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Inherent
Inherence refers to Empedocles' idea that the qualities of matter come from the relative proportions of each of the four elements entering into a thing. The idea was further developed by Plato and Aristotle. Overview That Plato accepted (or at least did not reject) Empedocles' claim can be seen in the '' Timaeus''. However, Plato also applied it to cover the presence of form in matter. The form is an active principle. Matter, on the other hand is passive, being a mere possibility that the forms bring to life. Aristotle clearly accepted Empedocles' claim, but he rejected Plato's idea of the forms. According to Aristotle, the accidents of a substance are incorporeal beings which are present in it."By being 'present in a subject' I do not mean present as parts are present in a whole, but being incapable of existence apart from the said subject." (Aristotle, '' Categories'' 1a24–26). A closely related term is participation. If an attribute ''inheres'' in a subject, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Metaphysical Properties
Metaphysics is the branch of philosophy that examines the basic structure of reality. It is traditionally seen as the study of mind-independent features of the world, but some theorists view it as an inquiry into the conceptual framework of human understanding. Some philosophers, including Aristotle, designate metaphysics as first philosophy to suggest that it is more fundamental than other forms of philosophical inquiry. Metaphysics encompasses a wide range of general and abstract topics. It investigates the nature of existence, the features all entities have in common, and their division into categories of being. An influential division is between particulars and universals. Particulars are individual unique entities, like a specific apple. Universals are general features that different particulars have in common, like the color . Modal metaphysics examines what it means for something to be possible or necessary. Metaphysicians also explore the concepts of space, time, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Substance Theory
Substance theory, or substance–attribute theory, is an ontological theory positing that objects are constituted each by a ''substance'' and properties borne by the substance but distinct from it. In this role, a substance can be referred to as a ''substratum'' or a '' thing-in-itself''. ''Substances'' are particulars that are ontologically independent: they are able to exist all by themselves. Another defining feature often attributed to substances is their ability to ''undergo changes''. Changes involve something existing ''before'', ''during'' and ''after'' the change. They can be described in terms of a persisting substance gaining or losing properties. ''Attributes'' or ''properties'', on the other hand, are entities that can be exemplified by substances. Properties characterize their bearers; they express what their bearer is like. ''Substance'' is a key concept in ontology, the latter in turn part of metaphysics, which may be classified into monist, dualist, or plural ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Incorporeal
Incorporeality is "the state or quality of being incorporeal or bodiless; immateriality; incorporealism." Incorporeal () means "Not composed of matter; having no material existence." Incorporeality is a quality of souls, spirits, and God in many religions, including the currently major denominations and schools of Islam, Christianity and Judaism. In ancient philosophy, any attenuated "thin" matter such as air, aether, fire or light was considered incorporeal. The ancient Greeks believed air, as opposed to solid earth, to be incorporeal, insofar as it is less resistant to movement; and the ancient Persians believed fire to be incorporeal in that every soul was said to be produced from it. In modern philosophy, a distinction between the incorporeal and immaterial is not necessarily maintained: a body is described as incorporeal if it is not made out of matter. In the problem of universals, universals are separable from any particular embodiment in one sense, while in another, t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Empedocles
Empedocles (; ; , 444–443 BC) was a Ancient Greece, Greek pre-Socratic philosopher and a native citizen of Akragas, a Greek city in Sicily. Empedocles' philosophy is known best for originating the Cosmogony, cosmogonic theory of the four classical elements. He also proposed forces he called Love and Strife which would mix and separate the elements, respectively. Empedocles challenged the practice of animal sacrifice and killing animals for food. He developed a distinctive doctrine of reincarnation. He is generally considered the last Greek philosopher to have recorded his ideas in verse. Some of his work survives, more than is the case for any other pre-Socratic philosopher. Empedocles' death was mythologized by ancient writers, and has been the subject of a number of literary treatments. Life The exact dates of Empedocles' birth and death are unknown, and ancient accounts of his life conflict on the exact details. However, they agree that he was born in the early 5th cent ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Accident (philosophy)
An accident ( Greek ), in metaphysics and philosophy, is a property that the entity or substance has contingently, without which the substance can still retain its identity. An accident does not affect its essence, according to many philosophers. It does not mean an "accident" as used in common speech, a chance incident, normally harmful. Examples of accidents are color, taste, movement, and stagnation. Accident is contrasted with essence: a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it loses its identity. Aristotle made a distinction between the essential and accidental properties of a thing. Thomas Aquinas and other Catholic theologians have employed the Aristotelian concepts of substance and accident in articulating the theology of the Eucharist, particularly the transubstantiation of bread and wine into body and blood. In modern philosophy, an accident (or ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Participation (philosophy)
In philosophy, participation is the :wikt:inverse, inverse of inherence. Overview Accident (philosophy), Accidents are said to ''inhere'' in Substance theory, substance. Substances, in turn, ''participate'' in their accidents. For example, the color red is said to inhere in the red apple. Conversely, the red apple participates in the color red. Participation also is predicated by analogy to a dependence relations between accidents. Thus an act may be said to participate in time in the sense that every act must occur at some time. In a similar way, color may be said to inhere in space, meaning that a color occurs only on the surface of a body—and thus only in space. Inherence, on the other hand, would not normally be predicated analogously of accidents. See also * Substance theory References * Metaphysical properties Natural philosophy {{metaphysics-stub ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Categories (Aristotle)
The ''Categories'' (; or ) is a text from Aristotle's '' Organon'' that enumerates all the possible kinds of things that can be the subject or the predicate of a proposition. They are "perhaps the single most heavily discussed of all Aristotelian notions". The work is brief enough to be divided not into books, as is usual with Aristotle's works, but into fifteen chapters. The ''Categories'' places every object of human apprehension under one of ten categories (known to medieval writers as the Latin term ). Aristotle intended them to enumerate everything that can be expressed without composition or structure, thus anything that can be either the subject or the predicate of a proposition. The text The antepraedicamenta The text begins with an explication of what Aristotle means by " synonymous", or univocal words, what is meant by "homonymous", or equivocal words, and what is meant by " paronymous", or denominative (sometimes translated "derivative") words. It then divi ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Beings
Existence is the state of having being or reality in contrast to nonexistence and nonbeing. Existence is often contrasted with essence: the essence of an entity is its essential features or qualities, which can be understood even if one does not know whether the entity exists. Ontology is the philosophical discipline studying the nature and types of existence. Singular existence is the existence of individual entities while general existence refers to the existence of concepts or universals. Entities present in space and time have concrete existence in contrast to abstract entities, like numbers and sets. Other distinctions are between possible, contingent, and necessary existence and between physical and mental existence. The common view is that an entity either exists or not with nothing in between, but some philosophers say that there are degrees of existence, meaning that some entities exist to a higher degree than others. The orthodox position in ontology is that e ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Subjunctive Possibility
Subjunctive possibility (also called alethic possibility) is a form of modality studied in modal logic. Subjunctive possibilities are the sorts of possibilities considered when conceiving counterfactual situations; subjunctive modalities are modalities that bear on whether a statement ''might have been'' or ''could be'' true—such as ''might'', ''could'', ''must'', ''possibly'', ''necessarily'', ''contingently'', ''essentially'', ''accidentally'', and so on. Subjunctive possibilities include logical possibility, metaphysical possibility, nomological possibility, and temporal possibility. Subjunctive possibility and other modalities Subjunctive possibility is contrasted with (among other things) epistemic possibility (which deals with how the world ''may'' be, ''for all we know'') and deontic possibility (which deals with how the world ''ought'' to be). Epistemic possibility The contrast with epistemic possibility is especially important to draw, since in ordinary langua ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quality (philosophy)
In philosophy, a quality is an attribute or a Property (philosophy), property characteristic of an Object (philosophy), object.Cargile, J. (1995). qualities. in Honderich, T. (Ed.) (2005). ''The Oxford Companion to Philosophy'' (2nd ed.). Oxford In contemporary philosophy the idea of qualities, and especially how to distinguish certain kinds of qualities from one another, remains controversial. Background Aristotle analyzed qualities in his logical work, the Categories (Aristotle), Categories. To him, qualities are hylomorphically–formal attributes, such as "white" or "grammatical". Categories of ''state'', such as "shod" and "armed" are also non–essential property, essential qualities ''(sumbebekos, katà symbebekós)''. line 70. Aristotle observed: "one and the selfsame substance, while retaining its identity, is yet capable of admitting contrary qualities. The same individual person is at one time white, at another black, at one time warm, at another cold, at one time good, ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Theory Of Forms
The Theory of Forms or Theory of Ideas, also known as Platonic idealism or Platonic realism, is a philosophical theory credited to the Classical Greek philosopher Plato. A major concept in metaphysics, the theory suggests that the physical world is not as real or true as Forms. According to this theory, Forms—conventionally capitalized and also commonly translated as Ideas—are the timeless, absolute, non-physical, and unchangeable essences of all things, which objects and matter in the physical world merely participate in, imitate, or resemble. In other words, Forms are various abstract ideals that exist even outside of human minds and that constitute the basis of reality. Thus, Plato's Theory of Forms is a type of philosophical realism, asserting that certain ideas are literally real, and a type of idealism, asserting that reality is fundamentally composed of ideas, or abstract objects. Plato describes these entities only through the characters (primarily Socrates) in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Timaeus (dialogue)
''Timaeus'' (; , ) is one of Plato's dialogues, mostly in the form of long monologues given by Critias and Timaeus, written 360 BC. The work puts forward reasoning on the possible nature of the physical world and human beings and is followed by the dialogue '' Critias''. Participants in the dialogue include Socrates, Timaeus, Hermocrates, and Critias. Some scholars believe that it is not the Critias of the Thirty Tyrants who appears in this dialogue, but his grandfather, also named Critias. At the beginning of the dialogue, the absence of another, unknown dialogue participant, present on the day before, is bemoaned. It has been suggested from some traditions— Diogenes Laertius (VIII 85) from Hermippus of Smyrna (3rd century BC) and Timon of Phlius ( 320 – 235 BC)—that ''Timaeus'' was influenced by a book about Pythagoras, written by Philolaus, although this assertion is generally considered false. Introduction The dialogue takes place the day after Socrates de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
