display all the ideas for this combination of texts
14 ideas
8660 | There are potential infinities (never running out), but actual infinity is incoherent [Aristotle, by Friend] |
Full Idea: Aristotle developed his own distinction between potential infinity (never running out) and actual infinity (there being a collection of an actual infinite number of things, such as places, times, objects). He decided that actual infinity was incoherent. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Michèle Friend - Introducing the Philosophy of Mathematics 1.3 | |
A reaction: Friend argues, plausibly, that this won't do, since potential infinity doesn't make much sense if there is not an actual infinity of things to supply the demand. It seems to just illustrate how boggling and uncongenial infinity was to Aristotle. |
12058 | Aristotle's matter can become any other kind of matter [Aristotle, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Aristotle's conception of matter permits any kind of matter to become any other kind of matter. | |
From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by David Wiggins - Substance 4.11.2 | |
A reaction: This is obviously crucial background information when we read Aristotle on matter. Our 92+ elements, and fixed fundamental particles, gives a quite different picture. Aristotle would discuss form and matter quite differently now. |
493 | Experiences are merely convention; only atoms and the void are real [Democritus] |
Full Idea: Sweet exists by convention, bitter by convention, colour by convention; atoms and void alone exist in reality. | |
From: Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], B009), quoted by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Logicians (two books) 7.135 |
17542 | 'Full' and 'Void' secularised Parmenides's Being and Not-being [Democritus, by Heisenberg] |
Full Idea: In atomism, the antithesis of Being and Not-being of Parmenides is secularised into the antithesis of the 'Full' and the 'Void'. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by Werner Heisenberg - Physics and Philosophy 04 |
5947 | If only atoms are real and the rest is convention, we wouldn't bother to avoid pain [Democritus, by Diogenes of Oen.] |
Full Idea: Democritus erred when he said that the atoms alone exist in truth among realities, but everything else is convention; for then, far from discovering the truth, we shall not even be able to live, since we shall avoid neither fire nor wounds. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by Diogenes (Oen) - fragments/reports F2 7 | |
A reaction: The point is that we have to treat pain as a reality, not just as a convention. I suspect that Diogenes is making the same mistake made by modern attackers of 'eliminativism'. It is all about identity and reduction and levels of reality… |
13219 | When atoms touch, why don't they coalesce, like water drops? [Aristotle on Democritus] |
Full Idea: Why, when they come into contact, do they [atoms] not coalesce into one, as drops of water run together when drop touches drop? | |
From: comment on Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 326a33 | |
A reaction: Presumably we must think of atoms as having basic ontological unity, rather than as being little globules of 'stuff'. They are more like monads than they are like mud. |
1533 | Because appearance is infinitely varied, atomists assume infinitely many shapes of atom [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: They thought that truth lay in appearances, which they appreciated are contradictory and infinite, so they made the shapes of atoms infinite. Thus the infinite changes in compounds create the infinitely varies appearances. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A009) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 315b9 |
20899 | Atoms cling together, until a stronger necessity disperses them [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Democritus thinks that the substances hold on to one another and remain together for a length of time until some stronger necessity arising from their surroundings shakes and disperses them. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A037) by Aristotle - On Democritus (frag) | |
A reaction: [quoted in Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens] He's not wrong. This seems to provide a mechanism for the Heracltean flux. Ancient critics wanted to know where the 'stronger necessity' came from. |
20898 | Atoms are irregular, hooked, concave, convex, and many other shapes [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Some substances are irregular, others hook-shaped, other concave, other convex, others provided with innumerable other differences. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A037) by Aristotle - On Democritus (frag) | |
A reaction: [quoted in Simplicius, Commentary on Aristotle's On the Heavens] 'Substance' here means a fundamental object, which for Democritus is an undividable atom. |
20908 | There could be an atom the size of the world [Democritus, by Ps-Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Democritus say that it is possible that there exists an atom of the size of the world. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A047) by Pseudo-Plutarch - On the Doctrine of the Philosophers 1.12.6 | |
A reaction: The editor says this may have been a criticism of Democritus - presumably a reductio ad absurdum. But Democritus has no upper limit on the size of an atom. It challenges the imagination to treat such a huge thing as indivisible. |
1527 | There must be atoms, to avoid the absurdity of infinite division down to nothing [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If everything is infinitely divided, what survives the divisions? Alternatively, division would end at points with no magnitude, in which case bodies are composed of nothing. This is the argument claiming there are atoms of some magnitude. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A048b) by Aristotle - Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) 316a14- |
20909 | The basic atoms are without qualities - which only arise from encounters between atoms [Democritus, by Galen] |
Full Idea: Democritus and the Epicureans posit that the first element is without quality, possessing by nature neither whiteness, blackness, sweetness or bitterness, warmth or cold. ...It is from the encounter of the atoms that all the sensible qualities come about. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A049) by Galen - On Hippocrates and Plato 1.2 | |
A reaction: Idea 493 comes in the middle of this summary by Galen. Hence atoms play the role that substrates play in object-based metaphysics. So atoms have the same problem. Is the shape of an atom a quality of an atom. Or are qualities what atoms DO? |
1536 | If a cone is horizontally sliced the surfaces can't be equal, so it goes up in steps [Democritus] |
Full Idea: If a cone is cut parallel to the base are the two new surfaces equal or unequal? If they are unequal, the cone must have gone up in steps. If they are equal then the cone must have been a cylinder, which is absurd. | |
From: Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], B155), quoted by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1079e1 |
1525 | Atomists say there are only three differences - in shape, arrangement and position [Democritus, by Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Democritus and Leucippus say that there are only three differences - in shape, arrangement and position. | |
From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE], A006) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 0985b15 |