Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'Nature's Metaphysics' and 'Physics'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 4. Abstract Existence

5105	The incommensurability of the diagonal always exists, and so it is not in time [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: The incommensurability of the diagonal always exists, and so it is not in time.
	From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 221b36)
	A reaction: This must make Aristotle sympathetic to Platonism in mathematics, even though he rejects the full theory of Forms. Such a view is not uncommon among modern philosophers. Presumably the incommensurability is true in all possible worlds? 'In'?

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence

9501	If all existents are causally active, that excludes abstracta and causally isolated objects [Bird]
	Full Idea: If one says that 'everything that exists is causally active', that rules out abstracta (notably sets and numbers), and it rules out objects that are causally isolated.
	From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5)
	A reaction: I like the principle. I take abstracta to be brain events, so they are causally active, within highly refined and focused brains, and if your physics is built on the notion of fields then I would think a 'causally isolated' object incoherent.

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change

16115	Change is the implied actuality of that which exists potentially [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Change is the actuality of that which exists potentially, in so far as it is potentially this actuality. Thus, the actuality of a thing's capacity for alteration, in so far as it is a capacity for alteration, is alteration.
	From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 201a10)
	A reaction: Not very informative, until you add Idea 16114, telling us that potentiality is best seen as 'power'. Then we have 'all change is the active expression of powers', which strikes me as rather interesting.

22960	The sophists thought a man in the Lyceum is different from that man in the marketplace [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: The sophists assume that being Coriscus-in-the-Lyceum is different from being Coriscus-in-the-marketplace.
	From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 219b19)
	A reaction: This is what has now been called 'Cambridge change', which is merely change in relations, with no intrinsic change. It is laughed at, but it is a phenomenon worth pointing out, as long as it is not mislabelled, or misunderstood.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 1. Grounding / c. Grounding and explanation

17262	Aristotle's formal and material 'becauses' [aitiai] arguably involve grounding [Aristotle, by Correia/Schnieder]
	Full Idea: Aristotle's distinction between four different kinds of aitia ('becauses'?) arguably involves the recognition of grounding in the formal and material aitia.
	From: report of Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 198a24) by Correia,F/Schnieder,B - Grounding: an opinionated introduction 2
	A reaction: Insofar as the other two (efficient and final) involve explanation, one might say that they too involve a different sort of grounding. Is a statue 'grounded' in the sculptor, or in the purpose of the statue?

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / c. Significance of supervenience

9500	If naturalism refers to supervenience, that leaves necessary entities untouched [Bird]
	Full Idea: If one's naturalistic principles are formulated in terms of supervenience, then necessary entities are left untouched.
	From: Alexander Bird (Nature's Metaphysics [2007], 5.5)
	A reaction: I take this to be part of the reason why some people like supervenience - that it leaves a pure 'space of reasons' which is unreachable from the flesh and blood inside a cranium. Personall I like the space of reasons, but I drop the 'pure'.