Combining Texts

Ideas for 'From an Ontological Point of View', 'Phaedrus' and 'Recent Debates on the A Priori'

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2 ideas

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 3. The Beginning
If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything [Plato]
     Full Idea: If the prime origin is destroyed, it will not come into being again out of anything.
     From: Plato (Phaedrus [c.366 BCE], 245d)
     A reaction: This is the essence of Aquinas's Third Way of proving God's existence.
27. Natural Reality / F. Chemistry / 2. Modern Elements
The real natural properties are sparse, but there are many complex properties [Heil]
     Full Idea: I am sympathetic to the idea that the real properties are 'sparse'; ...but if, in counting kinds of property, we include complex properties as well as simple properties, the image of sparseness evaporates.
     From: John Heil (From an Ontological Point of View [2003], 13.4)
     A reaction: This seems right to me, and invites the obvious question of which are the sparse real properties. Presumably we let the physicists tell us that, though Heil wants to include qualities like phenomenal colour, which physicists ignore.