Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy' and 'Properties'

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming
The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato]
     Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become.
     From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d)
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / f. Primary being
Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus]
     Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many.
     From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08
     A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / a. Nature of supervenience
Supervenience is nowadays seen as between properties, rather than linguistic [Swoyer]
     Full Idea: Supervenience is sometimes taken to be a relationship between two fragments of language, but it is increasingly taken to be a relationship between pairs of families of properties.
     From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 7.17)
     A reaction: If supervenience is a feature of the world, rather than of our descriptions, then it cries out for explanation, just as any other regularities do. Personally I would have thought the best explanation of the supervenience of mind and body was obvious.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
In the realist view, the real external world explains how it (and perceptions of it) are possible [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: The substance of the absolute conception [of external reality] lies in the idea that it could nonvacuously explain how it itself, and the various perspectival views of the world, are possible.
     From: Bernard Williams (Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy [1985], p.139), quoted by Reiss,J/Spreger,J - Scientific Objectivity 2.1
     A reaction: I like this. Explanation and understanding strike me as more important than justified truths, and I am struck by the complete inability of subjectivists, relativists and anti-realists to give any kinds of good explanation.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
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)
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 4. Anti-realism
Anti-realists can't explain different methods to measure distance [Swoyer]
     Full Idea: Anti-realists theories of measurement (like operationalism) cannot explain how we can use different methods to measure the same thing (e.g. lengths and distances in cosmology, geology, histology and atomic physics).
     From: Chris Swoyer (Properties [2000], 4.2)
     A reaction: Swoyer says that the explanation is that measurement aims at objective properties, the same in each of these areas. Quite good.