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Full Idea
When you say Simmias is taller than Socrates but shorter than Phaedo, so you mean there is in Simmias both tallness and shortness? - I do. ...But surely he is not taller than Socrates because he is Simmias but because of the tallness he happens to have?
Gist of Idea
If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias
Source
Plato (Phaedo [c.382 BCE], 102b-c)
Book Ref
Plato: 'Complete Works', ed/tr. Cooper,John M. [Hackett 1997], p.88
A Reaction
He adds that both people must be cited. This appears to be what we now call a rejection relative height as an 'internal' relation, which is it would presumably be if it was a feature of one or of both men.
Related Idea
Idea 21349 Two people are indirectly related by height; the direct relation is internal, between properties [Heil]
| 21347 | If Simmias is taller than Socrates, that isn't a feature that is just in Simmias [Plato] |
| 22080 | The nature of each category relates itself to another [Hegel] |
| 6422 | Internal relations are said to be intrinsic properties of two terms, and of the whole they compose [Bradley, by Russell] |
| 7966 | Relations must be linked to their qualities, but that implies an infinite regress of relations [Bradley] |
| 21342 | A relation is internal if two things possessing the relation could not fail to be related [Moore,GE, by Heil] |
| 7968 | A relation is internal if it is unthinkable that its object should not possess it [Wittgenstein] |
| 7969 | The order of numbers is an internal relation, not an external one [Wittgenstein] |
| 21351 | Truthmaking is a clear example of an internal relation [Heil] |
| 21344 | If R internally relates a and b, and you have a and b, you thereby have R [Heil] |
| 21348 | In the case of 5 and 6, their relational truthmaker is just the numbers [Heil] |
| 18532 | If causal relations are power manifestations, that makes them internal relations [Heil] |
| 21353 | Internal relations are fixed by existences, or characters, or supervenience on characters [MacBride] |
| 7938 | Relational properties are clearly not essential to substances [Macdonald,C] |
| 14925 | The normal assumption is that relations depend on properties of the relata [Ladyman/Ross] |
| 18336 | Internal relations depend either on the existence of the relata, or on their properties [Rami] |