Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Categories', 'fragments/reports' and 'The Really Hard Problem'

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7 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being
No necessity could produce Being either later or earlier, so it must exist absolutely or not at all [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: What necessity impelled Being, if it did spring from nothing, to be produced later or earlier? Thus it must be absolutely, or not at all.
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
Being must be eternal and uncreated, and hence it is timeless [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: Being has no coming-to-be and no destruction, for it is whole of limb, without motion, and without end. And it never was, nor will be, because it is now, a whole all together, one, continuous; for what creation of it will you look for?
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
Being is not divisible, since it is all alike [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: Being is not divisible, since it is all alike.
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B08 ll.?), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.145.1-
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
There is no such thing as nothing [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: There is no such thing as nothing.
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B06), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.86.27-
The realm of necessary non-existence cannot be explored, because it is unknowable [Parmenides]
     Full Idea: The other way of enquiry, that IT IS NOT, and IT is bound NOT TO BE, cannot be explored, for you could neither recognise nor express that which IS NOT.
     From: Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE], B02), quoted by Simplicius - On Aristotle's 'Physics' 9.116.28-
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being
Parmenides at least saw Being as the same as Nous, and separate from the sensed realm [Parmenides, by Plotinus]
     Full Idea: Parmenides made some approach to the doctrine of Plato in identifying Being with Intellectual-Principle [Nous] while separating Real Being from the realm of sense.
     From: report of Parmenides (fragments/reports [c.474 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
     A reaction: The point is that for Parmenides the One is the essence of Being, but for platonists there is something prior to and higher than Being. For Plato it is the Good; for Plotinus it is a revised (non-Being) concept of the One.
Primary being must be more than mere indeterminate ultimate subject of predication [Politis on Aristotle]
     Full Idea: He criticises his 'Categories' view, because if primary being is simply the ultimate subject of predication the primary being is, in virtue of itself, something indeterminate; it would be a necessary but not a sufficient condition for primary being.
     From: comment on Aristotle (Categories [c.331 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 7.5
     A reaction: Thus, Politis argues, primary being is essence in the later work. The words 'substance' and 'ousia' cause confusion here, and must be watched closely. Wedin argues that Aristotle merely develops his 'Categories' view, but most disagree.