display all the ideas for this combination of texts
7 ideas
| 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? |
| 12507 | A mass consists of its atoms, so the addition or removal of one changes its identity [Locke] |
| Full Idea: Whilst they exist united together, the mass consisting of the same atoms must be the same mass, ...but if one of those atoms be taken away, or one new one added, it is no longer the same mass, or the same body. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 2.27.03) | |
| A reaction: This is clearly a 'strict and philosophical' usage, rather than a 'loose and popular' one - indeed, so strict as to be ridiculous. Knowing what we do now of quantum activity (emission of photons etc), we would abandon 'identity' totally. |
| 19302 | If a chair could be made of slightly different material, that could lead to big changes [Hale] |
| Full Idea: How shall we prevent a sorites taking us to the conclusion that a chair might have originated in a completely disjoint lot of wood, or even in some other material altogether? | |
| From: Bob Hale (Necessary Beings [2013], 11.3.7) | |
| A reaction: This seems a good criticism of Kripke's implausible claim that his lectern is necessarily (or essentially) made of the piece of wood it is made of. Could his lectern have had a small piece of plastic inserted in it? |
| 12559 | Complex ideas are collections of qualities we attach to an unknown substratum [Locke] |
| Full Idea: The complex ideas that our names of the species of substances properly stand for are collections of qualities, as have been observed to co-exist in an unknown substratum which we call 'substance'. | |
| From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 4.06.07) | |
| A reaction: Locke refers to a substratum, but this is not actually a 'bare' substratum, as he believes in real essences (see other quotations), but believes we have absolutely no chance of knowing them. |
| 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. |