Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Classical Cosmology (frags)', 'fragments/reports' and 'Outlines of Pyrrhonism'

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4 ideas

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement
Does the original self-mover push itself from behind, or pull itself from in front? [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: Self-movement must move in some particular direction, but if it pushes it will be behind itself, and if it pulls it will be in front of itself.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism [c.180], III.68)
     A reaction: This is the same as Aquinas's First Way of proving God's existence.
All things are in a state of motion [Heraclitus, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: All things are in a state of motion.
     From: report of Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b22
     A reaction: This seems right, I would say. It seems to make a 'process' the fundamental category of ontology, rather than an 'object'.
If time and place are infinitely divided, it becomes impossible for movement ever to begin [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: If bodies, and the places and times when they are said to move, are divided into infinity, motion will not occur, it being impossible to find anything which will initiate the first movement.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism [c.180], III.76)
If all atoms, times and places are the same, everything should move with equal velocity [Sext.Empiricus]
     Full Idea: If objects are reducible to atoms, and each thing passes in an atomic time with its own first atom into an atomic point of space, then all moving things are of equal velocity.
     From: Sextus Empiricus (Outlines of Pyrrhonism [c.180], III.77)