Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals' and 'Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85'

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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 / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / i. Deflating being
There is no 'being'; it is just the opposition to nothingness [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: 'Being' is unprovable, because there is no 'being'. The concept of being is formed out of the opposition to 'nothingness'.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 25[185])
     A reaction: Presumably a comment on Hegel's most basic idea. I find both thoughts bewildering. 'Being' is just a generalised (and unhelpful) way of referring to the self-evident existence of stuff.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn]
     Full Idea: In order that we have available an explanation of the qualities of objects we need to be able to conceive primary qualities as consisting in something other than powers to produce experiences.
     From: Colin McGinn (Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals [1983], 6 n 52)
     A reaction: I suppose if the qualities are nothing more than the source of the experiences, that is Kant's noumenon. Nothing more could be said. The seems to be a requirement for tacit inference here. We infer the interior of the tomato.
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 / 5. Naturalism
I only want thinking that is anchored in body, senses and earth [Nietzsche]
     Full Idea: I am not interested …in ways of thinking that are not anchored in the body and the senses and in the earth.
     From: Friedrich Nietzsche (Unpublished Notebooks 1884-85 [1884], 26[352])
     A reaction: Exhibit A for Nietzsche as Naturalist. Indeed, this could be a manifesto for the whole school. I totally and completely and utterly agree with Nietzsche's assertion!. I see the 'anchor' as two-way: thought connects to earth, and thought arises from it.