Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Truth and Truthmakers' and 'Purple Haze'

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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 / 6. Fundamentals / d. Logical atoms
Logical atomism builds on the simple properties, but are they the only possible properties? [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: One of the assumptions of logical atomism is that all structural properties, all complex properties, are composed of simple properties and relations. ...But does the totality of the simple properties consist of the only possible simple properties?
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 07.3)
     A reaction: This refers to what Lewis calls 'alien' properties - possible properties that cannot even be constructed from actual properties. Armstrong's question is about the truthmakers for such things. A bit speculative...
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
'Naturalism' says only the world of space-time exists [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: I define 'naturalism' as the hypothesis that the world of space-time is all that there is.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 09.1)
     A reaction: This is helpful, because it doesn't mention the nature of the physical matter contained in space-time, leaving theories like panpsychism as possible naturalistic theories. Galen Strawson, for example.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 9. States of Affairs
Truthmaking needs states of affairs, to unite particulars with tropes or universals. [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: There must exist states of affairs as truthmakers, to get us beyond 'loose and separate' entities. ...They can be bundles of tropes, or trope-with-particular, or bundles of universals ('compresence'), or instantiations. They are an addition to ontology.
     From: David M. Armstrong (Truth and Truthmakers [2004], 04.5)
     A reaction: Armstrong is the great champion of states of affairs. They seem rather vague to me, and disconcertingly timeless.