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Single Idea 17555

[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates ]

Full Idea

There are two sorts of one. There is the one which is convertible with being, which adds nothing to being except being undivided; and this deprives of multitude. Then there is the principle of number, which to the notion of being adds measurement.

Gist of Idea

'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number

Source

Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de Potentia Dei [1269], q3 a16 ad 3-um)

A Reaction

[From a lecture handout] I'm not sure I understand this. We might say, I suppose, that insofar as water is water, it is all one, but you can't count it. Perhaps being 'unified' and being a 'unity' are different?

The 18 ideas with the same theme [whether a mere assemblage of parts can be unified]:

3357 Democritus denies reality to large objects, because atomic entities can't combine to produce new ones [Benardete,JA on Democritus]
15851 Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato]
13272 Things are one to the extent that they are indivisible [Aristotle]
17842 Indivisibility is the cause of unity, either in movement, or in the account or thought [Aristotle]
17860 Things are unified by contact, mixture and position [Aristotle]
14046 A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus]
17555 'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas]
16770 It is absurd that there is no difference between a genuinely unified thing, and a mere aggregate [Duns Scotus]
17248 If a whole body is moved, its parts must move with it [Hobbes]
17188 A thing is unified if its parts produce a single effect [Spinoza]
17028 Particles mutually attract, and cohere at short distances [Newton]
12699 A body would be endless disunited parts, if it did not have a unifying form or soul [Leibniz]
12921 Accidental unity has degrees, from a mob to a society to a machine or organism [Leibniz]
14112 A set has some sort of unity, but not enough to be a 'whole' [Russell]
17571 Every physical thing is either a living organism or a simple [Inwagen]
16072 'The rock' either refers to an object, or to a collection of parts, or to some stuff [Burke,M, by Wasserman]
10726 Things can't be fusions of universals, because two things could then be one thing [Oliver]
10725 Abstract sets of universals can't be bundled to make concrete things [Oliver]