Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Coming-to-be and Passing-away (Gen/Corr)', 'Subjective View: sec qualities and indexicals' and 'The Sophist'

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60 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 2. Invocation to Philosophy
We must fight fiercely for knowledge, understanding and intelligence [Plato]
1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 5. Aims of Philosophy / a. Philosophy as worldly
Unobservant thinkers tend to dogmatise using insufficient facts [Aristotle]
1. Philosophy / F. Analytic Philosophy / 7. Limitations of Analysis
The desire to split everything into its parts is unpleasant and unphilosophical [Plato]
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 1. Dialectic
Good analysis involves dividing things into appropriate forms without confusion [Plato]
Dialectic should only be taught to those who already philosophise well [Plato]
2. Reason / C. Styles of Reason / 2. Elenchus
In discussion a person's opinions are shown to be in conflict, leading to calm self-criticism [Plato]
6. Mathematics / A. Nature of Mathematics / 5. The Infinite / c. Potential infinite
Infinity is only potential, never actual [Aristotle]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 2. Types of Existence
Existence is either potential or actual [Aristotle]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / d. Non-being
What does 'that which is not' refer to? [Plato]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / e. Being and nothing
If statements about non-existence are logically puzzling, so are statements about existence [Plato]
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
To be is to have a capacity, to act on other things, or to receive actions [Plato]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 1. Nature of Change
True change is in a thing's logos or its matter, not in its qualities [Aristotle]
A change in qualities is mere alteration, not true change [Aristotle]
If the substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; if it doesn't, it is 'coming-to-be' or 'passing-away' [Aristotle]
7. Existence / B. Change in Existence / 2. Processes
All comings-to-be are passings-away, and vice versa [Aristotle]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 2. Realism
To explain object qualities, primary qualities must be more than mere sources of experience [McGinn]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 6. Physicalism
Some alarming thinkers think that only things which you can touch exist [Plato]
7. Existence / D. Theories of Reality / 11. Ontological Commitment / a. Ontological commitment
Whenever there's speech it has to be about something [Plato]
8. Modes of Existence / D. Universals / 6. Platonic Forms / a. Platonic Forms
Good thinkers spot forms spread through things, or included within some larger form [Plato]
The not-beautiful is part of the beautiful, though opposed to it, and is just as real [Plato]
9. Objects / A. Existence of Objects / 6. Nihilism about Objects
If we see everything as separate, we can then give no account of it [Plato]
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 3. Matter of an Object
Matter is the substratum, which supports both coming-to-be and alteration [Aristotle]
9. Objects / E. Objects over Time / 10. Beginning of an Object
Does the pure 'this' come to be, or the 'this-such', or 'so-great', or 'somewhere'? [Aristotle]
Philosophers have worried about coming-to-be from nothing pre-existing [Aristotle]
The substratum changing to a contrary is the material cause of coming-to-be [Aristotle]
If a perceptible substratum persists, it is 'alteration'; coming-to-be is a complete change [Aristotle]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / b. Primary/secondary
Which of the contrary features of a body are basic to it? [Aristotle]
Being red simply consists in looking red [McGinn]
Relativity means differing secondary perceptions are not real disagreements [McGinn]
Phenomenalism is correct for secondary qualities, so scepticism is there impossible [McGinn]
Maybe all possible sense experience must involve both secondary and primary qualities [McGinn]
You understood being red if you know the experience involved; not so with thngs being square [McGinn]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / c. Primary qualities
You don't need to know how a square thing looks or feels to understand squareness [McGinn]
Touch doesn't provide direct experience of primary qualities, because touch feels temperature [McGinn]
We can perceive objectively, because primary qualities are not mind-created [McGinn]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 2. Qualities in Perception / d. Secondary qualities
Lockean secondary qualities (unlike primaries) produce particular sensory experiences [McGinn]
Could there be a mind which lacked secondary quality perception? [McGinn]
Secondary qualities contain information; their variety would be superfluous otherwise [McGinn]
The utility theory says secondary qualities give information useful to human beings [McGinn]
12. Knowledge Sources / B. Perception / 3. Representation
We see objects 'directly' by representing them [McGinn]
12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism
A soul without understanding is ugly [Plato]
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 9. Indexical Thought
The indexical perspective is subjective, incorrigible and constant [McGinn]
Indexical thought is in relation to my self-consciousness [McGinn]
Indexicals do not figure in theories of physics, because they are not explanatory causes [McGinn]
Indexical concepts are indispensable, as we need them for the power to act [McGinn]
19. Language / C. Assigning Meanings / 9. Indexical Semantics
I can know indexical truths a priori, unlike their non-indexical paraphrases [McGinn]
23. Ethics / A. Egoism / 1. Ethical Egoism
Wickedness is an illness of the soul [Plato]
25. Social Practice / E. Policies / 5. Education / c. Teaching
Didactic education is hard work and achieves little [Plato]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / a. Greek matter
Matter is the limit of points and lines, and must always have quality and form [Aristotle]
The primary matter is the substratum for the contraries like hot and cold [Aristotle]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / c. Ultimate substances
There couldn't be just one element, which was both water and air at the same time [Aristotle]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / f. Ancient elements
The Four Elements must change into one another, or else alteration is impossible [Aristotle]
Fire is hot and dry; Air is hot and moist; Water is cold and moist; Earth is cold and dry [Aristotle]
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism
Bodies are endlessly divisible [Aristotle]
Wood is potentially divided through and through, so what is there in the wood besides the division? [Aristotle]
If a body is endlessly divided, is it reduced to nothing - then reassembled from nothing? [Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 1. Nature of Time / b. Relative time
There is no time without movement [Aristotle]
27. Natural Reality / E. Cosmology / 2. Eternal Universe
If each thing can cease to be, why hasn't absolutely everything ceased to be long ago? [Aristotle]
28. God / B. Proving God / 2. Proofs of Reason / a. Ontological Proof
Being is better than not-being [Aristotle]
28. God / B. Proving God / 3. Proofs of Evidence / b. Teleological Proof
An Order controls all things [Aristotle]