Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Structure and Nature' and 'The Republic'

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2 ideas

7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 3. Reality
Plato's reality has unchanging Parmenidean forms, and Heraclitean flux [Plato, by Fogelin]
     Full Idea: For Plato, the intelligible world - the world of eternal and unchanging forms - is Parmenidean; the world of appearances - the world of flux we inhabit - is Heraclitean.
     From: report of Plato (The Republic [c.374 BCE]) by Robert Fogelin - Walking the Tightrope of Reason Ch.1
     A reaction: Parmenides said reality is 'One'; Heraclitus said reality is 'flux'. This is a nice summary of Plato's view, and encapsulates two key influences on Plato, though the mathematical reality of Pythagoras should also be mentioned on the 'forms' side.
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
My ontology is quarks etc., classes of such things, classes of such classes etc. [Quine]
     Full Idea: My tentative ontology continues to consist of quarks and their compounds, also classes of such things, classes of such classes, and so on.
     From: Willard Quine (Structure and Nature [1992], p.9), quoted by Stewart Shapiro - Philosophy of Mathematics 4.9
     A reaction: I would call this the Hierarchy of Abstraction (just coined it - what do you think?). Unlike Quine, I don't see why its ontology should include things called 'sets' in addition to the things that make them up.