Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'fragments/reports'

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2 ideas

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / a. Absolute time
Stoics say time is incorporeal and self-sufficient; Epicurus says it is a property of properties of things [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: Stoics posited that time is an incorporeal which is conceived of all by itself, while Epicurus thinks that it is an accident of certain things, ...and he called in a property of properties.
     From: Epicurus (fragments/reports [c.289 BCE])
     A reaction: [Source Sextus 'Adversus Mathematicos' 10.219-227]
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
Maybe bodies are designed by accident, and the creatures that don't work are destroyed [Empedocles, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Is it just an accident that teeth and other parts of the body seem to have some purpose, and creatures survive because they happen to be put together in a useful way? Everything else has been destroyed, as Empedocles says of his 'cow with human head'.
     From: report of Empedocles (fragments/reports [c.453 BCE], 61) by Aristotle - Physics 198b29
     A reaction: Good grief! Has no one ever noticed that Empedocles proposed the theory of evolution? It isn't quite natural selection, because we aren't told what does the 'destroying', but it is a little flash of genius that was quietly forgotten.