Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Commentary on 'De Anima'', 'What is so bad about Contradictions?' and 'fragments/reports'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

4 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 3. Non-Contradiction

9123	Someone standing in a doorway seems to be both in and not-in the room [Priest,G, by Sorensen]
	Full Idea: Priest says there is room for contradictions. He gives the example of someone in a doorway; is he in or out of the room. Given that in and out are mutually exclusive and exhaustive, and neither is the default, he seems to be both in and not in.
	From: report of Graham Priest (What is so bad about Contradictions? [1998]) by Roy Sorensen - Vagueness and Contradiction 4.3
	A reaction: Priest is a clever lad, but I don't think I can go with this. It just seems to be an equivocation on the word 'in' when applied to rooms. First tell me the criteria for being 'in' a room. What is the proposition expressed in 'he is in the room'?

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

16764	The soul conserves the body, as we see by its dissolution when the soul leaves [Toletus]
	Full Idea: Every accident of a living thing, as well as all its organs and temperaments and its dispositions are conserved by the soul. We see this from experience, since when that soul recedes, all these dissolve and become corrupted.
	From: Franciscus Toletus (Commentary on 'De Anima' [1572], II.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.5
	A reaction: A nice example of observing a phenemonon, but not being able to observe the dependence relation the right way round. Compare Descartes in Idea 16763.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances

22745	Pherecydes said the first principle and element is earth [Pherecydes, by Sext.Empiricus]
	Full Idea: Pherecydes of Syros said that the principle and element of all things is earth.
	From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Against the Physicists (two books) I.360
	A reaction: Sextus is giving the history, and mentions it before saying that Thales thought it was water. Earth seems a sensible starting point, and I am guessing that Thales was trying to think a bit more deeply than Pherecydes about it.

29. Religion / D. Religious Issues / 2. Immortality / a. Immortality

5883	Pherecydes was the first to say that the soul is eternal [Pherecydes, by Cicero]
	Full Idea: As far as the literature tells us, Pherecydes of Syros was the first who pronounced the souls of men to be eternal.
	From: report of Pherecydes (fragments/reports [c.600 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - Tusculan Disputations I.xvi.38
	A reaction: Presumably before that it was the physical person who arrived in the Underworld. The Hindu tradition seems to require the soul to be very long-lived, if not eternal. Why did Pherecydes come up with this idea?