display all the ideas for this combination of texts
10 ideas
| 12775 | Things seem to be unified if we see duration, position, interaction and connection [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Important relations are duration (order of successive things) and position (order of coexisting things) and interaction. Position without a thing mediating is presence. Beyond these is connection when things move one another. Thus things seem to be one. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05) | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This is the best account I can find of his epistemological angle on the unity of things. They are symptoms of the inner power of unification, and he says that God sees these relations most clearly. |
| 15851 | Parts must belong to a created thing with a distinct form [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The part would not be the part of many things or all, but of some one character ['ideas'] and of some one thing, which we call a 'whole', since it has come to be one complete [perfected] thing composed [created] of all. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157d) | |
| A reaction: A serious shot by Plato at what identity is. Harte quotes it (125) and shows that 'character' is Gk 'idea', and 'composed' will translate as 'created'. 'Form' links this Platonic passage to Aristotle's hylomorphism. |
| 12776 | Every substance is alive [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Every substance is alive. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1712.02.05) | |
| A reaction: The most charitable interpretation of this is that substances are what have unity, and the best model of unity that we can grasp is the unity of an organism. The less charitable view is that he literally thinks a pebble is 'alive'. Hm. |
| 15846 | In Parmenides, if composition is identity, a whole is nothing more than its parts [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: At the heart of the 'Parmenides' puzzles about composition is the thesis that composition is identity. Considered thus, a whole adds nothing to an ontology that already includes its parts | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 2.5 | |
| A reaction: There has to be more to a unified identity that mere proximity of the parts. When do parts come together, and when do they actually 'compose' something? |
| 15849 | Plato says only a one has parts, and a many does not [Plato, by Harte,V] |
| Full Idea: In 'Parmenides' it is argued that a part cannot be part of a many, but must be part of something one. | |
| From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) by Verity Harte - Plato on Parts and Wholes 3.2 | |
| A reaction: This looks like the right way to go with the term 'part'. We presuppose a unity before we even talk of its parts, so we can't get into contradictions and paradoxes about their relationships. |
| 15850 | Anything which has parts must be one thing, and parts are of a one, not of a many [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The whole of which the parts are parts must be one thing composed of many; for each of the parts must be part, not of a many, but of a whole. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 157c) | |
| A reaction: This is a key move of metaphysics, and we should hang on to it. The other way madness lies. |
| 13259 | It seems that the One must be composed of parts, which contradicts its being one [Plato] |
| Full Idea: The One must be composed of parts, both being a whole and having parts. So on both grounds the One would thus be many and not one. But it must be not many, but one. So if the One will be one, it will neither be a whole, nor have parts. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 137c09), quoted by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: This is the starting point for Plato's metaphysical discussion of objects. It seems to begin a line of thought which is completed by Aristotle, surmising that only an essential structure can bestow identity on a bunch of parts. |
| 12753 | A substantial bond of powers is needed to unite composites, in addition to monads [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Some realising thing must bring it about that composite substance contains something substantial besides monads, otherwise composites will be mere phenomena. The scholastics' active and passive powers are the substantial bond I am urging. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.01.13), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
| A reaction: [compressed] This appears to be a major retreat, in the last year of Leibniz's life, from the full monadology he had espoused. How do monads connect to matter, and thus unify it? He is returning to Aristotelian hylomorphism. |
| 12781 | A composite substance is a mere aggregate if its essence is just its parts [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: An aggregate, but not a composite substance, is resolved into parts. A composite substance only needs the coming together of parts, but is not essentially constituted by them, otherwise it would be an aggregate. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29) | |
| A reaction: The point is that there is more to some things than there mere parts. Only some unifying principle, in addition to the mere parts, bestows a unity. Mereology is a limited activity if it has nothing to say about this issue. |
| 15847 | Two things relate either as same or different, or part of a whole, or the whole of the part [Plato] |
| Full Idea: Everything is surely related to everything as follows: either it is the same or different; or, if it is not the same or different, it would be related as part to whole or as whole to part. | |
| From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 146b) | |
| A reaction: This strikes me as a really helpful first step in trying to analyse the nature of identity. Two things are either two or (actually) one, or related mereologically. |