Combining Philosophers

All the ideas for Bonaventura, Iamblichus and Richard Bentley

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4 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.
17. Mind and Body / A. Mind-Body Dualism / 3. Panpsychism
23224 That all matter thinks is absurd, and would make each part of our bodies a distinct self-consciousness [Bentley]
     Full Idea: [Belief in thinking matter] leads to monstrous absurdities. …Every stock and stone would be a percipient and rational creature. …every single Atom of our bodies would be a distinct Animal, endued with self-consciousness and personal sensation of its own.
     From: Richard Bentley (Matter and Motion Cannot Think [1692], p.14-15), quoted by Matthew Cobb - The Idea of the Brain 2
     A reaction: Sounds correct, though presumably panpsychists don't think the flickers of consciousness in my toenails and hair constitute full-blown persons. I can't imagine what awareness is being claimed for my toenails.
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 6. Divine Morality / b. Euthyphro question
1515 Pythagoreans believe it is absurd to seek for goodness anywhere except with the gods [Iamblichus]
     Full Idea: The thinking behind Pythagorean philosophy is that people behave in an absurd fashion if they try to find any source for the good other than the gods.
     From: Iamblichus (Life of Pythagoras [c.290], 137)