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Ideas for 'works', 'The Raft and the Pyramid' and 'Substance'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
13261 Plato sees an object's structure as expressible in mathematics [Plato, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: The 'structure' of an object tends to be characterised by Plato as something that is mathematically expressible.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3
     A reaction: This seems to be pure Pythagoreanism (see Idea 644). Plato is pursuing Pythagoras's research programme, of trying to find mathematics buried in every aspect of reality.
13265 Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the source of unity in a complex object [Plato, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Plato was less concerned than Aristotle with the project of how to account, in completely general terms, for the source of unity within a mereologically complex object.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.5
     A reaction: Plato seems to have simply asserted that some sort of harmony held things together. Aristotles puts the forms [eidos] within objects, rather than external, so he has to give a fuller account of what is going on in an object. He never managed it!
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
593 Plato's holds that there are three substances: Forms, mathematical entities, and perceptible bodies [Plato, by Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Plato's doctrine was that the Forms and mathematicals are two substances and that the third substance is that of perceptible bodies.
     From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 1028b
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
15391 A substance is, roughly, a basic being or subject at the foundation of reality [Robb]
     Full Idea: A substance is a basic being, something at reality's foundation. What exactly this means is a matter of some controversy. Some philosophers think of substance as an ultimate subject, something that has properties but isn't a property.
     From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Intro')
     A reaction: This seems to capture the place of 'substance' in contemporary metaphysics. I think of 'substance' as a placeholder for some threatened account, even in Aristotle.