display all the ideas for this combination of texts
14 ideas
| 9607 | The greatest discovery in human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects [Brown,JR on Plato] |
| Full Idea: The greatest discovery in the history of human thought is Plato's discovery of abstract objects. | |
| From: comment on Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by James Robert Brown - Philosophy of Mathematics Ch. 2 | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 2860! Given the diametrically opposed views, it is clearly likely that Plato's central view is the most important idea in the history of human thought, even if it is wrong. |
| 13263 | We can grasp whole things in science, because they have a mathematics and a teleology [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Due to the mathematical nature of structure and the teleological cause underlying the creation of Platonic wholes, these wholes are intelligible, and are in fact the proper objects of science. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.3 | |
| A reaction: I like this idea, because it pays attention to the connection between how we conceive objects to be, and how we are able to think about objects. Only examining these two together enables us to grasp metaphysics. |
| 13090 | The principle of diversity for corporeal substances is their matter [Aquinas, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: In the view of Aquinas, while substantial form is the ultimate ground of identity and difference of angels, it is matter that provides a principle of diversity in the case of corporeal substances. | |
| From: report of Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 5.2.3 | |
| A reaction: This is at least as good a proposal as their apatial location. There is more chance of reidentifying matter than of precisely reidentifying a spatial location. Two indistinguishable spheres remain the classic problem case (of Max Black, Idea 10195) |
| 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! |
| 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 |
| 13260 | Plato says wholes are either containers, or they're atomic, or they don't exist [Plato, by Koslicki] |
| Full Idea: Plato considers a 'container' model for wholes (which are disjoint from their parts) [Parm 144e3-], and a 'nihilist' model, in which only wholes are mereological atoms, and a 'bare pluralities' view, in which wholes are not really one at all. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 5.2 | |
| A reaction: [She cites Verity Harte for this analysis of Plato] The fourth, and best, seems to be that wholes are parts which fall under some unifying force or structure or principle. |
| 11202 | It is by having essence that things exist [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: It is by having essence that things exist. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.94) | |
| A reaction: Compare Idea 11199, which gives a fuller picture. This idea seems to suggest essence as the cause of existence, which sounds wrong. Perhaps essence is a necessary condition of existence, but it is necessary that nothing indeterminate can exist? |
| 11237 | Only universals have essence [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato argues that only universals have essence. | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |
| 11203 | Specific individual essence is defined by material, and generic essence is defined by form [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Specific essence differs from generic essence by being demarcated: individuals are demarcated within species by dimensionally defined material, but species within genus by a defining differentiation taken from the form. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.95) | |
| A reaction: It clearly won't be enough to define an individual just to define its material and its shape. The material might also be essential to the genus, as when defining fire. Probably not very helpful. |
| 11200 | The definition of a physical object must include the material as well as the form [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Form alone cannot be a composite substance's essence. For a thing's essence is expressed by its definition, and unless the definition of a physical substance included both form and material, the definition wouldn't differ from mathematical objects. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.93) | |
| A reaction: This is the sort of thoroughly sensible remark that you only get from the greatest philosophers. Minor philosophers fall in love with things like forms, and then try to use them to explain everything. |
| 11196 | Essence is something in common between the natures which sort things into categories [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: Since being as belonging to a category expresses the 'isness' of things, and belongs to all ten Aristotelian categories, essence must be something all the natures that sort different beings into genera and species have in common. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.92) | |
| A reaction: I like this because it is the essence which does the sorting, not the sorting which defines the essence (which seems to me to be a deep and widespread confusion). |
| 11208 | A simple substance is its own essence [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: A simple substance is its own essence. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (De Ente et Essentia (Being and Essence) [1267], p.103) | |
| A reaction: Aquinas takes complex substances to have their essences in various ways, but this thought is the basis of all essence. Presumably the Greek word 'ousia' names the key ingredient. |
| 11238 | Plato and Aristotle take essence to make a thing what it is [Plato, by Politis] |
| Full Idea: Plato and Aristotle have a shared general conception of essence: the essence of a thing is what that thing is simply in virtue of itself and in virtue of being the very thing it is. It answers the question 'What is this very thing?' | |
| From: report of Plato (works [c.375 BCE]) by Vassilis Politis - Aristotle and the Metaphysics 1.4 |