Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'How to be a Liberal' and 'A Survey of Metaphysics'

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

display all the ideas for this combination of texts


2 ideas

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 / c. Statue and clay
Statues can't survive much change to their shape, unlike lumps of bronze, which must retain material [Lowe]
     Full Idea: A statue is a kind of object which cannot survive much change to its shape, unlike a lump of bronze, which cannot survive any change to its material composition.
     From: E.J. Lowe (A Survey of Metaphysics [2002], p.70)
     A reaction: Also the statue could survive being hollowed out, changing its material composition. Hence a statue is not just a lump of bronze, but we knew that.