display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
16058 | 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. |
16059 | 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? |
16698 | 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. |
16690 | 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. |