Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'The Central Questions of Philosophy' and 'The Nature of Things'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality

221	Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato]
	Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us.
	From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c)
	A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / b. Commitment of quantifiers

2611	It is currently held that quantifying over something implies belief in its existence [Ayer]
	Full Idea: It is currently held that we are committed to a belief in the existence of anything over which we quantify.
	From: A.J. Ayer (The Central Questions of Philosophy [1973], IX.C)
	A reaction: In a fairy tale we quantify over fairies, so some further criterion will obviously be needed.