Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Treatise of Human Nature' and 'Metaphysics'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
21291 There is no medium state between existence and non-existence [Hume]
     Full Idea: Betwixt unity and number there can be no medium; no more than betwixt existence and non-existence.
     From: David Hume (Treatise of Human Nature [1739], I.IV.2)
     A reaction: Just to confirm that, as you would expect, the great empiricist has no time for 'subsistence', or shadows and holes having lower grade existece.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / c. Becoming
229 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
21821 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.