Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'Mere Possibilities' and 'Virtue Epistemology'

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5 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 1. Nature of Existence

16434	Some say what exists must do so, and nothing else could possible exist [Stalnaker]
	Full Idea: Some philosophers deny there could have been anything other than what in fact exists, or that anything that exists could have failed to exist. This is developed in very different ways by Wittgenstein (in 'Tractatus'), Lewis and Williamson.
	From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1)
	A reaction: This could come in various strengths. A weak version would say that, empirically, that all talk of what doesn't exist is vacuous. A strong necessity (Williamson?) that totally rules out other possible existence is a very odd view.

16439	A nominalist view says existence is having spatio-temporal location [Stalnaker]
	Full Idea: A nominalist definition of existence is 'having spatio-temporal location'.
	From: Robert C. Stalnaker (Mere Possibilities [2012], 1.1)
	A reaction: This would evidently be physicalist as well as nominalist. Presumably it fits the 'mosaic' of reality Lewis refers to. I find this view sympathetic. A process of abstraction is required to get the rest of the stuff we talk about.

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)