8 ideas
| 1597 | Thales was the first western thinker to believe the arché was intelligible [Roochnik on Thales] |
| Full Idea: Thales was the first thinker in the west to believe that the arché (the basis of things) was intelligible. | |
| From: comment on Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by David Roochnik - The Tragedy of Reason p.138 |
| 16740 | A power is not a cause, but an aptitude for a cause [Zabarella] |
| Full Idea: A power is not the cause of an operation, but only the cause's aptitude for operating. | |
| From: Jacob Zabarella (De rebus naturalibus [1590], De fac anim 4:col 692), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 | |
| A reaction: His example is the power of running, which is actually caused by the soul (or whatever), which generates the power. A power is a very superficial thing. |
| 3013 | Nothing is stronger than necessity, which rules everything [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Necessity is the strongest of things, for it rules everything. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.2.9 |
| 7903 | The six perfections are giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom [Nagarjuna] |
| Full Idea: The six perfections are of giving, morality, patience, vigour, meditation, and wisdom. | |
| From: Nagarjuna (Mahaprajnaparamitashastra [c.120], 88) | |
| A reaction: What is 'morality', if giving is not part of it? I like patience and vigour being two of the virtues, which immediately implies an Aristotelian mean (which is always what is 'appropriate'). |
| 16571 | Prime matter is exceptionally obscure [Zabarella] |
| Full Idea: Nothing in the natural world seems to be more obscure and difficult to grasp than the prime matter of things. | |
| From: Jacob Zabarella (De rebus naturalibus [1590], I.1 col 133), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 2.1 | |
| A reaction: This spells the beginning of the end for 'prime matter', since a late scholastic is doubting it, even before the scientists got to work. Most modern Aristotelians slide quietly past prime matter, as unhelpful. |
| 1494 | Thales said water is the first principle, perhaps from observing that food is moist [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Thales says water is the first principle (which is why he declared the earth is on water); perhaps he concluded this from seeing that all food is moist. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE], A12) by Aristotle - Metaphysics 983b12 |
| 1713 | Thales must have thought soul causes movement, since he thought magnets have soul [Thales, by Aristotle] |
| Full Idea: Thales seems, from what is recorded of him, to have supposed that the soul is something productive of movement, if he really said that the magnet has soul because it produces movement in iron. | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Aristotle - De Anima 405a20 |
| 1742 | Thales said the gods know our wrong thoughts as well as our evil actions [Thales, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: When asked whether a man who did wrong could escape the notice of the gods, Thales is said to have replied: 'No, not even if he thinks wrong.' | |
| From: report of Thales (fragments/reports [c.585 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 01.Th.9 |