6 ideas
12354 | A 'categorial' property is had by virtue of being or having an item from a category [Wedin] |
Full Idea: A 'categorial' property is a property something has by virtue of being or having an item from one of the categories. | |
From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], V.5) | |
A reaction: I deny that these are 'properties'. A thing is categorised according to its properties. To denote the category as a further property is the route to madness (well, to a regress). |
12358 | Substance is a principle and a kind of cause [Wedin] |
Full Idea: Substance [ousia] is a principle [arché] and a kind of cause [aitia]. | |
From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], 1041a09) | |
A reaction: The fact that substance is a cause is also the reason why substance is the ultimate explanation. It is here that I take the word 'power' to capture best what Aristotle has in mind. |
12346 | Form explains why some matter is of a certain kind, and that is explanatory bedrock [Wedin] |
Full Idea: The form of a thing (of a given kind) explains why certain matter constitutes a thing of that kind, and with this, Aristotle holds, we have reached explanatory bedrock. | |
From: Michael V. Wedin (Aristotle's Theory of Substance [2000], Intro) | |
A reaction: We must explain an individual tiger which is unusually docile. It must have an individual form which makes it a tiger, but also an individual form which makes it docile. |
6027 | From the fact that some men die, we cannot infer that they all do [Philodemus] |
Full Idea: There is no necessary inference, from the fact that men familiar to us die when pierced through the heart, that all men do. | |
From: Philodemus (On Signs (damaged) [c.50 BCE], 1.3) | |
A reaction: This is scepticism about the logic of induction, long before David Hume. This is said to be a Stoic argument against Epicureans - though on the whole Stoics are not keen on scepticism. |
22241 | Don't fear god or worry about death; the good is easily got and the terrible easily cured [Philodemus] |
Full Idea: Don't fear god, Don't worry about death; What is good is easy to get, What is terrible is easy to cure. | |
From: Philodemus (Herculaneum Papyrus [c.50 BCE], 1005,4.9-14) | |
A reaction: This is known as the Four-Part Cure, and is an epicurean prayer, probably formulated by Epicurus. |
1513 | The Egyptians were the first to say the soul is immortal and reincarnated [Herodotus] |
Full Idea: The Egyptians were the first to claim that the soul of a human being is immortal, and that each time the body dies the soul enters another creature just as it is being born. | |
From: Herodotus (The Histories [c.435 BCE], 2.123.2) |