display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 16656 | The separation from here to there is not the same as the separation from there to here [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Even though two separated things have a single interval between them, still the separation from here to there is not one and the same as the separation from there to here. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 202b19) | |
| A reaction: His example is the road from Athens to Thebes. Since we tend to quantify distances between places more than Aristotle did, we are less impressed by this distinction, which seems a bit subjective. Aristotle seems to be thinking of vectors. |
| 16644 | The features of a thing (whether quality or quantity) are inseparable from their subjects [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible to separate [affections/accidents], both in respect of quantity and of quality - of quantity, because there is no minimum magnitude, and of quality, because affections are inseparable. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 188a11) | |
| A reaction: This is an aspect of his famous view that universals, if there are such, are inherent in objects, and can't float free. It was important for scholastic philosophers, who need accidents to float free for the doctrine of Transubstantiation. |
| 14044 | The perceived accidental properties of bodies cannot be conceived of as independent natures [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: The shapes, colours, sizes and weights which are predicated of body as accidents, ...and are known by sense-perception, must not be thought of as independent natures (for that is inconceivable). | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 68) | |
| A reaction: I take this to be an anti-platonist remark, though he is not denying that the accidental properties may have some universal character. I'm struck by how close the basic metaphysics of Epicurus is to that of Aristotle. |
| 14045 | Accidental properties give a body its nature, but are not themselves bodies or parts of bodies [Epicurus] |
| Full Idea: Accidental qualities are not non-existent, nor are they distinct corporeal entities inhering in the body, nor parts of it. We should think that the whole body throughout derives its permanent nature from these properties, though not as a compound of them. | |
| From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 69) | |
| A reaction: 'Permanent' nature sounds more like essential than accidental properties. This is uncomfortably negative in its attempt to pin down what accidental properties are. The last bit seems to deny the bundle view of objects. Would he like tropes? |
| 5117 | Heavy and light are defined by their tendency to move down or up [Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: It is the nature of light and heavy things to tend in certain directions, and this is what it is to be light or heavy; to be light is defined by an upwards tendency, and to be heavy is defined by a downwards tendency. | |
| From: Aristotle (Physics [c.337 BCE], 255b14) | |
| A reaction: The discredited 'teleological' view of gravity, and yet if we define 'heavy' in Newtonian terms we are in danger of circularity, and of proposing laws which are bafflingly imposed from outside. Hence the 'New Essentialists' prefer Aristotle's view. |