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Single Idea 27

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / d. Forms critiques ]

Full Idea

Nor will the Good be any more good by being eternal, if a long-lasting white thing is no whiter than an ephemeral one.

Gist of Idea

Eternal white is no whiter than temporary white, and it is the same with goodness

Source

Aristotle (Nicomachean Ethics [c.334 BCE], 1096b05)

Book Ref

Aristotle: 'Ethics (Nicomachean)', ed/tr. ThomsonJ A K/TredennickH [Penguin 1976], p.70

A Reaction

A powerful point, made with a hint of sarcasm. You can't add extra Form of White to increase the whiteness of your paint. And the paint is no whiter because it endures for years.

The 23 ideas with the same theme [criticisms of Plato's theory of Forms]:

12122 Plato mistakenly thought forms were totally abstracted away from matter [Bacon on Plato]
5574 Plato's Forms not only do not come from the senses, but they are beyond possibility of sensing [Plato, by Kant]
565 The Forms cannot be changeless if they are in changing things [Aristotle on Plato]
557 A Form is a cause of things only in the way that white mixed with white is a cause [Aristotle on Plato]
5130 It is meaningless to speak of 'man-himself', because it has the same definition as plain 'man' [Aristotle]
27 Eternal white is no whiter than temporary white, and it is the same with goodness [Aristotle]
28 How will a vision of pure goodness make someone a better doctor? [Aristotle]
16145 Predications only pick out kinds of things, not things in themselves [Aristotle]
16108 If men exist by participating in two forms (Animal and Biped), they are plural, not unities [Aristotle]
605 The Forms have to be potentialities, not actual knowledge or movement [Aristotle]
618 There is no point at all in the theory of Forms unless it contains a principle that produces movement [Aristotle]
640 All attempts to prove the Forms are either invalid, or prove Forms where there aren't supposed to be any [Aristotle]
641 Are there forms for everything, or for negations, or for destroyed things? [Aristotle]
642 What possible contribution can the Forms make to perceptible entities? [Aristotle]
4470 Aristotle is not asserting facts about the location of properties, but about their ontological status [Aristotle, by Moreland]
645 If two is part of three then numbers aren't Forms, because they would all be intermingled [Aristotle]
1677 We can forget the Forms, as they are irrelevant, and not needed in giving demonstrations [Aristotle]
20817 Platonic Forms are just our thoughts [Stoic school, by Ps-Plutarch]
11205 If the form of 'human' contains 'many', Socrates isn't human; if it contains 'one', Socrates is Plato [Aquinas]
17192 The 'universal' term 'man' is just imagining whatever is the same in a multitude of men [Spinoza]
11914 Platonic explanations of universals actually diminish our understanding [Molnar]
3353 If there is no causal interaction with transcendent Platonic objects, how can you learn about them? [Benardete,JA]
7039 How could you tell if the universals were missing from a world of instances? [Heil]