Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Letters to Des Bosses' and 'The Logic of Boundaryless Concepts'

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6 ideas

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)
	A reaction: This seems to be rhetorical, rather a precise theory, given that the One is said to be eternal and unchanging. The One is not just what we call 'reality'.

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.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads

12774	Without a substantial chain to link monads, they would just be coordinated dreams [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: If that substantial chain [vinculum substantiale] for monads did not exist, all bodies, together with all of their qualities, would be nothing but well-founded phenomena, like a rainbow or an image in a mirror, continual dreams perfectly in agreement.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05)
	A reaction: [The first appearance, apparently, of the 'susbtantial chain' in his writings] I take this to be a hugely significant move, either a defeat for monads, or the arrival of common sense. Spiritual monads must unify things, so they can't just be 'parallel'.

12777	Monads do not make a unity unless a substantial chain is added to them [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Monads do not constitute a complete composite substance, since they make up, not something one per se, but only a mere aggregate, unless some substantial chain is added.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.05.26)
	A reaction: This is the clearest statement in the Des Bosses letters of the need for something extra to unite monads. Since the main role of monads was to replace substances, which are only postulated to provide unity, this is rather a climb-down.

12782	Monads control nothing outside of themselves [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Monads aren't a principle of operation for things outside of themselves.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29)
	A reaction: This is why Leibniz has got into a tangle, and is proposing his 'substantial chain' to join the monads together. I suspect that he would have dumped monads if he had lived a bit longer.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality

221	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)
	A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition.