Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Lecture on Nominalism' and 'fragments/reports'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
Democritus denies reality to large objects, because atomic entities can't combine to produce new ones [Benardete,JA on Democritus]
     Full Idea: Democritus appears to rule out from his austere ontology all so-called emergent entities - even mountains and rivers - on the ground that two or more entities can never combine to produce a new one.
     From: comment on Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.24
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
Democritus said that substances could never be mixed, so atoms are the substances [Democritus, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Democritus claimed that one substance could not be composed from two nor two from one; for him it is the atoms that are the substances.
     From: report of Democritus (fragments/reports [c.431 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1039a10
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.