8 ideas
| 22115 | Wise people should contemplate and discuss the truth, and fight against falsehood [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The role of the wise person is to meditate on the truth, especially the truth regarding the first principle, and to discuss it with others, but also to fight against the falsity that is its contrary. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], I.1.6), quoted by Kretzmann/Stump - Aquinas, Thomas 14 | |
| A reaction: So nice to hear someone (from no matter how long ago) saying that wisdom is concerned with truth. If you lose your grip on truth (which many thinkers seem to have done) you must also abandon wisdom. Then fools rule. |
| 16664 | Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident [Albert of Saxony] |
| Full Idea: Everything that exists is either a substance or an accident. | |
| From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], I.18), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.2 | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the view of those who base their ontology on first-order classical logic. The more austere reading of that makes the accidents into sets of substances, so it's just substances. All the non-substance stuff cries out for recognition. |
| 16703 | God could make a successive thing so that previous parts cease to exist [Albert of Saxony] |
| Full Idea: Something can be conceived of as successive simpliciter, with respect to both its substance and its state. For example, if Socrates were continually made and made again by the First Cause, as the Seine flow, so nothing of what preexists remains. | |
| From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.4 | |
| A reaction: This is precisely the problem that modern stage theory faces, of knowing how to connect the stages together. |
| 16699 | Successive entities just need parts to succeed one another, without their existence [Albert of Saxony] |
| Full Idea: For existence to hold of completely successive entities it is not required that their parts exist, but that one part succeed another, as a future part succeeds a past part. | |
| From: Albert of Saxony (On 'Physics' [1357], III.3 ad 2), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3 | |
| A reaction: A nice move, but it doesn't quite solve it. How can non-existent things 'succeed one another'? It is worrying for metaphysics that some things have entirely different concepts of persistence from other things. |
| 20700 | Without God's influence every operation would stop, so God causes everything [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: If God's divine influence stopped, every operation would stop. Every operation, therefore, of everything is traced back to him as cause. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], III.67), quoted by Brian Davies - Introduction to the Philosophy of Religion 3 'Freedom' | |
| A reaction: If the systematic interraction of mind and body counts as an 'operation', then this seems to imply Occasionalism. |
| 13304 | Learned men gain more in one day than others do in a lifetime [Posidonius] |
| Full Idea: In a single day there lies open to men of learning more than there ever does to the unenlightened in the longest of lifetimes. | |
| From: Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]), quoted by Seneca the Younger - Letters from a Stoic 078 | |
| A reaction: These remarks endorsing the infinite superiority of the educated to the uneducated seem to have been popular in late antiquity. It tends to be the religions which discourage great learning, especially in their emphasis on a single book. |
| 20820 | Time is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed [Posidonius, by Stobaeus] |
| Full Idea: Posidonius defined time thus: it is an interval of motion, or the measure of speed and slowness. | |
| From: report of Posidonius (fragments/reports [c.95 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
| A reaction: Hm. Can we define motion or speed without alluding to time? Looks like we have to define them as a conjoined pair, which means we cannot fully understand either of them. |
| 15202 | Eternity coexists with passing time, as the centre of a circle coexists with its circumference [Aquinas] |
| Full Idea: The centre of a circle is directly opposite any designated point on the circumference. In this way, whatever is in any part of time coexists with what is eternal as being present to it even though past or future with respect to another part of time. | |
| From: Thomas Aquinas (Summa Contra Gentiles [1268], I.66), quoted by Robin Le Poidevin - Past, Present and Future of Debate about Tense 2 c | |
| A reaction: A nice example of a really cool analogy which almost gets you to accept something which is actually completely incomprehensible. |