Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Commentary on 'Physics'' and 'Against the Professors (six books)'

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3 ideas

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 / 6. Successive Things
Days exist, and yet they seem to be made up of parts which don't exist [Burley]
     Full Idea: I grant that a successive being is composed out of non-beings, as is clear of a day, which is composed of non-entities. Some part of this day is past and some future, and yet this day is.
     From: Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III text 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3
     A reaction: The dilemma of Aristotle over time infected the scholastic attempt to give an account of successive entities. A day is a wonderfully elusive entity for a metaphysician.
Unlike permanent things, successive things cannot exist all at once [Burley]
     Full Idea: This is the difference between permanent and successive things: that a permanent thing exists all at once, or at least can exist all at once, whereas it is incompatible with a successive thing to exist all at once.
     From: Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III txt 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1
     A reaction: Permanent things sound like what are now called 'three-dimensional' objects, but scholastic 'entia successiva' are not the same as spacetime 'worms' or collections of temporal stages.