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 · gutenberg0.772

   Explanation--Existence of this kind is conceived as an eternal truth, like the essence of a thing, and, therefore, cannot be explained by means of continuance or time, though continuance may be conceived without a beginning or end.

   gutenberg/PG-3800-ethics/PG-3800.txt

2. 02 · gutenberg0.771

   Explanation--I say absolutely infinite, not infinite after its kind: for, of a thing infinite only after its kind, infinite attributes may be denied; but that which is absolutely infinite, contains in its essence whatever expresses reality, and involves no negation.

   gutenberg/PG-3800-ethics/PG-3800.txt

3. 03 · blog0.771

   There is a debate in the literature on properties between the abundant conception of properties, according to which there is a property corresponding to every natural language predicate and, more generally, every class of individuals, and the sparse conception of properties, according to which a predicate expresses a property only if the objects that predicate is true of resemble one another in an intrinsic way. If the abundant conception is true, then our first question may seem trivial: Existence is a property of individuals because sentences like ‘Bill Gates exists’ are grammatical and ther…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/existence.md

4. 04 · blog0.758

   In response to this point, it is tempting to turn to a variant of the basic modal characterization, the existence-conditioned modal characterization , according to which \(P\) is an essential property of an object \(o\) just in case \(o\) has \(P\) and it is necessary that \(o\) has \(P\) if \(o\) exists, whereas \(P\) is an accidental property of an object \(o\) just in case \(o\) has \(P\) but it is possible that \(o\) lacks \(P\) and yet exists. But this formulation too is less than satisfactory. A widely noted problem for this way of drawing the distinction is that it makes existence into …

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/essential-vs-accidental-properties.md

5. 05 · blog0.756

   The structure that results is a kind of laminated structure, a metaphysical “onion” with several layers. On this picture, of course, substantial and accidental forms are both “layers of the onion” in exactly the same sense. The distinction between essential and accidental features of a thing would therefore have to be drawn in some other way. If this reconstruction is more or less correct, then it is clear why universal hylomorphism and plurality of forms can be viewed as conceptually linked. Both fit nicely with the view that the structure of reality is accurately mirrored in true predication…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/binarium-famosissimum.md

6. 06 · blog0.752

   Let this, then, be our invocation of the Gods, to which I add an exhortation of myself to speak in such manner as will be most intelligible to you, and will most accord with my own intent. First then, in my judgment, we must make a distinction and ask, What is that which always is and has no becoming; and what is that which is always becoming and never is? That which is apprehended by intelligence and reason is always in the same state; but that which is conceived by opinion with the help of sensation and without reason, is always in a process of becoming and perishing and never really is. Now…

   blog/www-sacred-texts-com/timaeus.md

7. 07 · gutenberg0.752

   This is pluralism, somewhat rhapsodically expressed. He who takes for his hypothesis the notion that it is the permanent form of the world is what I call a radical empiricist. For him the crudity of experience remains an eternal element thereof. There is no possible point of view from which the world can appear an absolutely single fact. Real possibilities, real indeterminations, real beginnings, real ends, real evil, real crises, catastrophes, and escapes, a real God, and a real moral life, just as common-sense conceives these things, may remain in empiricism as conceptions which that philoso…

   gutenberg/PG-26659-the-will-to-believe-and-other-essays-in-popular-philosophy/PG-26659.txt

8. 08 · blog0.750

   If a thing-at-\(t_{1}\) were identical with a thing-at-\(t_{2}\), then they should share all their properties. What sort of identity is it, if not that? But if the properties at different times are incompatible, then a contradiction follows. Because they emphatically took the view that contradictions are never true, the great Buddhist logicians Dharmakirti (C7th CE) and his commentator Dharmottara (C8–9th CE), who had certainly read their Aristotle, deduced that identity over time does not exist (see Scherbatsky (1930) vol 2). This is the Buddhist doctrine of moments, essentially an ontology o…

   blog/plato-stanford-edu/change-and-inconsistency.md

9. 09 · gutenberg0.750

   _M._ As if it did not follow that whatever you speak of in that manner either is or is not. Are you not acquainted with the first principles of logic? For this is the first thing they lay down, Whatever is asserted (for that is the best way that occurs to me, at the moment, of rendering the Greek term [Greek: axiôma]; if I can think of a more accurate expression hereafter, I will use it), is asserted as being either true or false. When, therefore, you say, "Miserable M. Crassus," you either say this, "M. Crassus is miserable," so that some judgment may be made whether it is true or false, or y…

   gutenberg/PG-14988-cicero-s-tusculan-disputations-also-treatises-on-the-nature-of-the-god/PG-14988.txt

10. 10 · blog0.750

    According to each premise, if a property belongs to an item or items specified in the antecedent, then it belongs to the item or items specified in the consequent. The argument using the property heap (Greek sôros ), from which the genus takes its name, is a good example. If one grain of sand is not a heap, then the result of adding one more grain is not a heap; if two grains are not a heap, then the result of adding one more is not a heap. But it is plain that if one repeats the operation by which these premises are generated often enough, the result will be a sequence of conditionals the con…

    blog/plato-stanford-edu/carneades.md