Once, I received a big protest from a female interlocutor because I a had used the word "he" . — Alkis Piskas
The problem with this is that potential being is not actual or operational being, and so it cannot do anything -- like limit how we think.One can make the argument that there is something like a space of all possible concepts. Like the rules of mathematical syntax. It is already defined which concepts can be formed and which cannot. — Heiko
Most probably. I hope so! :smile:When it was made, the sexist connotation escaped notice. — Dfpolis
When I say "For every natural number X there exists a number X+1", does such a number exist for every natural number of your choice? It is widely accepted that, it does of course, because it must exist per definition of the natural numbers itself.Concepts are beings of reason, existing only when actually thought — Dfpolis
The problem is confusing this kind of "existence," which has no ability to do anything, with metaphysical existence, which invariably can do something -- even if it can only make itself known. What does nothing is indistinguishable from nothing, and so is nothing.When I say "For every natural number X there exists a number X+1", does such a number exist for every natural number of your choice? It is widely accepted that, it does of course, because it must exist per definition of the natural numbers itself. — Heiko
I don't think that's what 'form' means. Socrates truly is the form 'man' but the form 'man' is common to all men. Likewise for forms generally. — Wayfarer
But the universal too seems to some people to be most of all a cause, and the universal most of all a starting-point. So let us turn to that too. For it seems impossible for any of the things said [of something] universally to be substance. For first the substance of each thing is special to it, in that it does not belong to anything else. A universal, by contrast, is something common, since that thing is said to be a universal which naturally belongs to many things. Of which, then, will it be the substance? For it is either the substance of none or of all. And it cannot be the substance of all. — Metaphysics, 1038b9, translated by CDC Reeve
But in fact, as has been said, the ultimate matter and the shape are one and the same, the one potentially, the other actively, so that it is the same to look for what is the cause of oneness or what is the cause of being one.946 For each thing is a one, and what potentially is and what actively is are in a way one. And so there is no other cause here, unless there is something that brought about the movement from potentiality to activity. Things that have no matter, though, are all unconditionally just what is a one. — Metaphysics,1045b20, translated by CDC Reeve
What we wish to say is clear from the particular cases by induction, and we must not look for a definition of everything, but be able to comprehend the analogy, namely, that as what is building is in relation to what is capable of building, and what is awake is in relation to what is asleep, and what is seeing is in relation to what has its eyes closed but has sight, and what has been shaped out of the matter is in relation to the matter, and what has been finished off is to the unfinished. Of the difference exemplified in this analogy let the activity be marked off by the first part, the potentiality by the second. — ibid. Θ 6 1048a35–b6
So, what kind of existence is mathematical existence? — Dfpolis
. So a material object is a combination of form and matter, and that form is proper and unique to the particular object, complete with accidents. — Metaphysician Undercover
The problem is confusing this kind of "existence," which has no ability to do anything, with metaphysical existence, which invariably can do something -- even if it can only make itself known. What does nothing is indistinguishable from nothing, and so is nothing. — Dfpolis
Nothing, however, is only, in fact, the true result, when taken as the nothing of what it comes from; it is thus itself a determinate nothing, and has a content.
For first the substance of each thing is special to it, in that it does not belong to anything else. — Metaphysics, 1038b9, translated by CDC Reeve
But the salient point of the dispute is, is each individual an instance of a unique form? I say not, that the form 'man' is common to all men, that is why it is a universal. — Wayfarer
If we are still talking about Aristotle then there is no natural number "X". An number is always a number of something, a number of what it is that is being counted. The shift to symbolic notation occurs later. — Fooloso4
The cause formalis is just one contribution to the "thing".What we call cause and the Romans call causa is called aition by the Greeks, that to which something else is indebted. The four causes are the ways, all belonging at once to each other, of being responsible for something else.
But the universal too seems to some people to be most of all a cause, and the universal most of all a starting-point. So let us turn to that too. For it seems impossible for any of the things said [of something] universally to besubstance[a] being. For first thesubstancebeing of each thing is special to it, in that it does not belong to anything else. A universal, by contrast, is something common, since that thing is said to be a universal which naturally belongs to many things. Of which, then, will it be thesubstancebeing? For it is either thesubstancebeing of none or of all. And it cannot be thesubstancebeing of all. — Metaphysics, 1038b9, translated by CDC Reeve
Suppose, for example, that we are thinking of whiteness. Then in one sense it may be said that whiteness is 'in our mind'. ... In the strict sense, it is not whiteness that is in our mind, but the act of thinking of whiteness. The connected ambiguity in the word 'idea', which we noted at the same time, also causes confusion here. In one sense of this word, namely the sense in which it denotes the object of an act of thought, whiteness is an 'idea'. Hence, if the ambiguity is not guarded against, we may come to think that whiteness is an 'idea' in the other sense, i.e. an act of thought; and thus we come to think that whiteness is mental. But in so thinking, we rob it of its essential quality of universality. One man's act of thought is necessarily a different thing from another man's; one man's act of thought at one time is necessarily a different thing from the same man's act of thought at another time. Hence, if whiteness were the thought as opposed to its object, no two different men could think of it, and no one man could think of it twice. That which many different thoughts of whiteness have in common is their object, and this object is different from all of them. Thus universals are not thoughts, though when known they are the objects of thoughts. — Betrand Russell
Yet, to find the numbers, we have to measure nature, not intuit them mystically, as Plato believed. So, Aristotle's theory is far superior. There are no actual numbers in nature. There is discrete and continuous quantity. Discrete quantity is countable, eliciting actual number concepts. Continuous quantity is measurable, eliciting numerical value concepts.So, what kind of existence is mathematical existence? — Dfpolis
Mathematical platonism says that intelligibles such as number are real even if not existent, being the same for all who think. Mathematical ratios and relationships are deeply embedded in the fabric of the cosmos, hence the 'unreasonable efficacy of mathematics in the natural sciences'. — Wayfarer
Yet, to find the numbers, we have to measure nature, not intuit them mystically, as Plato believed — Dfpolis
Nothing is not determinate, for if it had determinations, it would be something determinate -- something with properties.Sorry, I have to counter this with an out-of-context Hegel quote
Nothing, however, is only, in fact, the true result, when taken as the nothing of what it comes from; it is thus itself a determinate nothing, and has a content. — Heiko
I spent some years studying pure mathematics, so I am unlikely to forget about it.You're not even allowing for pure mathematics. Also for the role that mathematics has had in disclosing things about nature that we could never, ever deduce through observation alone. And I humbly suggest that it is your depiction of Platonism that is 'naive'. — Wayfarer
Where does he say that it is not properly a cause? — Fooloso4
Things do, in a way, occur by chance, for they occur incidentally and chance is an incidental cause. But strictly it is not the cause - without qualification - of anything; for instance, a house builder is the cause of a house; incidentally a flute player may be." — Physcis Bk 2, Ch 5, 197a 13 -14
It is relevant because at least part of your confusion seems to be based on the translation of the term ousia. — Fooloso4
It is not me but Aristotle who you are accusing: — Fooloso4
That is why I defined it for you. — Dfpolis
We do not "designate" species members. We find them, or don't. — Dfpolis
Not at all. We know they are different because they are not in the same place, and they cannot be in the same place because they are made of different stuff. — Dfpolis
The atomists proposed an indivisible stopping point, atoma. Aristotle roundly rejects the hypothesis of atoma, and answers instead that potential division is not actual division, so there is no actual infinite regress. — Dfpolis
lso, will not find "prime matter" in Aristotle. It is an invention of the Scholatics, found in Aquinas, and confuses Aristotle's hyle with Plato's chora. (See my Hyle article.) — Dfpolis
By "implies" I take it you mean that there is no text in which Aristotle actually says this. If there is, please cite it. — Dfpolis
This is not Aristotle's position, and your reasoning is flawed for the reasons I gave. — Dfpolis
But the salient point of the dispute is, is each individual an instance of a unique form? I say not, that the form 'man' is common to all men, that is why it is a universal. — Wayfarer
It is made very clear by Aristotle, that accidents are part of a thing's form ...
If the difference were not formal we could not perceive them as differences ...
So chance is not a cause at all, it's just the way we portray and represent our own ignorance. — Metaphysician Undercover
So, we always attend to every aspect of sensation and never prescind from some aspects to focus on others?As I explained, your definition refers to nothing real — Metaphysician Undercover
We do not find them, we find them.Of course we designate species members rather than finding them. We find things, and judge them to be of a specific species, thereby designating them as members of that species. — Metaphysician Undercover
Pettifogging.First, the same thing can be in different places, just not at the same time. — Metaphysician Undercover
I see you finally understood the texts I posted from the article I am working on. Matter (stuff) is the principle of individuation of form, and form is the principle of individuation of matter.Without form all matter would be the same thing. — Metaphysician Undercover
Do you have any text(s) to support this claim? You might mean that he is rejecting Plato's chora, but that is not "prime matter" in the sense used by the Scholastics.No, we very much do find prime matter discussed in Aristotle's Metaphysics. — Metaphysician Undercover
This is irrelevant to the issue at hand.Where he explicitly states this in "On the Soul", Bk1, when he addresses various different ideas about the relation between the soul and the body. He dismisses Plato's account of the circular motions of the heavens in Timaeus, starting with "Now, in the first place it is a mistake to say that the soul is a spatial magnitude." — Metaphysician Undercover
This is equivocating on "matter." Proximate matter, "this flesh and bones," which is actualized by psyche, is not pure potency.Since matter is potentiality, this actuality must be immaterial. — Metaphysician Undercover
And that is the point: mathematical "existence" is not actual existence, but a convenient shorthand for a certain kind of potential. — Dfpolis
Plato's view that there are actual numbers in nature, which is what I was talking about, is naive for the reasons I gave. — Dfpolis
[Platonism is] the view that mathematics describes a non-sensual reality, which exists independently both of the acts and [of] the dispositions of the human mind and is only perceived, and probably perceived very incompletely, by the human mind. — Godel
Well, not being able to judge the quality of such translations I am limited to saying I find his remarks interesting. Let me summarize and elaborate a little as I have taken some freedom of interpretation and application my self:Heidegger is an important figure in helping to shape our current understanding of Aristotle. He taught a generation of students how to do a close reading of an ancient text, paying careful attention to the original language rather than relying on Latin translations. — Fooloso4
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