| 472 | No things would be clear to us as entity or relationships unless there existed Number and its essence [Philolaus] |
| Full Idea: No existing things would be clear to anyone, either in themselves or in their relationship to one another, unless there existed Number and its essence. | |
| From: Philolaus (On the Cosmos (lost) [c.435 BCE], B11), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.03.8 |
| 13261 | Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality. |
| 13265 | Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5 | |
| A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it! |
| 590 | Things are one numerically in matter, formally in their account, generically in predicates, and by analogy in relations [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Things are numerically one in matter, formally one in their account, generically one in their pattern of predication [genos], and one by analogy if related to a further one. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1016b30) | |
| A reaction: Very subtle distinctions. What I like is that the notion of numerical unity is comprehensively tied to the notion of individual identity. 'To be is to be countable' may be wrong, but it is better than Quine's 'to be is to be the value of a variable' |
| 10949 | Primary things just are what-it-is-to-be-that-thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Our conclusion is as follows: with things that are primary and spoken of per se, the what-it-was-to-be-that-thing and the thing itself are one and the same. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1032a05) | |
| A reaction: It is tantalizing to know whether or not Aristotle has really said anything here. It might be clearer if we said 'a thing is its essence', but that may not be quite what he is saying. [P.S. V.Politis translates as 'essence'!] |
| 603 | How is man a unity of animal and biped, especially if the Forms of animal and of biped exist? [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: What makes man a unity, and not a plurality of, say, animal and biped? Especially if, as some claim, Animal Itself and Biped Itself exist. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1045a13) |
| 17838 | Things may be naturally unified because they involve an indivisible process [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Among things naturally simple those [may] have unity and priority fully whose processes are relatively indivisible and simple. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a20) | |
| A reaction: This is the first of four theories of unity which he offers for discussion. If the process bestows unity, you then have to judge the process as unified. If the indivisibility bestows unity, then things other than processes can be indivisible. |
| 17840 | A unity may just be a particular, a numerically indivisible thing [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: [A thing may be unified because it is] the numerically indivisible, the particular. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a30) | |
| A reaction: One of four possible theories of unity. This one seems to beg the question, or only to offer unity as a primitive, unanalysable concept. Only abstract objects strike us as utterly indivisible. |
| 17841 | The formal cause may be what unifies a substance [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: A thing may be formally indivisible, something cognitively and scientifically indivisible. Hence what cause substances to be single things should be thought of as the primary unity. | |
| From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1052a31) | |
| A reaction: This is his fourth and final proposal for unity, and it is obviously his preferred theory, because it is the hylomorphic view, that the form or nature of the thing bestows the unity. It is sort of right, but a rather thin theory as it stands. |
| 16163 | Aristotle says that the form is what makes an entity what it is [Aristotle, by Frede,M] |
| Full Idea: In 'Metaphysics' Z it seems that it is the form that provides the object with its identity. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], Z) by Michael Frede - Aristotle's Conception of Metaphysics | |
| A reaction: See Aristotle on 'Hylomorphism' for what this means. By form he means a combination of structure, dispositions and controlling principles. |
| 17041 | Natural objects include animals and their parts, plants, and the simple elements [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Natural objects include animals and their parts, plants and simple bodies like earth, fire, air, and water. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 192b09) | |
| A reaction: Interestingly, he seems to include lives, and elements, but nothing in between, like planets or stones. |
| 18459 | Diversity arises from the power of unity [Porphyry] |
| Full Idea: Diversity is born of the development of the power of unity. | |
| From: Porphyry (Launching Points to the Realm of the Mind [c.280], 6Enn5 42) | |
| A reaction: I doubt whether even Porphyry understood this, but we might say that once the principle of unification enters into nature, it will inevitably result in diversity. One all-embracing unity would be indiscernible. |
| 16650 | 'Unity' is a particularly difficult word, because things can have hidden unity [Duns Scotus] |
| Full Idea: I believe that 'unity' is one of the more difficult words in philosophy, for there are in things many hidden (occultae) unities that are obscure to us. | |
| From: John Duns Scotus (Lectura [1298], I.17.2.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 | |
| A reaction: Some examples would be nice. Do the Earth and the Moon form a unity, because of gravity? How ponders whether whiteness and a white man are unified. |
| 16751 | Unity by aggregation, order, inherence, composition, and simplicity [Conimbricense, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: The Coimbrans have five degrees of unity: by aggregation (stones), by order (an army), per accidens (inherence), per se composite unity (connected), and per se unity of simple things. | |
| From: report of Collegium Conimbricense (Aristotelian commentaries [1595], Phys I.9.11.2) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.3 | |
| A reaction: [my summary of Pasnau's summary] Take some stones, then order them, then glue them together, then melt them together. The unity of inherence is a different type of unity from these stages. This is a hylomorphic view. |
| 12745 | Philosophy needs the precision of the unity given by substances [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Philosophy cannot be better reduced to something precise, than by recognising only substances or complete beings endowed with a true unity, with different states that succeed one another; all else is phenomena, abstractions or relations. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7 | |
| A reaction: This idea bothers me. Has the whole of modern philosophy been distorted by this yearning for 'precision'? It has put mathematicians and logicians in the driving seat. Do we only attribute unity because it suits our thinking? |
| 16513 | Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: For there to be a certain persisting law which involves the future states of that which we conceive as one and the same continuant, this is what I say constitute's a substance's identity. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:264), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 3.1 | |
| A reaction: This is a key remark for those who thing 'persistence conditions' are basic to metaphysics. I'm not so sure. |
| 14164 | The only unities are simples, or wholes composed of parts [Russell] |
| Full Idea: The only kind of unity to which I can attach any precise sense - apart from the unity of the absolutely simple - is that of a whole composed of parts. | |
| From: Bertrand Russell (The Principles of Mathematics [1903], §439) | |
| A reaction: This comes from a keen student of Leibniz, who was obsessed with unity. Russell leaves unaddressed the question of what turns some parts into a whole. |
| 17517 | Could the same matter have more than one form or principle of unity? [Ayers] |
| Full Idea: The abstract question arises of whether the same matter could be subject to more than one principle of unity simultaneously, or unified by more than one 'form'. | |
| From: M.R. Ayers (Individuals without Sortals [1974], 'Realist' vii) | |
| A reaction: He suggests that the unity of the sweater is destroyed by unravelling, and the unity of the thread by cutting. |
| 15075 | Modal features are not part of entities, because they are accounted for by the entity [Fine,K] |
| Full Idea: It is natural to suggest that to be a man is to have certain kind of temporal-modal profile. ...but it seems natural that being a man accounts for the profile, ...so one should not appeal to an object's modal features in stating what the object is. | |
| From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 09) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a correct and very helpful point, as I am tempted to think that the modal dispositions of a thing are intrinsic to its identity. If we accept 'powers', must they be modal in character? Fine backs a sortal approach. That's ideology. |
| 12886 | A whole requires some unique relation which binds together all of the parts [Simons] |
| Full Idea: A whole must at least approximate to this condition: every member of some division of the object stands in a certain relation to every other member, and no member bears this relation to anything other than members of the division. | |
| From: Peter Simons (Parts [1987], 9.2) | |
| A reaction: Simons proceeds to formalise this, and I suspect that he goes for this definition because (unlike looser ones) it can be formalised. See Simons's Idea 12865. We'll need to know whether these are internal or external relations. |
| 24065 | Structured wholes are united by the teamwork needed for their capacities [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: A structured whole derives its unity from the way in which its parts interact with other parts to allow both the whole and its parts to manifest those of their capacities which require 'team work' among the parts. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (Form, Matter and Substance [2018], Intro) | |
| A reaction: This is a culminating thesis of her book. She defends it at length. It looks like a nice theory for things which are lucky enough to have capacities involving teamwork. Does this mean a pebble can't be unified? She wants a dynamic view. |
| 14495 | I aim to put the notion of structure or form back into the concepts of part, whole and object [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: My project is to put the notion of structure or form squarely back at the center of any adequate account of the notion of part, whole and object. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: Excellent. It is the fault of logicians, who presumably can't cope with such elusive and complex concepts, that we have ended up with objects as lists of things or properties, or quantifications over them. |
| 13264 | If a whole is just a structure, a dinner party wouldn't need the guests to turn up [Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: If a whole is just a structure, we wonder how the guests could really be part of the dinner party seating structure, when the complex whole is fully exhausted by the structure that specifies the slots. | |
| From: Kathrin Koslicki (The Structure of Objects [2008], 4.2.2) | |
| A reaction: This cuts both ways. A dinner party may necessarily require guests, but the seating plan can be specified in the absence of any guests, who may never turn up. A seating plan is not a dinner party. Perhaps we have two objects here. |