Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Enquiry Conc Human Understanding' and 'Remembrance of Things Past'

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3 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 / 4. Abstract Existence
We can't think about the abstract idea of triangles, but only of particular triangles [Hume]
     Full Idea: Let any man try to conceive a triangle in general, which is neither Isoceles nor Scalenum, nor has any particular length or proportion of sides; and he will perceive the absurdity of all the scholastic notions with regard to abstraction and general ideas.
     From: David Hume (Enquiry Conc Human Understanding [1748], XII.II.122)
     A reaction: I think there is a basic error in this. I admit that I can only imagine a particular triangle, but it doesn't follow that I am thinking about one triangle. Ontology/epistemology confusion. I picture a shape while believing the shape to be irrelevant.