(October 25, 2021 at 7:07 am)Belacqua Wrote:Bel, are you a teacher?(October 24, 2021 at 9:55 pm)Oldandeasilyconfused Wrote: I seem to remember Aristotle (?) claiming for example that it was an essence or quality which makes a thing say big or small. That a thing is big because it contains the essence /quality of 'bigness'
Generally we say that the essence of a thing is that set of qualities which make it itself and not another thing.
The example I usually use is a T-shirt. We can define a clear set of qualities necessary for something to be a T-shirt: it has to have a hole for the head, two for the arms; it has to be of some wearable material (because a stone T-shirt would be a sculpture, not really a shirt); it has to be collarless, because if it has a collar it's a polo shirt. That's about all, I think.
Then when we talk about accident, we can name all the things that can change while the T-shirt remains a T-shirt. It can be cotton or polyester; it can be white or black; it can have Nirvana on the front or the Rolling Stones. You could actually dye the shirt or iron a new picture onto it and it would remain a T-shirt.
I'm not sure what you're thinking of in regards to "bigness." I think it's possible that in many cases, the size is part of the essence. For example, a T-shirt-shaped object 100 miles across wouldn't really be a T-shirt, I think. It would be a sculpture, or a joke, or something, but would lack wearability. So a range of "bigness" would be a essential quality of a T-shirt, but not in itself the essence.
Maybe you're recalling some definition of big/small-ness, and how these qualities are always judged relative to something else? That sounds like something Aristotle would say.
Quote:Was it Aristotle who claimed that the speed of light was instantaneous?
Pretty much everybody assumed that light was instantaneous until the late 17th century. Dante, for example, takes it for granted. A Dutch guy finally demonstrated it had speed.
(October 24, 2021 at 10:18 pm)vulcanlogician Wrote: Aristotle understood light better than Plato. Plato's understanding of light and optics is completely ass-backwards and as wrong as it could possibly be. Anything is an improvement upon that.
As I recall both Plato and Aristotle thought that we see by sending out a ray from our eyeballs, which reflects back to us, like radar. I know Leonardo da Vinci believed the same thing, so this seems to have been the standard idea for a while.
It's wrong scientifically, but I think feels right psychologically. Just because we see by receiving light from outside, doesn't mean that we perceive passively, taking in whatever happens to hit the retina. Think of how phenomenologists use the word "intentionality." We see the world by looking out for things, with purpose and judgment built in.
I've probably mentioned before a trick that I do with students sometimes. I have them all look at the ceiling, and then ask them what color are the chairs they're sitting in. Surprisingly often they can't say. (This is especially true if we're in a boring classroom.) When they come into the room they look around sufficiently to sit properly and not fall on the floor, but because they weren't interested in the color of the chair it didn't register with them.
So we see as if we were sending out probes, getting only the information we are interested in.
Nay_Sayer: “Nothing is impossible if you dream big enough, or in this case, nothing is impossible if you use a barrel of KY Jelly and a miniature horse.”
Wiser words were never spoken.
Wiser words were never spoken.