Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letter to Herodotus' and 'Truth-makers'

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2 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: Properties are known by their peculiar forms of application and comprehension, in close accompaniment with the aggregate [of atoms], which is given the predicate 'body' by reference to the aggregate conception.
     From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 69)
     A reaction: There is an interesting hint here of how to think of properties (as both applying and comprehended in some distinctive way), and a suggestion that there is something conventional about bodies, depending on how we conceive them.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / b. Cat and its tail
Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria]
     Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48
     A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him.