Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Through the Looking Glass', 'Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr)' and 'Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason'

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8 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence

13221	Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Some things are-potentially while others are-actually.
	From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 327b24)
	A reaction: I've read a lot of Aristotle, but am still not quite clear what this distinction means. I like the distinction between a thing's actual being and its 'modal profile', but the latter may extend well beyond what Aristotle means by potential being.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing

21982	I only wish I had such eyes as to see Nobody! It's as much as I can do to see real people. [Carroll,L]
	Full Idea: "I see nobody on the road," said Alice. - "I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked. ..."To be able to see Nobody! ...Why, it's as much as I can do to see real people."
	From: Lewis Carroll (C.Dodgson) (Through the Looking Glass [1886], p.189), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 07.7
	A reaction: [Moore quotes this, inevitably, in a chapter on Hegel] This may be a better candidate for the birth of philosophy of language than Frege's Groundwork.

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence

5062	First: there must be reasons; Second: why anything at all?; Third: why this? [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: We rise to metaphysics by saying 'nothing takes place without a reason', then asking 'why is there something rather than nothing?, and then 'why do things exist as they do?'
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason [1714], §7)
	A reaction: Wonderful. This is what we pay philosophers for - to attempt to go to the heart of the mystery, and then start formulating the appropriate questions. The question of 'why this?' is the sweetest question. The first one seems a little intractable.

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

16100	True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: In that which underlies a change there is a factor corresponding to the definition [logon] and there is a material factor. When a change is in these constitutive factors there is coming to be or passing away, but in a thing's qualities it is alteration.
	From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a24)
	A reaction: This seems to be a key summary of Aristotle's account of change, in the context of his hylomorphism (form-plus-matter). The logos is the account of the thing, which seems to be the definition, which seems to give the form (principle or structure).

16101	A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: When a change occurs in the qualities [pathesi] and is accidental [sumbebekos], there is alteration (rather than true change).
	From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a27)
	A reaction: [tr. partly Gill] Aristotle doesn't seem to have a notion of 'properties' in quite our sense. 'Pathe' seems to mean experienced qualities, rather than genuine causal powers. Gill says 'pathe' are always accidental.

12133	If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Since we must distinguish the substratum and the property whose nature is to be predicated of the substratum,..there is alteration when the substratum persists...but when nothing perceptible persists as a substratum, this is coming-to-be and passing-away.
	From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b08-16)
	A reaction: As usual, Aristotle clarifies the basis of the problem, by distinguishing two different types of change. Notice the empirical character of his approach, resting on whether or not the substratum is 'perceptible'.

7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes

13213	All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Every coming-to-be is a passing away of something else and every passing-away some other thing's coming-to-be.
	From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a07)
	A reaction: This seems to be the closest that Aristotle gets to sympathy with the Heraclitus view that all is flux. When a sparrow dies and disappears, I am not at all clear what comes to be, except some ex-sparrow material.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads

19377	A monad and its body are living, so life is everywhere, and comes in infinite degrees [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Each monad, together with a particular body, makes up a living substance. Thus, there is not only life everywhere, joined to limbs or organs, but there are also infinite degrees of life in the monads, some dominating more or less over others.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason [1714], 4)
	A reaction: Two key ideas: that each monad is linked to a body (which is presumably passive), and the infinite degrees of life in monads. Thus rocks consist of monads, but at an exceedingly low degree of life. They are stubborn and responsive.