7 ideas
16641 | Whiteness does not exist, but by it something can exist-as-white [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Whiteness is said to exist not because it subsists in itself, but because by it something has existence-as-white. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], IX.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2 | |
A reaction: It seems unavoidable to refer to the whiteness as 'it'. It might be called the 'adverbial' theory of properties, as ways of doing something. |
22170 | Senses grasp external properties, but the understanding grasps the essential natures of things [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: Our imagination and senses grasp only the outer properties of things, not their natures. ...Understanding, however, grasps the very substance and nature of things, so that what is represented in understanding is a likeness of thing's very essence. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
A reaction: This is exactly the picture I endorse for modern science. Explanation is the path to understanding, and that must venture beyond immediate experience. |
22169 | Initial universal truths are present within us as potential, to be drawn out by reason [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: For present in us by nature are certain initial truths everyone knows, in which lie potentially known conclusions our reasons can draw out and make actually known. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.2) | |
A reaction: Note that these are truths rather than concepts, but that they have to be 'drawn out' by reason. This is Descartes' view of the matter, where the 'natural light' of reason is needed to articulate what is innate, such as geometry. |
22168 | Minds take in a likeness of things, which activates an awaiting potential [Aquinas] |
Full Idea: What the mind takes in is not some material element of the agent, but a likeness of the agent actualising some potential the patient already has. This, for example, is the way our seeing takes in the colour of a coloured body. | |
From: Thomas Aquinas (Quodlibeta [1267], 8.2.1) | |
A reaction: This is exactly right. Descartes agreed. It works for colour, but not (obviously) for cheese graters. |
3449 | If parallelism is true, how does the mind know about the body? [Crease] |
Full Idea: In parallelism, the idea that we have a body is like an astronaut hearing shouting on the moon, and reasoning that as this is impossible he must be simultaneously imagining shouting AND there is real shouting taking place! | |
From: Jason Crease (works [2001]), quoted by PG - Db (ideas) | |
A reaction: This seems to capture the absurdity of Leibniz's proposal. I experience what my brain is doing, but not because my brain is doing it. I would never know if God had made a slight error in setting His two 'clocks'; their accuracy is just a pious hope. |
1748 | Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3 |
5989 | Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield] |
Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime. | |
From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus | |
A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea. |