display all the ideas for this combination of texts
6 ideas
11380 | Two things with the same primary being and essence are one thing [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: If any two items have a single substance [ousia, primary being] and a single what-it-is-to-be-that-thing [to ti en einai, essence], then they are themselves a single thing. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1038b14) | |
A reaction: [alternative translations by Vasilis Politis] This isn't quite the identity of indiscernibles, because it allows superficial identity along with deep difference (H2O and XYZ, for example, or jadeite and nephrite). |
17848 | Things such as two different quadrangles are alike but not wholly the same [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: Things are alike if they are not just the same simpliciter, exhibiting differences in their substrate substance but being formally the same. Examples are larger and smaller quadrangles and unequal straight lines, which are alike but not the same. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054b06) |
3314 | Absolutists might accept that to exist is relative, but relative to what? How about relative to itself? [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: With the thesis that to be as such is to be relative, the absolutist may be found to concur, but the issue turns on what it might be that a thing is supposed to be relative to. Why not itself? | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch. 8) |
3323 | Maybe self-identity isn't existence, if Pegasus can be self-identical but non-existent [Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: 'Existence' can't be glossed as self-identical (critics say) because Pegasus, even while being self-identical, fails to exist. | |
From: José A. Benardete (Metaphysics: the logical approach [1989], Ch.11) |
16134 | We can't understand self-identity without a prior grasp of the object [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: To ask why a thing is identical with itself is not to ask a real question in the absence of a clear grasp of the fact ….or of the object. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1041a12) | |
A reaction: This seems a very nice response to Lewis's attempt to sweep difficulties of identity aside, when he rests identity on primitive self-identity. |
17847 | You are one with yourself in form and matter [Aristotle] |
Full Idea: You are one with yourself both in form and in matter. | |
From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1054a35) |