Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'fragments/reports' and 'Morals and Modals'

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

---

7 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / a. Nature of Being

12270	Being is one [Melissus, by Aristotle]
	Full Idea: Being is one.
	From: report of Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Aristotle - Topics 104b23
	A reaction: I can only really understand this in terms of physics, as the belief that ultimately there is one simple theory which explains everything. That project doesn't look terribly promising, despite the lovely simplifications of modern physics.

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 1. Sources of Necessity

14629	If we are told the source of necessity, this seems to be a regress if the source is not already necessary [Blackburn]
	Full Idea: If we ask why A must be the case, and A is then proved from B, that explains it if B must be so. If the eventual source cites some truth F, then if F just is so, there is strong pressure to feel that the original necessity has not been explained.
	From: Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], 1)
	A reaction: [compressed] Ross Cameron wrote a reply to this which I like. I'm fishing for the idea that essence is the source of necessity (as Kit Fine says), but that essence itself is not necessary (as only I say, apparently!).

14529	If something underlies a necessity, is that underlying thing necessary or contingent? [Blackburn, by Hale/Hoffmann,A]
	Full Idea: Blackburn asks of what theorists propose as underlying the necessity of a proposition, the question whether they themselves are conceived as obtaining of necessity or merely contingently.
	From: report of Simon Blackburn (Morals and Modals [1987], p.120-1) by Bob Hale/ Aviv Hoffmann - Introduction to 'Modality' 1
	A reaction: I've seen a reply to this somewhere: I think the thought was that a necessity wouldn't be any less necessary if it had a contingent source, any more than the father of a world champion boxer has to be a world champion boxer.

23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 3. Virtues / a. Virtues

6004	The cardinal virtues are theoretical (based on knowledge), and others are 'non-theoretical' [Hecato, by Dorandi]
	Full Idea: Hecato defined the cardinal virtues as 'theoretical', that is, based on knowledge, and to these he opposed those that are 'non-theoretical', for example, health, beauty, strength of spirit, and courage.
	From: report of Hecato (fragments/reports [c.70 BCE]) by Tiziano Dorandi - Hecato of Rhodes
	A reaction: Mostly these are Aristotle's external and non-external virtues, except that courage is here included among the former, implying, presumably, that it is more of a natural gift than an intellectual achievement.

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement

3059	There is no real motion, only the appearance of it [Melissus, by Diog. Laertius]
	Full Idea: There is no such thing as real motion, but there only appears to be such.
	From: report of Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.4.3

27. Natural Reality / C. Space / 1. Void

5100	The void is not required for change, because a plenum can alter in quality [Aristotle on Melissus]
	Full Idea: There is no need for void to be the cause of all change, because it is perfectly possible for a plenum to alter qualitatively (which is something Melissus overlooked).
	From: comment on Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE]) by Aristotle - Physics 214a27
	A reaction: In modern physics this presumably gives us fluctuations in a force field. Motion is like a cat being digested by a python. The atomist claim that emptiness is needed if anything is to move still has intuitive appeal.

27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 2. Eternal Universe

456	Nothing could come out of nothing [Melissus]
	Full Idea: If Nothing existed, in no way could anything come into being out of nothing.
	From: Melissus (fragments/reports [c.443 BCE], B1), quoted by (who?) - where?