↪Joshs
I think you overstate the case. It is not simply a matter of style but of philology and context. We need to be aware of how key terms were used and how they have changed over time. With regard to context, the beliefs and arguments he is directly and indirectly responding to as well as political constraints — Fooloso4
In my analysis, it basically stems from Descartes' designation of mind or consciousness as 'res cogitans' which means 'thinking thing' ('res' being Latin for 'thing or object')*. This leads to the disastrously oxymoronic conception of 'a thinking substance' which is the single biggest contributor to modern physicalist philosophy. — Wayfarer
How would your respond to the suggestion that to return to Aristotle from the vantage of the 21st century is to filter his ideas through the entire lineage of Western philosophy that came after him and transformed his concepts? The implication is that for someone who has assimilated the insights of Descartes and those philosophers who followed and critiques him, to prefer Aristotle over Descartes is to re-interpret Aristotle from a post-Cartesian perspective — Joshs
Like Macbeth, Western man made an evil decision, which has become the efficient and final cause of other evil decisions. Have we forgotten our encounter with the witches on the heath? It occurred in the late fourteenth century, and what the witches said to the protagonist of this drama was that man could realize himself more fully if he would only abandon his belief in the existence of transcendentals. The powers of darkness were working subtly, as always, and they couched this proposition in the seemingly innocent form of an attack upon universals. The defeat of logical realism in the great medieval debate was the crucial event in the history of Western culture; from this flowed those acts which issue now in modern decadence. — Ideas have Consequences, Weaver
I don't think Descartes plays a significant role in the work being done in cognitive science, but he does play a role in historical accounts. — Fooloso4
Which "etymological dictionary" are you referring to? — Paine
Isn't Kahn's point that existence is not an adequate translation of einia because to "step out" is to step out from something? — Fooloso4
Degrees of Reality
In contrast to contemporary philosophers, most 17th century philosophers held that reality comes in degrees—that some things that exist are more or less real than other things that exist. At least part of what dictates a being’s reality, according to these philosophers, is the extent to which its existence is dependent on other things: the less dependent a thing is on other things for its existence, the more real it is. Given that there are only substances and modes, and that modes depend on substances for their existence, it follows that substances are the most real constituents of reality.
God Exists and is a Substance
Furthermore, each of the philosophers we will discuss maintains (and offer arguments on behalf of the claim) that God exists, and that God’s existence is absolutely independent. It is not surprising then, given the above, that each of these philosophers holds that God is a substance par excellence. — 17th C Theories of Substance
Aristotelian-Thomist philosophy — Wayfarer
So to exist is to be separate, to be this as distinct from that. — Wayfarer
There are many senses in which a thing may be said to 'be', but all that 'is' is related to one central point, one definite kind of thing, and is not said to 'be' by a mere ambiguity. (Metaphysics Book 4, Chapter 1)
There used to be an explicit statement that 'ontology' was derived from the first-person participle of 'to be' (i.e. 'I am') on one of the online dictionaries, but it's gone now. — Wayfarer
The term οὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am"
Perhaps you meant this:
Ousia
The term οὐσία is an Ancient Greek noun, formed on the feminine present participle of the verb εἰμί, eimí, meaning "to be, I am" — Fooloso4
If a system isn't a real thing then certainly, by your logic, there are no real things. — Pantagruel
An atom is a system. — Pantagruel
And yes, it is an 'arbitrary' boundary if by that you mean at some point the atom didn't exist and at some point it will cease to exist. Again, if that is your definition of arbitrary, then we live in a Heraclitean world and the only thing that really exists is change. — Pantagruel
Time to change your username to Metaphysician Uncovered or much better suited Theologian Uncovered. — Fooloso4
Where exactly in Metaphysics does he say that material objects are preceded in time by the potential for their existence? Where does Aristotle say that God acts on potentiality to make it into something actual? — Fooloso4
Obviously, therefore, the substance or form is actuality. According to this argument, then, it is obvious that actuality is prior in substantial being to potency; and as we have said, one actuality always precedes another in time right back to the actuality of the eternal prime mover. — Aristotle, Metaphysics Bk9 Ch 8 1050b
But prior in time to these potential entities are other actual entities from which the former are generated; for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man, cultured by cultured—there is always some prime mover; and that which initiates motion exists already in actuality. (1049b)
It is also prior in a deeper sense; because that which is eternal is prior in substantiality to that which is perishable, and nothing eternal is potential. (1050b)
It is also worth inquiring how time is related to the soul and why time is thought to exist in everything, on the earth and on the sea and in the heaven. Is it not in view of the fact that it is an attribute or a possession of a motion, by being a number (of a motion), and the fact that all these things are movable? For all of them are in a place, and time is simultaneous with a motion whether with respect to potentiality or with respect to actuality.
One might also raise the problem of whether time would exist not if no soul existed; for, if no one can exist to do the numbering, no thing can be numbered. So if nothing can do the numbering except a soul or the intellect of a soul, no time can exist without the existence of soul, unless it be that which when existing, time exists, that is if a motion can exist without a soul. As for the prior and the posterior, they exist in motion; and they are time qua being numerable. — Physics, 223a15, translated by HG Apostle
Actual knowledge is identical with its object. But potential knowledge is prior in time in the individual, but not prior even in time in general; for all things that come to be are derived from that which is so actually. — De Anima, 431a1
Above all, one might go over the difficulties raised by this question: What do the Form contribute to the eternal beings among the sensibles or to those which are generated and destroyed? For they are not the cause of motion or change in them. And they do not in any way help either towards the knowledge of the other things (for the are not substances of them; otherwise they would be in them) or towards their existence (for they are not present in the things which share them). — Metaphysics, 1079b11, translated by HG Apostle
An "atom" is a theoretical representation. Atoms do not have independent existence in nature, — Metaphysician Undercover
If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover. — Fooloso4
Ye are quite mad lad. Bon voyage, enjoy the ride! :) — Pantagruel
There is nothing to indicate that the world might be eternal. — Metaphysician Undercover
there is potentiality and actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover
So that possibility, that the world is eternal and there no potentiality or actuality is easily excluded as unreal. — Metaphysician Undercover
In the Physics he argues that it is. — Fooloso4
he potentiality and actuality of what? There can be no potentiality and actuality of something that is not. Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. — Fooloso4
The former does not preclude the latter. — Fooloso4
anything composed of matter is corruptible — Metaphysician Undercover
... for the actually existent is always generated from the potentially existent by something which is actually existent—e.g., man by man ...
The former precludes the latter under the conditions of your conditional proposition: "If the world is eternal then there can be no prior potentiality or actuality or prime mover." — Metaphysician Undercover
You obviously have no education in basic chemistry, so you take the route of dfpolis, deny the facts and ignore the reality. — Metaphysician Undercover
Potentiality and actuality does not exist apart from those things they are the potentiality and actuality of. If the world is eternal there has always been something with potentiality and actuality. No potentiality and actuality prior to the world. — Fooloso4
My education must have gaping holes in it. Much more obvious than the facticty of atoms being evident qua properties in the external world which we experience constantly. — Pantagruel
What is used in his demonstration that the world is not eternal, is the concepts of potentiality and actuality. — Metaphysician Undercover
The true form of the thing consists of accidents — Metaphysician Undercover
Therefore potentiality and actuality, as concepts, — Metaphysician Undercover
This is commonly known as the separation between the world and the representation, map and terrain. — Metaphysician Undercover
As long as you think that by potentiality and actuality Aristotle means a representation you will remain hopelessly confused. — Fooloso4
Answer me then, he said, what is it that, present in a body, makes it living?
Cebes: A soul. (105c)
What you deny is that potentiality and actuality do not exist apart from those things that they are the potentiality and actuality of. If we cannot agree on that then we cannot agree on what follows from it. — Fooloso4
Substance , in the truest and primary and most definite sense of the word, is that which is neither predicable of a subject nor present in a subject; for instance the individual man or horse. — Categories Ch 5, 2a, 11-12
As long as you think that by potentiality and actuality Aristotle means a representation you will remain hopelessly confused. — Fooloso4
Things are systems of a very basic or maybe well-understood kind. — Pantagruel
The point was you said an atom had a purely theoretical and not a real existence, which is absurd. — Pantagruel
Maybe the theoretical concept of an atom doesn't correspond in toto to the actuality, but that is a limitation of perception and representation that doesn't eliminate the underlying correlation of the intentional object and the reality it intends towards. — Pantagruel
You can't perceive a "season" but seasons most certainly exist. — Pantagruel
The point being, we should not, as is commonly assumed, read Aristotle as a rejection of Plato. — Fooloso4
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