Corpus evidence — top 10 passages

Most-relevant passages from the entire indexed corpus (67,286 paragraph chunks across YouTube transcripts, PubMed, arXiv, archive.org, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy, OpenAlex, and more) ranked by semantic similarity (bge-small-en-v1.5).

1. 01 · blog0.817

   One controversy surrounds the precise content of their conclusions and what exactly is presupposed. Should one conclude that the world must be a certain way or merely that we have to think that it is a certain way, in order to have the experience and thoughts at issue? The modern debate finds its counterpart in debate among scholars about what Aristotle is aiming to do in his elenctic discussion. There are two main possibilities. Aristotle may be aiming to show that the ontological version of the principle of non-contradiction is true, or he may be aiming to show merely that it cannot be disbe…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

2. 02 · blog0.815

   He refutes arguments purporting to show the actual sempiternity of the world, but not arguments adduced to show that such sempiternity is possible , while he characterizes traditional would-be proofs of a temporal beginning as invalid (“sophistic”). The central piece of the work is a demonstration that no branch of philosophy can prove the “newness” of the world. The natural scientist cannot, because that would require relying on an assumption that is not included in the principles of his science and would make them an inconsistent set if included. The natural scientist can explain how somethi…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/boethius-of-dacia.md

3. 03 · blog0.806

   This ambiguity in Aristotle account of nature, namely, whether nature is an active source of moving or a passive factor of being moved, was the source of much discussion among Aristotle’s subsequent Greek commentators, who included Alexander of Aphrodisias (ca. 200 CE) and the late Christian, Neoplatonic Philosopher John Philoponus (ca. 490–570). (For more detailed studies of this tradition see Macierowski & Hassing 1988, Lang 1992, 97–124 and Lammer 2015, 2018, ch. 4). Aristotle’s definition of nature as it came down to Avicenna in Arabic literally translates into English as “the primary prin…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/ibn-sina-s-natural-philosophy.md

4. 04 · blog0.806

   (For a parallel discussion, see Posterior Analytics I 22.) On such an account, Aristotle is showing the opponent that if she wants to reject PNC she must pick out the same object and say that contradictory predicates apply, but if she does not mean anything definite by “human being”, for example, then she will be unable to pick out a subject of predication, for example, a human being, and say that contradictory predicates apply. Saying that an individual human being is a human being and not a human being, where the first means “two-footed animal” and the latter means something different is not…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

5. 05 · blog0.804

   Averroes, at the beginning of his commentary on Book II follows his Master Aristotle and defines Nature as “principle and cause by reason of which that in which it is changes [primarily and per se ] and by reason of which that in which it is rests primarily and by itself” (LC 49B TC3). Aristotle’s definition in Phys. 192b21–23, reads perhaps more clearly: “Nature is the principle and cause of motion and rest in that in which [Nature] inheres primarily and by itself, and not accidentally.” According to Averroes the existence of Nature is self-evident as well as its definition; the metaphysician…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/ibn-rushd-s-natural-philosophy.md

6. 06 · blog0.801

   The universal whiteness is said-of many primary substances but is only accidental to them. 1.5 A Recent Debate The way in which I have characterized the concepts of said-of and present-in is, as I have said, natural and relatively straightforward. Moreover, it was by far the orthodox interpretation amongst Aristotle’s Medieval interpreters. I would be remiss, however, were I not to mention the recent debate started by G.E.L. Owen about the said-of/present-in distinction (Owen, 1965a). According to Owen, Aristotle did not accept the existence of non-substantial particulars. Instead, Owen argues…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-categories.md

7. 07 · blog0.800

   At the same time, Aristotle does not appear to think that his hylomorphism somehow refutes all possible forms of dualism. For he appends to his denial of the soul’s separability the observation that some parts of the soul may in the end be separable after all, since they are not the actualities of any part of the body ( De Anima ii 1, 413a6–7). Aristotle here prefigures his complex attitude toward mind ( nous ), a faculty he repeatedly describes as exceptional among capacities of the soul. Still, in general, the soul is the form of the body in much the same way the form of a house structures t…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-s-psychology.md

8. 08 · blog0.799

   They see contraries coming into existence out of the same thing, and infer that the same thing must have had contrary properties. Aristotle introduces his distinction between the potential and the actual to dispel their confusion. An object can be potentially F and potentially not F , but it cannot be actually F and actually not F at the same time. Other philosophers are led by the argument from conflicting appearances to accept conclusions that violate PNC or lead to general scepticism. Aristotle presents the argument as follows: There are three sorts of cases of conflicting appearances: Thin…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/aristotle-on-non-contradiction.md

9. 09 · yt0.799

   This is the real behavior of physical stuff in the universe. So Aristotle says, "I know what's going on. Motion is an unnatural state of being. There are natural ways for things in the universe to be places that things want to be in forms of motion that places and things want to have. And if you just let something go and don't disturb it, it will just sit there. It will not move. Motion requires an impetus, a mover. Something needs to be pushing it." This illustration stolen from the internet. The dog is not actually moving the car. You see the dog there, right? If you look very closely, there…

   yt/rqezWO5Yba8-sean-carrol-the-big-picture-on-the-origins-of-life-meaning-a/transcript.txt

10. 10 · blog0.799

    In that sense, at least some of Albert’s non-logical forays have to do with his desire to bring to light a deeper explanatory reason. Second, Albert is sometimes commenting on works that contain or are seen by him as containing non-logical points or developments. Thus, Albert believes that even if the Categories is overall a work in logic, some of the properties of the ten categories treated by Aristotle are non-logical and belong to the supreme genera whether we know and reason about them or not ( De praedicamentis , 2, 6, p.30, l.64–31, l.2; 2, 8, p.36, l.46–51; 2, 9, p.38, l.53–55; 2, 12, p…

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/albert-the-great.md