11 ideas
| 1507 | We don't have time for infinite quantity, but we do for infinite divisibility, because time is also divisible [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Although it is impossible to make contact in a finite time with things that are infinite in quantity, it is possible to do so with things that are infinitely divisible, since the time itself is also infinite in this way. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A25) by Aristotle - Physics 233a21 |
| 5109 | The fast runner must always reach the point from which the slower runner started [Zeno of Elea, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Zeno's so-called 'Achilles' claims that the slowest runner will never be caught by the fastest runner, because the one behind has first to reach the point from which the one in front started, and so the slower one is bound always to be in front. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 239b14 | |
| A reaction: The point is that the slower runner will always have moved on when the faster runner catches up with the starting point. We must understand how humble the early Greeks felt when they confronted arguments like this. It was like a divine revelation. |
| 1512 | Zeno is wrong that one grain of millet makes a sound; why should one grain achieve what the whole bushel does? [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Zeno is wrong in arguing that the tiniest fragment of millet makes a sound; there is no reason why the fragment should be able to move in any amount of time the air which the whole bushel moved as it fell. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A29) by Aristotle - Physics 250a16 |
| 1508 | Zeno's arrow paradox depends on the assumption that time is composed of nows [Aristotle on Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: Zeno's third argument claims that a moving arrow is still. Here the conclusion depends on assuming that time is composed of nows; if this assumption is not granted, the argument fails. | |
| From: comment on Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], A27?) by Aristotle - Physics 239b5 |
| 8526 | We might treat both tropes and substances as fundamental, so we can't presume it is just tropes [Daly] |
| Full Idea: Since C.B. Martin accepts both tropes and substances as fundamental, the claim that tropes are the only fundamental constituents is a further, independent claim. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §4) | |
| A reaction: A dubious mode of argument. Martin may only make the claim because he is ignorant, of facts or of language. Why are some tropes perfectly similar? Is it the result of something more fundamental? |
| 8527 | More than one trope (even identical ones!) can occupy the same location [Daly] |
| Full Idea: More than one trope can occupy the same spatio-temporal location, and it even seems possible for a pair of exactly resembling tropes to occupy the same spatio-temporal location. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §6) | |
| A reaction: This may be the strongest objection to tropes. Being disc-shaped and red would occupy the same location. Aristotle's example of mixing white with white (Idea 557) would be the second case. Individuation of these 'particulars' is the problem. |
| 8528 | If tropes are linked by the existence of concurrence, a special relation is needed to link them all [Daly] |
| Full Idea: To explain how tropes form bundles, concurrence relations are invoked. But tropes F and G and a concurrence relation C don't ensure that F stands in C to G. So trope theory needs 'instantiation' relations (special relational tropes) after all. | |
| From: Chris Daly (Tropes [1995], §7) | |
| A reaction: Campbell presents relations as 'second-order' items dependent on tropes (Idea 8525), but that seems unclear. Daly's argument resembles Russell's (which he likes), that some sort of universal is inescapable. It also resembles Bradley's regress (7966). |
| 20653 | Six reduction levels: groups, lives, cells, molecules, atoms, particles [Putnam/Oppenheim, by Watson] |
| Full Idea: There are six 'reductive levels' in science: social groups, (multicellular) living things, cells, molecules, atoms, and elementary particles. | |
| From: report of H.Putnam/P.Oppenheim (Unity of Science as a Working Hypothesis [1958]) by Peter Watson - Convergence 10 'Intro' | |
| A reaction: I have the impression that fields are seen as more fundamental that elementary particles. What is the status of the 'laws' that are supposed to govern these things? What is the status of space and time within this picture? |
| 454 | If there are many things they must have a finite number, but there must be endless things between them [Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: It things are many, they can't be more or less than they are, so they must be finite, but also there must be endless things between each thing, so they must be infinite. | |
| From: Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B3), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 140.29 |
| 455 | That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not [Zeno of Elea] |
| Full Idea: That which moves, moves neither in the place in which it is, nor in that in which it is not. | |
| From: Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where? |
| 1511 | If everything is in a place, what is the place in? Place doesn't exist [Zeno of Elea, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: If there is a place it will be in something, because everything that exists is in something. But what is in something is in a place. Therefore the place will be in a place, and so on ad infinitum. Therefore, there is no such thing as place. | |
| From: report of Zeno (Elea) (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE], B3) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.562.3 |