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Full Idea
The simple's whatness is its very self.
Gist of Idea
The simple's whatness is its very self
Source
Avicenna (Abu Ibn Sina) (Commentary on the Metaphysics [1022], 5.5), quoted by Thomas Aquinas - De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) p.103
Book Ref
Aquinas,Thomas: 'Selected Philosophical Writings', ed/tr. McDermott,Timothy [OUP 1993], p.103
A Reaction
Aquinas endorses this Aristotelian view in Idea 11208.
Related Idea
Idea 11208 A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas]
| 11209 | The simple's whatness is its very self [Avicenna] |
| 13170 | The analysis of things leads to atoms of substance, which found both composition and action [Leibniz] |
| 14166 | Unities are only in propositions or concepts, and nothing that exists has unity [Russell] |
| 23467 | Objects are simple [Wittgenstein] |
| 17000 | We might fix identities for small particulars, but it is utopian to hope for such things [Kripke] |
| 16070 | There are no objects with proper parts; there are only mereological simples [Unger, by Wasserman] |
| 14593 | Quantum field theory suggests that there are, fundamentally, no individual things [Swoyer] |
| 6125 | We can eliminate objects without a commitment to simples [Merricks] |
| 22613 | Most materialist views postulate smallest indivisible components which are permanent [Ingthorsson] |