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Full Idea
That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state, but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason is always in a process of becoming and perishing, and never really is.
Gist of Idea
The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming
Source
Plato (Timaeus [c.349 BCE], 28a)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.1234
A Reaction
Lots of problems with this, of which I take the main one to be the idea that sensation is 'without reason', as if there were a sharp dichotomy in our ways of evaluating reality. Laws of nature seem to be laws of change, not of stasis.
| 229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
| 9862 | To become rational, philosophers must rise from becoming into being [Plato] |
| 20364 | The apprehensions of reason remain unchanging, but reasonless sensation shows mere becoming [Plato] |
| 324 | Before the existence of the world there must have been being, space and becoming [Plato] |
| 5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| 22076 | Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling] |
| 7079 | Nietzsche resists nihilism through new values, for a world of becoming, without worship [Nietzsche, by Critchley] |
| 20360 | We Germans value becoming and development more highly than mere being of what 'is' [Nietzsche] |
| 20359 | The nature of being, of things, is much easier to understand than is becoming [Nietzsche] |
| 21846 | Bergson was a rallying point, because he emphasised becomings and multiplicities [Bergson, by Deleuze] |
| 21899 | There is no being beyond becoming [Deleuze] |