display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
13 ideas
| 16173 | Coming to be is by shape-change, addition, subtraction, composition or alteration [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things that come to be without further qualification do so either by change of shape (a statue) or by addition (growing things) or by subtraction (a carving) or by composition (a house) or by alteration (things changing their matter). | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 190b06) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Aristotle observes that in each case there is clearly some 'underlying thing'. |
| 17042 | Natural things are their own source of stability through change [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The obvious difference between natural and non-natural things is that each of the natural ones contains within itself a source of change and of stability, in respect of either movement or increase and decrease or alteration. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 192b14) | |
| A reaction: This is the reason why Aristotle places so much emphasis on lives, though elements also have persistence in a similar way. We now have atoms and molecules as well. |
| 16159 | For animate things, only the form, not the matter or properties, must persist through change [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: If we analyze an ordinary physical object into matter, form and properties, the only item in the case of animate objects that has to stay the same as long as we can talk about the same thing is, on his account, the form. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], change) by Michael Frede - Substance in Aristotle's 'Metaphysics' p.76 | |
| A reaction: I would have thought that might work for inanimate natural things, and for artefacts, to a considerable extent. The Ship of Theseus retains its form. |
| 16691 | A day, or the games, has one thing after another, actually and potentially occurring [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When we say 'it is day' or 'it is the games', one thing after another is always coming into existence. …There are Olympic Games, both in the sense that they may occur and that they are actually occurring. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 206a22) | |
| A reaction: This is, according the Pasnau, the origin of the scholastic concept of an 'entia successiva'. I haven't seen much discussion of this in modern metaphysics, but in what sense does a day exist? |
| 16574 | Coming-to-be may be from nothing in a qualified way, as arising from an absence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: We agree that nothing can be said without qualification to come from what is not, …but it may in a qualified sense. For a thing comes to be from a privation, which in its own nature is not-being - this not surviving as a constituent in the result. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 191b13) | |
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but it seems to say that genuine creation from nothing at all is impossible. |
| 16572 | Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The question might be raised whether substance (i.e. the 'this') comes-to-be at all. Is it not rather the 'such', the 'so-great', or the 'somewhere', which comes-to-be? | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b21) | |
| A reaction: This is interesting because it pulls the 'tode ti', the 'this-such', apart, showing that he does have a concept of a pure 'this', which seems to constitute the basis of being ('ousia'). We can say 'this thing', or 'one of these things'. |
| 16573 | Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: In addition, coming-to-be may proceed out of nothing pre-existing - a thesis which, more than any other, preoccupied and alarmed the earliest philosophers. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317b29) | |
| A reaction: This is the origin of the worry about 'ex nihilo' coming-to-be. Christians tended to say that only God could create in this way. |
| 13214 | The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: The substratum [hupokeimenon?] is the material cause of the continuous occurrence of coming-to-be, because it is such as to change from contrary to contrary. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a19) | |
| A reaction: Presumably Aristotle will also be seeking the 'formal' cause as well as the 'material' cause (not to mention the 'efficient' and 'final' causes). |
| 13215 | If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: There is 'alteration' when the substratum is perceptible and persists, but changes in its own properties. ...But when nothing perceptible persists in its identity as a substratum, and the thing changes as a whole, it is coming-to-be of a substance. | |
| From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b11-17) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] Note that a substratum can be perceptible - it isn't just some hidden mystical I-know-not-what (as Locke calls it). This whole text is a wonderful source on the subject of physical change. Note too the reliance on what is perceptible. |
| 12290 | Destruction is dissolution of essence [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Destruction is a dissolution of essence. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 153b30) | |
| A reaction: [plucked from context!] I can't think of a better way to define destruction, in order to distinguish it from damage. A vase is destroyed when its essential function cannot be recovered. |
| 12286 | If two things are the same, they must have the same source and origin [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: When things are absolutely the same, their coming-into-being and destruction are also the same and so are the agents of their production and destruction. | |
| From: Aristotle (Topics [c.331 BCE], 152a02) | |
| A reaction: Thus Queen Elizabeth II has to be the result of that particular birth, and from those particular parents, as Kripke says? The inverse may not be true. Do twins have a single origin? Things that fission and then re-fuse differently? etc |
| 11378 | How a thing is generated does not explain its essence [Aristotle, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle thinks that the explanation of how a thing is generated does not contribute to the explanation of why the thing is the very thing it is. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], ess) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5 | |
| A reaction: Good for him. The origin of a thing strikes me as an entirely different matter from the intrinsic nature of the thing, and I don't see how the origin of something can be necessary, if it is in any way possible that it originated differently. |
| 12101 | Aristotle wants definition, not identity, so origin is not essential to him [Aristotle, by Witt] |
| Full Idea: Properties of origin are not essential for Aristotle, because he determines what is essential not by reflecting on the identity of an individual, but by considering how to define the individual. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], id) by Charlotte Witt - Substance and Essence in Aristotle 6.2 | |
| A reaction: [see also Idea 12102] This spells out my intuition, or rather my understanding of the normal usage of the word 'essence'. You can fully know the essence of something (e.g. a person), while having no knowledge of the origin. |