display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
13221 | Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Some things are-potentially while others are-actually. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 327b24) | |
A reaction: I've read a lot of Aristotle, but am still not quite clear what this distinction means. I like the distinction between a thing's actual being and its 'modal profile', but the latter may extend well beyond what Aristotle means by potential being. |
16100 | True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: In that which underlies a change there is a factor corresponding to the definition [logon] and there is a material factor. When a change is in these constitutive factors there is coming to be or passing away, but in a thing's qualities it is alteration. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a24) | |
A reaction: This seems to be a key summary of Aristotle's account of change, in the context of his hylomorphism (form-plus-matter). The logos is the account of the thing, which seems to be the definition, which seems to give the form (principle or structure). |
16101 | A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: When a change occurs in the qualities [pathesi] and is accidental [sumbebekos], there is alteration (rather than true change). | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 317a27) | |
A reaction: [tr. partly Gill] Aristotle doesn't seem to have a notion of 'properties' in quite our sense. 'Pathe' seems to mean experienced qualities, rather than genuine causal powers. Gill says 'pathe' are always accidental. |
12133 | If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Since we must distinguish the substratum and the property whose nature is to be predicated of the substratum,..there is alteration when the substratum persists...but when nothing perceptible persists as a substratum, this is coming-to-be and passing-away. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319b08-16) | |
A reaction: As usual, Aristotle clarifies the basis of the problem, by distinguishing two different types of change. Notice the empirical character of his approach, resting on whether or not the substratum is 'perceptible'. |
13213 | All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Every coming-to-be is a passing away of something else and every passing-away some other thing's coming-to-be. | |
From: Aristotle (Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr) [c.335 BCE], 319a07) | |
A reaction: This seems to be the closest that Aristotle gets to sympathy with the Heraclitus view that all is flux. When a sparrow dies and disappears, I am not at all clear what comes to be, except some ex-sparrow material. |
8205 | Explaining events just by bodies can't explain two events identical in space-time [Quine] |
Full Idea: An account of events just in terms of physical bodies does not distinguish between events that happen to take up just the same portion of space-time. A man's whistling and walking would be identified with the same temporal segment of the man. | |
From: Willard Quine (On Multiplying Entities [1974], p.260) | |
A reaction: We wouldn't want to make his 'walking' and his 'strolling' two events. Whistling and walking are different because different objects are involved (lips and legs). Hence a man is not (ontologically) a single object. |