16766
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One thing needs a single thing to unite it; if there were two forms, something must unite them [Aquinas]
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Full Idea:
One thing simpliciter is produced out of many actually existing things only if there is something uniting and tying them to each other. If Socrates were animal and rational by different forms, then to be united they would need something to make them one.
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From:
Thomas Aquinas (Quaestiones de anima [1269], 11c), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 25.2
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A reaction:
This is the reply to the idea that a single thing is just an interesting of many sortal essences. It presumes, of course, that a thing like a horse has something called 'unity'.
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16638
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The qualities of the world are mere appearances; reality is the motions which cause them [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Whatsoever accidents or qualities our senses make us think there be in the world, they are not there, but are seemings and apparitions only. The things that really are in the world without us are those motions by which these seemings are caused.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.2.10), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 10.2
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A reaction:
This seems to count as a sense-datum theory, rather than a representative theory of perception, since it makes no commitment to the qualities containing any accurate information at all. We just start from the qualities and try to work it out.
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16688
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Evidence is conception, which is imagination, which proceeds from the senses [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
All evidence is conception, as it is said, and all conception is imagination and proceeds from sense. And spirits we suppose to be those substances which work not upon the sense, and therefore not conceptible.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640], I.11.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 16.2
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A reaction:
This is exactly the same as Hume's claim that all ideas are the result of impressions, and is the very essence of empiricism. We see here that such an epistemology can have huge consequences.
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23217
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All of our happiness and misery arises entirely from the brain [Hippocrates]
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Full Idea:
Men ought to know that from the brain, and from the brain alone, arise our pleasures, joys, laughter and jests, as well as our sorrow, pains, griefs and tears.
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From:
Hippocrates (Hippocrates of Cos on the mind [c.430 BCE], p.32)
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A reaction:
If this could be assertedly so confidently at that date, why was the fact so slow to catch on? Brain injuries should have convinced everyone.
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7410
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Self-preservation is basic, and people judge differently about that, implying ethical relativism [Hobbes, by Tuck]
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Full Idea:
If men are their own judges of what conduces to their preservation, ..all men make different decisions about what counts as a danger, so (for Hobbes) the grimmest version of ethical relativism seems to be the only possible ethical vision.
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From:
report of Thomas Hobbes (The Elements of Law [1640]) by Richard Tuck - Hobbes Ch.2
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A reaction:
This might depend on self-preservation being the only fundamental value. But if self-preservation is not a pressing issue, presumably other values might come into play, some of them less concerned with the individual's own interests.
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