Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Bonaventura, Galileo Galilei and Cratylus

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9 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes

16643	Accidents always remain suited to a subject [Bonaventura]
	Full Idea: An accident's aptitudinal relationship to a subject is essential, and this is never taken away from accidents….for it is true to say that they are suited to a subject.
	From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], IV.12.1.1.1c)
	A reaction: This is the compromise view that allows accidents to be separated, for Transubstantiation, while acknowledging that we identify them with their subjects.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 6. Successive Things

16696	Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura]
	Full Idea: Everything successive reduces to something permanent.
	From: Bonaventura (Commentary on Sentences [1252], II.2.1.1.3 ad 5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.2
	A reaction: Avicenna first took successive entities seriously, but Bonaventure and Aquinas seem to have rejected them, or given reductive accounts of them. It resembles modern actualists versus modal realists.

9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 8. Continuity of Rivers

579	Cratylus said you couldn't even step into the same river once [Cratylus, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Cratylus was appalled that Heraclitus said you could not step twice into the same river, because it was already going too far to admit stepping into the same river once.
	From: report of Cratylus (fragments/reports [c.425 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1010a
	A reaction: Compare Idea 427.

12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities

7401	Heat and colour don't exist, so cannot mislead about the external world [Galileo, by Tuck]
	Full Idea: Galileo argued that there is no such thing as heat (and hence also as colour) in the external world, so there is no reason to conclude from colour-blindness that we cannot know the truth about the world.
	From: report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.1
	A reaction: This key idea, taken up by Gassendi, Descartes and Locke, seems to me to be one of the most important (and, in retrospect, rather obvious) facts ever worked out by the human mind. Why does anyone still doubt it?

5454	Tastes, odours and colours only reside in consciousness, and would disappear with creatures [Galileo]
	Full Idea: I think tastes, odours, colours, and so on are mere names as far as the objects are concerned, and only reside in consciousness. Hence if the living creature were removed, all these qualities would be wiped away and annihilated.
	From: Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]), quoted by Brian Ellis - The Philosophy of Nature: new essentialism Ch.3
	A reaction: A nice bold assertion of the primary/secondary distinction from the first great scientist. I agree, and to disagree (and hence side with Berkeley and Hume) is to head for metaphsical and epistemological confusion.

13. Knowledge Criteria / D. Scepticism / 1. Scepticism

578	Cratylus decided speech was hopeless, and his only expression was the movement of a finger [Cratylus, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Cratylus thought speech of any kind was radically inappropriate and that expression should be restricted exclusively to the movement of the finger.
	From: report of Cratylus (fragments/reports [c.425 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1010a

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / i. Explanations by mechanism

16560	Galileo introduced geometrico-mechanical explanation, based on Archimedes [Galileo, by Machamer/Darden/Craver]
	Full Idea: The modern idea of explaining with mechanisms became current in the 17th century when Galileo articulated a geometrico-mechanical form of explanation based on Archimedes' simple machines. This became the 'mechanical philosophy'.
	From: report of Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623]) by Machamer,P/Darden,L/Craver,C - Thinking About Mechanisms 5.2
	A reaction: So is Archimedes the source? I would say that mechanical explanation is just commonsense, and is predominant in all human thinking, even in tiny infants.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 4. Mathematical Nature

3645	To understand the universe mathematics is essential [Galileo]
	Full Idea: The great book of the universe cannot be understood unless one can understand the language in which it is written - the language of mathematics.
	From: Galileo Galilei (Il Saggiatore ('The Assayer') [1623], VI.232)
	A reaction: Nice, though one might say that humans created the language of maths to help them discuss the patterns they perceived in nature. Maybe what is special is order, and all order can be described mathematically.

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / b. Laws of motion

19673	Galileo mathematised movement, and revealed its invariable component - acceleration [Galileo, by Meillassoux]
	Full Idea: Galileo conceives of movement in mathematical terms. ...In doing so, he uncovered, beyond the variations of position and speed, the mathematical invariant of movement - that is to say, acceleration.
	From: report of Galileo Galilei (Two Chief World Systems [1632]) by Quentin Meillassoux - After Finitude; the necessity of contingency 5
	A reaction: That is a very nice advert for the mathematical physics which replaced the Aristotelian substantial forms. ...And yet, is acceleration some deep fact about nature, or a concept which is only needed if you insist on being mathematical?