38 ideas
| 1502 | Parmenides was much more cautious about accepting ideas than his predecessors [Simplicius on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides would not agree with anything unless it seemed necessary, whereas his predecessors used to come up with unsubstantiated assertions. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A28) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.2- | |
| A reaction: from Eudemus |
| 448 | No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: What necessity impelled Being, if it did spring from nothing, to be produced later or earlier? Thus it must be absolutely, or not at all. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 447 | Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Being has no coming-to-be and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And it never was, nor will be, because it is now, a whole all together, one, continuous; for what creation of it will you look for? | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 449 | Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Being is not divisible, since it is all alike. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1503 | There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: There is no such thing as nothing. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B06), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.86.27- |
| 445 | The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The other way of enquiry, that IT IS NOT, and IT is bound NOT TO BE, cannot be explored, for you could neither recognise nor express that which IS NOT. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28- |
| 21820 | Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine of Plato in identifying Being with Intellectual-Principle [Nous] while separating Real Being from the realm of sense. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
| A reaction: The point is that for Parmenides the One is the essence of Being, but for platonists there is something prior to and higher than Being. For Plato it is the Good; for Plotinus it is a revised (non-Being) concept of the One. |
| 452 | All our concepts of change and permanence are just names, not the truth [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: All things that mortals have established, believing in their truth, are just a name: Becoming and Perishing, Being and Not-Being, and change of position, and alteration of bright colour. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 16668 | Modes of things exist in some way, without being full-blown substances [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: Modes are not nothing but something more than mere nothing; they are therefore 'res' of some kind, not substantial of course, but at least modal. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Disquisitions [1644], II.3.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 260 | |
| A reaction: This is the great modern atomist talking pure scholastic metaphysics. He's been reading Suárez. Gassendi seems to accept more than one type of existence. |
| 16730 | If matter is entirely atoms, anything else we notice in it can only be modes [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: Since these atoms are the whole of the corporeal matter or substance that exists in bodies, if we conceive or notice anything else to exist in these bodies, that is not a substance but only some kind of mode of the substance. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4 | |
| A reaction: If the atoms have a few qualities of their own, are they just modes? If they are genuine powers, then there can be emergent powers, which are rather more than mere 'modes'. |
| 1504 | Something must be unchanging to make recognition and knowledge possible [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides and Melissus were the first to appreciate that there must be unchanging entities, if recognition and knowledge are to exist. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A25) by Aristotle - On the Heavens 298b14 |
| 444 | The first way of enquiry involves necessary existence [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The first way of enquiry is the one that IT IS, and it is not possible for IT NOT TO BE, which is the way of credibility, for it follows truth. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28- | |
| A reaction: also Proclus 'Timeus' |
| 450 | Necessity sets limits on being, in order to give it identity [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Powerful necessity holds Being in the bonds of a limit, which constrains it round about, because divine law decrees that Being shall not be without boundary. For it is not lacking, but if it were spatially infinite, it would lack everything. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 451 | Thinking implies existence, because thinking depends on it [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: To think is the same as the thought that IT IS, for you will not find thinking without Being, on which it depends for its expression. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1506 | Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same [Theophrastus on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Parmenides treats perception and intellectual activity as the same. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A46) by Theophrastus - On the Senses 3.1 | |
| A reaction: cf Theaetetus pt 1 |
| 3058 | Only reason can prove the truth of facts [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Reason alone will prove the truth of facts. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.3.3 |
| 16619 | We observe qualities, and use 'induction' to refer to the substances lying under them [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: Nothing beyond qualities is perceived by the senses. …When we refer to the substance in which the qualities inhere, we do this through induction, by which we reason that some subject lies under the quality. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1 | |
| A reaction: He talks of 'induction' (in an older usage), but he seems to mean abduction, since he never makes any observations of the substances being proposed. |
| 3400 | Things must have parts to intermingle [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: If you are no larger than a point, how are you joined to the whole body, which is so large? …and there can be no intermingling between things unless the parts of them can be intermingled. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth) [1641]), quoted by Jaegwon Kim - Philosophy of Mind p.131 | |
| A reaction: As Descartes says that mind is distinct from body because it is non-spatial, it doesn't seem quite right to describe it as a 'point', but the second half is a real problem. Being non-spatial is a real impediment to intermingling with spatial objects. |
| 4988 | Folk psychology may not be reducible, but that doesn't make it false [Kirk,R on Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: It may well be that completed neuroscience will not include a reduction of folk psychology, but why should that be a reason to regard it as false? It would only be a reason if irreducibility entailed that they could not possibly both be true. | |
| From: comment on Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981]) by Robert Kirk - Mind and Body §3.9 | |
| A reaction: If all our behaviour had been explained by a future neuro-science, this might not falsify folk psychology, but it would totally marginalise it. It is still possible that dewdrops are placed on leaves by fairies, but this is no longer a hot theory. |
| 4987 | Eliminative materialism says folk psychology will be replaced, not reduced [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: Eliminative materialism says our common-sense conception of psychological phenomena is a radically false theory, so defective that both the principles and the ontology of that theory will eventually be displaced (rather than reduced). | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Eliminative Materialism and Prop. Attitudes [1981], Intro) | |
| A reaction: It is hard to see what you could replace the idea of a 'belief' with in ordinary conversation. We may reduce beliefs to neuronal phenomena, but we can't drop the vocabulary of the macro-phenomena. The physics of weather doesn't eliminate 'storms'. |
| 7518 | If folk psychology gives a network of causal laws, that fits neatly with functionalism [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: The portrait of folk psychology as a network of causal laws dovetailed neatly with the emerging philosophy of mind called functionalism. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], II) | |
| A reaction: And from the lower levels functionalism is supported by the notion that the brain is modular. Note the word 'laws'; this implies an underlying precision in folk psychology, which is then easily attacked. Maybe the network is too complex for simple laws. |
| 7519 | Many mental phenomena are totally unexplained by folk psychology [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology fails utterly to explain a considerable variety of central psychological phenomena: mental illness, sleep, creativity, memory, intelligence differences, and many forms of learning, to cite just a few. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
| A reaction: If folk psychology is a theory, it will have been developed to predict behaviour, rather than as a full-blown psychological map. The odd thing is that some people seem to be very bad at folk psychology. |
| 7520 | Folk psychology never makes any progress, and is marginalised by modern science [Churchland,PM] |
| Full Idea: Folk psychology has not progressed significantly in the last 2500 years; if anything, it has been steadily in retreat during this period; it does not integrate with modern science, and its emerging wallflower status bodes ill for its future. | |
| From: Paul M. Churchland (Folk Psychology [1996], III) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] However, while shares in alchemy and astrology have totally collapsed, folk psychology shows not the slightest sign of going away, and it is unclear how it ever could. See Idea 3177. |
| 555 | People who say that the cosmos is one forget that they must explain movement [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Those who assert that the universe is one and a single nature, when they try to give the causes of generation and destruction, miss out the cause of movement. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 988b |
| 5081 | There could be movement within one thing, as there is within water [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Why does it follow from there being only one thing that it is unmoving, since, for example, water moves internally while remaining one? | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 186a16 | |
| A reaction: One suspects that Parmenides wasn't used to critical questions like this, and would have sharpened up his theory if it had been subjected to criticism. How big was the One? Maybe Aristotle is the real father of philosophy. |
| 1509 | The one can't be divisible, because if it was it could be infinitely divided down to nothing [Parmenides, by Simplicius] |
| Full Idea: Since the one is everywhere alike, then if it is divisible, it will be equally divisible everywhere….so let it be divided everywhere. It is obvious that nothing will remain and the whole will vanish, and so (if it is compound) it is composed of nothing. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.139.5- | |
| A reaction: he is quoting Porphyry |
| 20900 | Defenders of the One say motion needs the void - but that is not part of Being [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Defenders of the One say that there could not be motion without a void, and that void is what does not exist, and that nothing that is not belongs to being. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325a26 | |
| A reaction: This is why motion is an illusion, a view also supported by the paradoxes of Zeno of Elea. Aristotle goes on to give Democritus's response to this idea. Parmenides was contemplating 'void', before Democritus got to it. |
| 226 | The one is without any kind of motion [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: The one is without any kind of motion. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Parmenides 139a |
| 1505 | Reason sees reality as one, the senses see it as many [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Since he is forced to be guided by appearances, he assumes that the one exists from the viewpoint of reason, but that a plurality exists from the viewpoint of the sense, and so he posits two principles and causes - hot and cold. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], A24) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 986b27- | |
| A reaction: A profound thought. Empiricists emphasies experience, and end up with fragmented reality. Reason explains experience, and in the process sees the world as unities (like objects), though a single unity is going too far. |
| 453 | Reality is symmetrical and balanced, like a sphere, with no reason to be greater one way rather than another [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: Since there is a spatial limit, it is complete on every side, like the mass of a well-rounded sphere, equally balanced from its centre in every direction; for it is not bound to be at all either greater or less in this direction or that. | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1- |
| 1792 | He taught that there are two elements, fire the maker, and earth the matter [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He taught that there were two elements, fire and earth; and that one of them occupies the place of the maker, the other that of the matter. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.2 |
| 16593 | Atoms are not points, but hard indivisible things, which no force in nature can divide [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: The vulgar think atoms lack parts and are free of all magnitude, and hence nothing other than a mathematical point, but it is something solid and hard and compact, as to leave no room for division, separation and cutting. No force in nature can divide it. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.3.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.2 | |
| A reaction: If you gloatingly think the atom has now been split, ask whether electrons and quarks now fit his description. Pasnau notes that though atoms are indivisible, they are not incorruptible, and could go out of existence, or be squashed. |
| 16729 | How do mere atoms produce qualities like colour, flavour and odour? [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: If the only material principles of things are atoms, having only size, shape, and weight, or motion, then why are so many additional qualities created and existing within the things: color, heat, flavor, odor, and innumerable others? | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.5.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4 | |
| A reaction: This is pretty much the 'hard question' about the mind-body relation. Bacon said that heat was just motion of matter. I would say that this problem is gradually being solved in my lifetime. |
| 5115 | It is feeble-minded to look for explanations of everything being at rest [Aristotle on Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: For people to ignore the evidence of their senses and look for an explanation for everything being at rest is feeble-minded. | |
| From: comment on Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 253a32 | |
| A reaction: Not exactly an argument, but an interestingly robust assertion of commonsense against dodgy arguments. Aristotle is not exactly an empiricist, but he is on that side of the fence. |
| 13217 | The void can't exist, and without the void there can't be movement or separation [Parmenides, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Some philosophers thought what is must be one and immovable. The void, they say, is not: but unless there is a void what is cannot be moved, nor can it be many, since there is nothing to keep things apart. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 325a06 | |
| A reaction: Somehow this doesn't seem very persuasive any more! I suppose we would distinguish various degrees of void, and assert the existence of sufficient void to allow movement and separation. We must surely agree that total nothingness doesn't exist. |
| 22918 | What could have triggered the beginning [of time and being]? [Parmenides] |
| Full Idea: What need would have aroused it later or sooner, starting from nothing to come into being? | |
| From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Travels in Four Dimensions 02 'Everything' | |
| A reaction: [Barnes 1982:178] This remains an excellent question. The last I heard was a 'quantum fluctuation', but that seems to be an event, which therefore needs time. |
| 1794 | He was the first to discover the identity of the Morning and Evening Stars [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He appears to have been the first to discover that Hesperus and Lucifer were the same star. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.3 | |
| A reaction: This is the famous example used by Frege to discuss reference and meaning. |
| 1791 | He was the first person to say the earth is spherical [Parmenides, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: He was the first person who asserted that the earth was of a spherical form. | |
| From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.Pa.2 |