Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Interview with Baggini and Stangroom' and 'Metaphysics: the logical approach'

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5 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)
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 / B. Change in Existence / 4. Events / a. Nature of events
3310 If slowness is a property of walking rather than the walker, we must allow that events exist [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: Once we conceded that Tom can walk slowly or quickly, and that the slowness and quickness is a property of the walking and not of Tom, we can hardly refrain from quantifying over events (such as 'a walking') in our ontology.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 8. Stuff / a. Pure stuff
12793 Early pre-Socratics had a mass-noun ontology, which was replaced by count-nouns [Benardete,JA]
     Full Idea: With their 'mass-noun' ontologies, the early pre-Socratics were blind to plurality ...but the count-noun ontologists came to dominate the field forever after.
     From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 6)
     A reaction: The mass-nouns are such things as earth, air, fire and water. This is a very interesting historical observation (cited by Laycock). Our obsession with identity seems tied to formal logic. There is a whole other worldview waiting out there.
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)