Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Quaestiones de Potentia Dei', 'Platonism and the Spiritual Life' and 'Substance'

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

---

4 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 1. Unifying an Object / b. Unifying aggregates

17555	'One' can mean undivided and not a multitude, or it can add measurement, giving number [Aquinas]
	Full Idea: There are two sorts of one. There is the one which is convertible with being, which adds nothing to being except being undivided; and this deprives of multitude. Then there is the principle of number, which to the notion of being adds measurement.
	From: Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de Potentia Dei [1269], q3 a16 ad 3-um)
	A reaction: [From a lecture handout] I'm not sure I understand this. We might say, I suppose, that insofar as water is water, it is all one, but you can't count it. Perhaps being 'unified' and being a 'unity' are different?

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined

15391	A substance is, roughly, a basic being or subject at the foundation of reality [Robb]
	Full Idea: A substance is a basic being, something at reality's foundation. What exactly this means is a matter of some controversy. Some philosophers think of substance as an ultimate subject, something that has properties but isn't a property.
	From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Intro')
	A reaction: This seems to capture the place of 'substance' in contemporary metaphysics. I think of 'substance' as a placeholder for some threatened account, even in Aristotle.

9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 8. Parts of Objects / c. Wholes from parts

15392	If an object survives the loss of a part, complex objects can have autonomy over their parts [Robb]
	Full Idea: Sometimes a whole can survive a loss of parts: the chair would still exist if it lost one of its legs. This seems to give complex objects a sort of autonomy over their parts.
	From: David Robb (Substance [2009], 'Ident')
	A reaction: There is then a puzzle as to how much loss of parts the whole can survive, and why. The loss of a major part could be devastating, so why do all wholes not exhibit this relation to all their parts? I demand rules, now!

22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / e. Human nature

23060	The good is not relative, but is rooted in facts about human needs [Santayana]
	Full Idea: The good is by no means relative to opinion, but is rooted in the unconscious and fatal nature of living beings, a nature which predetermines for them the difference between foods and poisons, happiness and misery.
	From: George Santayana (Platonism and the Spiritual Life [1927], p.3), quoted by John Gray - Seven Types of Atheism 6
	A reaction: That is, he concedes that the good is relative to human beings, but that the relevant facts about human beings are not relative. I think he has the correct picture. The key point is that the good is 'rooted' in something, and doesn't just float free.