Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Objections to 'Meditations' (Fifth)' and 'Potentiality'

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6 ideas

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / d. The unlimited
The unlimited has no shape and is endless [Plato]
     Full Idea: The unlimited partakes neither of the round nor of the straight, because it has no ends nor edges.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137e)
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / e. The One
Some things do not partake of the One [Plato]
     Full Idea: The others cannot partake of the one in any way; they can neither partake of it nor of the whole.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 159d)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 231
The only movement possible for the One is in space or in alteration [Plato]
     Full Idea: If the One moves it either moves spatially or it is altered, since these are the only motions.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 138b)
Everything partakes of the One in some way [Plato]
     Full Idea: The others are not altogether deprived of the one, for they partake of it in some way.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c)
     A reaction: Compare Idea 233.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 5. Laws from Universals
The view that laws are grounded in substance plus external necessity doesn't suit dispositionalism [Vetter]
     Full Idea: The Armstrong/Tooley/Dretske view, which takes laws to be substantial but grounded in a relation of nomic necessitation external to the properties themselves, is not an attractive option for the dispositionalist.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.8)
     A reaction: The point is that the dispositionalist sees laws as grounded in the properties. I prefer her other option, of dispositionalism plus a 'shallow' view of laws (which she attributes to Mumford). The laws are as Lewis says, but powers explain them.
26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / b. Scientific necessity
Dispositional essentialism allows laws to be different, but only if the supporting properties differ [Vetter]
     Full Idea: Even on the dispositional essentialist view the world might have been governed by different laws, if those laws involved different properties. What is excluded is the possibility of different laws involving the same properties as our actual laws.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Potentiality [2015], 7.8)
     A reaction: Important. Critics of dispositional essentialism accuse it of promoting the idea that the laws of nature are necessary, a claim for which we obviously have no evidence. I prefer to say they are necessary given that 'stuff', rather than those properties.