Combining Texts

Ideas for 'works', 'Disputationes metaphysicae' and 'Many Politics'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / a. Intrinsic unification
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.
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 / a. Substance
Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: In the view of Suárez, substances are radically incomplete entities that cannot exist at all until determined in various ways by things of another kind, modes. …Modes are regarded as completers for their subjects.
     From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3
     A reaction: This is correct. In order to be a piece of clay it needs a shape, a mass, a colour etc. Treating clay as an object independently from its shape is a misunderstanding.
9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance
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