more from Thomas Hobbes

Single Idea 16621

[catalogued under 8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 12. Denial of Properties]

Full Idea

An accident's being in a body is not to be taken as something contained in that body - as if redness were in blood like blood in a bloody cloth, as part of the whole, for then accident would be a body. It is like body having size or rest or movement.

Gist of Idea

Accidents are not parts of bodies (like blood in a cloth); they have accidents as things have a size

Source

Thomas Hobbes (De Corpore (Elements, First Section) [1655], 2.08.03)

Book Reference

Hobbes,Thomas: 'Metaphysical Writings', ed/tr. Calkins,Mary Whiton [Open Court 1905], p.54


A Reaction

[compressed] Hobbes is fishing for something like the Quinean view of properties, but no one seems to be able to articulate this sceptical view very well. Pasnau says he means to talk of 'the mode of conceiving a body' (De C 8.2).