Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Quaestiones de Potentia Dei' and 'The Confessions'

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4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates

17555	'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: There are two sorts of one. There is the one which is convertible with being, which adds nothing to being except being undivided; and this deprives of multitude. Then there is the principle of number, which to the notion of being adds measurement.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de Potentia Dei [1269], q3 a16 ad 3-um)
	A reaction: [From a lecture handout] I'm not sure I understand this. We might say, I suppose, that insofar as water is water, it is all one, but you can't count it. Perhaps being 'unified' and being a 'unity' are different?

24. Political Theory / D. Ideologies / 9. Communism

19745	The nature of people is decided by the government and politics of their society [Rousseau]
	Full Idea: Everything is rooted in politics, and whatever might be attempted, no people would ever be other than the nature of their government made them.
	From: Jean-Jacques Rousseau (The Confessions [1770], 9-1756)
	A reaction: A striking anticipation of one of Marx's most important ideas - that society is not created by individual minds, because the nature of consciousness is created by society. The central idea in the subject of sociology, I think.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature

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

27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution

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.