Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Naming and Necessity notes and addenda' and 'Maths as a Science of Patterns'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     choose another area for these texts

display all the ideas for this combination of texts

3 ideas

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
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.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier
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.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 6. Constitution of an Object
11868 A different piece of wood could have been used for that table; constitution isn't identity [Wiggins on Kripke]
     Full Idea: Could the artificer not, when he made the table, have taken other pieces? Surely he could. [n37: I venture to think that Kripke's argument in note 56 for the necessity of constitution depends on treating constitution as if it were identity].
     From: comment on Saul A. Kripke (Naming and Necessity notes and addenda [1972], note 56) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.11
     A reaction: Suppose the craftsman completed the table, then changed a piece of wood in it for some reason. Has he now made a second table and destroyed the first one? Wiggins seems to be right.