk of an object 'instantiating' a property. I have no idea what such a relationship could be. |
| 647 | There is a confusion because Forms are said to be universal, but also some Forms are separable and particular [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The root problem of the theory of Forms is that they posit Forms that are universal and at the same time Forms that are separable and therefore particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1086a28) |
| 9483 | Forms have to be their own paradigms, which seems to fuse the paradigm and the copy [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Forms would have to function as paradigms not just for other entities, but also for themselves. ..But this produces an absurd fusion of the paradigm and the copy. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079b28) | |
| A reaction: A nice succinct statement of the problem of self-predication (which leads to the Third Man regress, if we posit another Form as a paradigm of the Form we are interested in). |
| 5130 | It is meaningless to speak of 'man-himself', because it has the same definition as plain 'man' [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: One might ask: what on earth do you mean by speaking of the thing-itself? - assuming the definition of man is one and the same both in man and in man-himself; for qua man they will not differ at all. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096a32) | |
| A reaction: Effectively applies Ockham's Razor to the Forms. Do they add anything to our ability to explain? A particular man will have red hair, but a definition of man will mention properties shared by all men. But doesn't man-himself indicate what is essential? |
| 640 | All attempts to prove the Forms are either invalid, or prove Forms where there aren't supposed to be any [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: All methods employed to demonstrate the Forms either cannot be formulated validly, or produce Forms even for those things for which there are not supposed to be any Forms. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079a04) |
| 641 | Are there forms for everything, or for negations, or for destroyed things? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The Argument from Sciences produces Forms for every possible object of science! One-over-many arguments produce Forms for negations! The Argument from the Thought of a Perished Object gives Forms for destroyed things! | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079a07) |
| 16108 | If men exist by participating in two forms (Animal and Biped), they are plural, not unities [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Why is man not Animal and Biped together? Then it will not be by participating in Man (or any other unity) that men exist but by doing so in two things, Animal and Biped. Then man would not be a unity but a plurality. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a17) | |
| A reaction: This is perhaps Aristotle's deepest metaphysical objection to the whole Plato programme, that it blocks a decent account of the unity of particulars, on which our whole understanding of the world rests. |
| 4470 | Aristotle is not asserting facts about the location of properties, but about their ontological status [Aristotle, by Moreland] |
| Full Idea: The debate between Platonists and Aristotelians about universals is not a debate about the 'location' of the properties, but about the ontological independence of the properties from their instances. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082) by J.P. Moreland - Universals Ch.4 | |
| A reaction: Of course, assertions about their location might have strong implications about whether they were ontologically independent. |
| 1677 | We can forget the Forms, as they are irrelevant, and not needed in giving demonstrations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We can say goodbye to the forms. They are nonny-noes; and if there are any they are irrelevant - for demonstrations are not concerned with them. | |
| From: Aristotle (Posterior Analytics [c.327 BCE], 83a34) |
| 28 | How will a vision of pure goodness make someone a better doctor? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: How will one who has had a vision of the Idea itself become thereby a better doctor or general? | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1097a12) | |
| A reaction: Plato might reply that it would motivate them. Why would a doctor learn of the skills of their craft if they didn't care about the end result? |
| 16145 | Predications only pick out kinds of things, not things in themselves [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: None of the things predicated in common picks out a this-thing-here, but rather such-and-such a kind. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1039a01) | |
| A reaction: He is in the process of denying that predicates pick out real substances [real being, 'ousia'], but this is clearly aimed at Plato. |
| 618 | There is no point at all in the theory of Forms unless it contains a principle that produces movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is no advantage at all in the admission of eternal substances, as in the Theory of Forms, unless there is among them a principle capable of moving something else. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1071b11) |
| 642 | What possible contribution can the Forms make to perceptible entities? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What possible contribution can the Forms make to perceptible entities? | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1079b08) |
| 27 | Eternal white is no whiter than temporary white, and it is the same with goodness [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Nor will the Good be any more good by being eternal, if a long-lasting white thing is no whiter than an ephemeral one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096b05) | |
| A reaction: A powerful point, made with a hint of sarcasm. You can't add extra Form of White to increase the whiteness of your paint. And the paint is no whiter because it endures for years. |
| 645 | If two is part of three then numbers aren't Forms, because they would all be intermingled [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: On our theory two is part of three….so it will not be possible for a number to be a Form, on pain of one Form's being present in another and all Forms turning out to be parts of some one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1082b29) |
| 605 | The Forms have to be potentialities, not actual knowledge or movement [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: If there are Forms (as the purely logical thinkers claim), there must be something which is much more knowable than the Form of Knowledge, and something more fully moved than the Form of Movement. The Forms will be mere potentialities. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1050b32) |
| 5869 | The thesis of the Form of the Good (or of anything else) is verbal and vacuous [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The thesis that there is a Form either of good or indeed of anything else is verbal and vacuous. | |
| From: Aristotle (Eudemian Ethics [c.333 BCE], 1217b20) | |
| A reaction: This is clear evidence for suggesting that Aristotle is a nominalist. Elsewhere his essentialism suggests otherwise, but clearly on grumpy days he thought that universals were mere verbal conventions. |