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Full Idea
If something is successive, it is successive with respect to its individual parts, which cannot exist at the same instant. Therefore it follows that many of its parts are lodged outside that instant.
Gist of Idea
To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant
Source
John Wycliff (De ente praedicamentali [1375], 20 p.189), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
Book Ref
Pasnau,Robert: 'Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671' [OUP 2011], p.389
A Reaction
An obvious would be to say that there are therefore no successive entities, but Wycliff is appealing to our universal acceptance of them, and offering a transcendental argument. Nice move.
| 16691 | A day, or the games, has one thing after another, actually and potentially occurring [Aristotle] |
| 16696 | Successive things reduce to permanent things [Bonaventura] |
| 16698 | Days exist, and yet they seem to be made up of parts which don't exist [Burley] |
| 16690 | Unlike permanent things, successive things cannot exist all at once [Burley] |
| 16695 | Successive entities are in flux, flowing in existence, with different parts at different times [Oresme] |
| 16703 | God could make a successive thing so that previous parts cease to exist [Albert of Saxony] |
| 16699 | Successive entities just need parts to succeed one another, without their existence [Albert of Saxony] |
| 16700 | In order to speak about time and successive entities, the 'present' must be enlarged [Wycliff] |
| 16701 | To be successive a thing needs parts, which must therefore be lodged outside that instant [Wycliff] |
| 16694 | Typical successive things are time and motion [Pasnau] |