more from this thinker | more from this text
Full Idea
The rule is that when one perceives first the community between the members of a group of many things, one should not desist until one sees in it all those differences that are located in classes.
Gist of Idea
Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group
Source
Plato (The Statesman [c.356 BCE], 285b)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.328
A Reaction
He goes on to recommend the opposite as well - see community even when there appears to be nothing but differences. I take this to be analysis, just as much as modern linguistic approaches are. Analyse the world, not language.
| 648 | Socrates began the quest for something universal with his definitions, but he didn't make them separate [Socrates, by Aristotle] |
| 166 | A speaker should be able to divide a subject, right down to the limits of divisibility [Plato] |
| 16123 | Whenever you perceive a community of things, you should also hunt out differences in the group [Plato] |
| 2083 | Either a syllable is its letters (making parts as knowable as whole) or it isn't (meaning it has no parts) [Plato] |
| 2086 | Understanding mainly involves knowing the elements, not their combinations [Plato] |
| 12274 | Begin examination with basics, and subdivide till you can go no further [Aristotle] |
| 1484 | We should say nothing of the whole if our contact is with the parts [Epicurus, by Plutarch] |
| 1887 | You cannot divide anything into many parts, because after the first division you are no longer dividing the original [Sext.Empiricus] |
| 8014 | Resolve a complex into simple elements, then reconstruct the complex by using them [Hobbes, by MacIntyre] |
| 13099 | Analysing right down to primitive concepts seems beyond our powers [Leibniz] |