Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Parmenides', 'On Copernicanism and Relativity of Motion' and 'Letter to Herodotus'

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2 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates
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.
A 'body' is a conception of an aggregate, with properties defined by application conditions [Epicurus]
     Full Idea: Properties are known by their peculiar forms of application and comprehension, in close accompaniment with the aggregate [of atoms], which is given the predicate 'body' by reference to the aggregate conception.
     From: Epicurus (Letter to Herodotus [c.293 BCE], 69)
     A reaction: There is an interesting hint here of how to think of properties (as both applying and comprehended in some distinctive way), and a suggestion that there is something conventional about bodies, depending on how we conceive them.