more on this theme
|
more from this thinker
Single Idea 22746
[filed under theme 15. Nature of Minds / C. Capacities of Minds / 6. Idealisation
]
Full Idea
When we have gone so far as to deprive the length of its breadth altogether, we no longer conceive even the length, but along with the removal of the breadth the conception of the length is also removed.
Gist of Idea
If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length
Source
Sextus Empiricus (Against the Physicists (two books) [c.180], I.392)
Book Ref
Sextus Empiricus: 'Against the Physicists/Against the Ethicists', ed/tr. Bury,R.G. [Harvard Loeb 1997], p.187
A Reaction
The only explanation of our retaining an understanding of a line even after we have removed its breadth is that we have abandoned experience and conceptualised the line - by idealising it.
The
20 ideas
from 'Against the Physicists (two books)'
22728
|
Gods were invented as watchers of people's secret actions
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22730
|
All men agree that God is blessed, imperishable, happy and good
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22731
|
It is mad to think that what is useful to us, like lakes and rivers, are gods
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22732
|
The perfections of God were extrapolations from mankind
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22734
|
God is defended by agreement, order, absurdity of denying God, and refutations
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22735
|
The original substance lacked motion or shape, and was given these by a cause
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22736
|
God's sensations imply change, and hence perishing, which is absurd, so there is no such God
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22737
|
An incorporeal God could do nothing, and a bodily god would perish, so there is no God
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22738
|
The Divine must lack the virtues of continence and fortitude, because they are not needed
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22739
|
God must suffer to understand suffering
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22740
|
God without virtue is absurd, but God's virtues will be better than God
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22741
|
The incorporeal is not in the nature of body, and so could not emerge from it
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22742
|
Socrates either dies when he exists (before his death) or when he doesn't (after his death)
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22744
|
Parts are not parts if their whole is nothing more than the parts
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22746
|
If we try to conceive of a line with no breadth, it ceases to exist, and so has no length
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22747
|
A man walking backwards on a forwards-moving ship is moving in a fixed place
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22748
|
Some say motion is perceived by sense, but others say it is by intellect
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22749
|
Time doesn't end with the Universe, because tensed statements about destruction remain true
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22750
|
Time is divisible, into past, present and future
[Sext.Empiricus]
|
22751
|
If the present is just the limit of the past or the future, it can't exist because they don't exist
[Sext.Empiricus]
|