Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'On Duties ('De Officiis')' and 'Necessity and Non-Existence'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

---

6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence

15078	There are levels of existence, as well as reality; objects exist at the lowest level in which they can function [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: Just as we recognise different levels of reality, so we should recognise different levels of existence. Each object will exist at the lowest level at which it can enjoy its characteristic form of life.
	From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 10)
	A reaction: I'm struggling with this claim, despite my sympathy for much of Fine's picture. I'm not sure that the so-called 'levels' of reality have different degrees of reality.

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.

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)

15072	Bottom level facts are subject to time and world, middle to world but not time, and top to neither [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: At the bottom are tensed or temporal facts, subject to the vicissitudes of time and hence of the world. Then come the timeless though worldly facts, subject to the world but not to time. Top are transcendental facts, subject to neither world nor time.
	From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 08)
	A reaction: For all of Fine's awesome grasp of logic and semantics, when he divides reality up as boldly as this I start to side a bit with the sceptics about modern metaphysics (like Ladyman and Ross). I daresay Fine acknowledges that it is 'speculative'.

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 8. Facts / b. Types of fact

15071	Tensed and tenseless sentences state two sorts of fact, which belong to two different 'realms' of reality [Fine,K]
	Full Idea: A tensed fact is stated by a tensed sentence while a tenseless fact is stated by a tenseless sentence, and they belong to two 'realms' of reality. That Socrates drank hemlock is in the temporal realm, while 2+2=4 is presumably in the timeless realm.
	From: Kit Fine (Necessity and Non-Existence [2005], 07)
	A reaction: Put so strongly, I suddenly find sales resistance to his proposal. All my instincts favour one realm, and I take 2+2=4 to be a highly general truth about that realm. It may be a truth of any possible realm, which would distinguish it.