6 ideas
16698 | Days exist, and yet they seem to be made up of parts which don't exist [Burley] |
Full Idea: I grant that a successive being is composed out of non-beings, as is clear of a day, which is composed of non-entities. Some part of this day is past and some future, and yet this day is. | |
From: Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III text 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.3 | |
A reaction: The dilemma of Aristotle over time infected the scholastic attempt to give an account of successive entities. A day is a wonderfully elusive entity for a metaphysician. |
16690 | Unlike permanent things, successive things cannot exist all at once [Burley] |
Full Idea: This is the difference between permanent and successive things: that a permanent thing exists all at once, or at least can exist all at once, whereas it is incompatible with a successive thing to exist all at once. | |
From: Walter Burley (Commentary on 'Physics' [1325], III txt 11,f.65rb), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 18.1 | |
A reaction: Permanent things sound like what are now called 'three-dimensional' objects, but scholastic 'entia successiva' are not the same as spacetime 'worms' or collections of temporal stages. |
7906 | When the Buddha reached the highest level of insight, he could detect no self in the world [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: The great Buddha passed through the eight stages of Transic insight, and quickly reached their highest point. From the summit of the world downwards he could detect no self anywhere. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV) | |
A reaction: In the manner of Nietzsche, I am inclined to say that they find what they want to find, because that is their value. They want to get rid of the self, and dream of a mode in which existence continues without it. Is Buddhism opposed to human life? |
22086 | The most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
Full Idea: Kierkegaard insisted that the most important aspect of a human being is not reason, but passion. | |
From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (works [1845]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed Intro | |
A reaction: Hume comes to mind for a similar view, but in character Hume was far more rational than Kierkegaard. |
7904 | The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: The first stage of trance is calm amidst applied and discursive thinking. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], V.11) | |
A reaction: Personally I am not sure that I would want to go any further that the first stage, since the elimination of discursive thinking seems to me to be approaching death. To pursue intense thinking very calmly I take to be the ideal of all western philosophers. |
7905 | The Buddha sought ultimate reality and the final goal of existence in his meditations [Ashvaghosha] |
Full Idea: Next the Boddhisatva, possessed of great skill in Transic meditation, put himself into a trance, intent on discerning both the ultimate reality of things and the final goal of existence. | |
From: Ashvaghosha (Buddhacarita [c.50], XIV.2) | |
A reaction: The ontological and teleological goals of the Buddha were identical to the goals of the ancient Greek philosophers, and even we have teleological aims in our study of evolution. I would expect better results from the western approach. |