5 ideas
| 17962 | The truth-maker principle is that every truth has a sufficient truth-maker [Forrest] |
| Full Idea: Item x is said to be a sufficient truth-maker for truth-bearer p just in case necessarily if x exists then p is true. ...Every truth has a sufficient truth-maker. Hence, I take it, the sum of all sufficient truth-makers is a universal truth-maker. | |
| From: Peter Forrest (General Facts,Phys Necessity, and Metaph of Time [2006], 1) | |
| A reaction: Note that it is not 'necessary', because something else might make p true instead. |
| 18528 | The single imagined 'interval' between things only exists in the intellect [Auriol] |
| Full Idea: It appears that a single thing, which must be imagined as some sort of interval [intervallum] existing between two things, cannot exist in extramental reality, but only in the intellect. | |
| From: Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], I fols318 v a-b), quoted by John Heil - The Universe as We Find It 7 | |
| A reaction: This is the standard medieval denial of the existence of real relations. It contrasts with post-Russell ontology, which seems to admit relations as entities. Heil and Auriol and right. |
| 16668 | Modes of things exist in some way, without being full-blown substances [Gassendi] |
| Full Idea: Modes are not nothing but something more than mere nothing; they are therefore 'res' of some kind, not substantial of course, but at least modal. | |
| From: Pierre Gassendi (Disquisitions [1644], II.3.4), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 260 | |
| A reaction: This is the great modern atomist talking pure scholastic metaphysics. He's been reading Suárez. Gassendi seems to accept more than one type of existence. |
| 16589 | Prime matter lacks essence, but is only potentially and indeterminately a physical thing [Auriol] |
| Full Idea: Prime matter has no essence, nor a nature that is determinate, distinct, and actual. Instead, it is pure potential, and determinable, so that it is indeterminately and indistinctly a material thing. | |
| From: Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], II.12.1.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.1 | |
| A reaction: Pasnau thinks Auriol has the best shot at explaining the vague idea of 'prime matter', with the thought that it exists, but indeterminateness is what gives it a lesser mode of existence. It strikes me as best to treat 'exist' as univocal. |
| 16651 | God can do anything non-contradictory, as making straightness with no line, or lightness with no parts [Auriol] |
| Full Idea: If someone says 'God could make straightness without a line, and roughness and lightness in weight without parts', …then show me the reason why God can do whatever does not imply a contradiction, yet cannot do these things. | |
| From: Peter Auriol (Sentences [1316], IV.12.2.2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 11.4 | |
| A reaction: How engagingly bonkers. The key idea preceding this is that God can do all sorts of things that are beyond our understanding. He is then obliged to offer some examples. |