display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 18852 | A Meinongian principle might say that there is an object for any modest class of properties [Rosen] |
| Full Idea: Meinongian abstraction principles say that for any (suitably restricted) class of properties, there exists an abstract entity (arbitrary object, subsistent entity) that possesses just those properties. | |
| From: Gideon Rosen (The Limits of Contingency [2006], 04) | |
| A reaction: This is 'Meinongian' because there will be an object which is circular and square. The nub of the idea presumably resides in what is meant by 'restricted'. An object possessing every conceivable property is, I guess, a step too far. |
| 13276 | The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6 | |
| A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter. |
| 13277 | The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind. | |
| From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5 | |
| A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact. |
| 16066 | Additional or removal of any part changes a thing, so people are never the same person [Epicharmus] |
| Full Idea: If you add or take away a pebble, the same number does not remain. If you add to a length or cut off from it, the former measure does not remain. So human beings grow or waste away. Both you and I were, and shall be, other men. | |
| From: Epicharmus (comedies (frags) [c.470 BCE], B02), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 03.12 | |
| A reaction: [The original is in dialogue form from a play. The context is a joke about not paying a debt.] Note the early date for this metaphysical puzzle. My new favourite reply is Chrysippus's Idea 16059; identity actually requires change. |