Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Intellectual Autobiography'

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7 ideas

9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: Everything gives way, and nothing stands fast.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]), quoted by Plato - Cratylus 402a
     A reaction: This is as good a summary of the Heraclitus view of things as any, and Plato appears to present it as a verbatim quotation.
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.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
A mixed drink separates if it is not stirred [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: The mixed drink, of wine, cheese and barley, separates if it is not stirred.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B125)
     A reaction: Wiggins quotes this, because it seems to be Heraclitus struggling to decide what sortal his drink falls under. I take it to be a problem of vagueness, since separation and mixing occur along a continuum, like a sorites.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 2. Objects that Change
Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley]
     Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175
     A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change?
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 8. Continuity of Rivers
It is not possible to step twice into the same river [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: It is not possible to step twice into the same river.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B091), quoted by Plutarch - 24: The E at Delphi 392b10-
You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage [Quine on Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: You can bathe in the same river twice, but not in the same river stage.
     From: comment on Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE]) by Willard Quine - Identity, Ostension, and Hypostasis 1
     A reaction: This seems to make Quine a 'perdurantist', committed to time-slices of objects, rather than whole objects enduring through change.
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 13. No Identity over Time
If flux is continuous, then lack of change can't be a property, so everything changes in every possible way [Plato on Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: According to Heracliteans, since things must be changing, and since lack of change can't be a property of anything, then everything is always undergoing change of every kind.
     From: comment on Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B030) by Plato - Theaetetus 182a