Timocrates wrote:

truthseeker wrote:

Let me state to be what I take to be an argument equivalent to the rendtion of Parmenides's argument DanielCC presented in the thread to which you linked:

1. Everything that changes is changed by something else.
2. Being and only Being exists.
C. Therefore, nothing changes.

This argument is valid. One can avoid the conclusion by accepting one of the following:

~1. Something that changes is changed by itself.
~2. Something other than Being exists.

One can refute the above rendition of Parmenides without invoking potency.

But that just raises the problem again. How can Being - 'the All' - "change itself"? This would seem to imply its imparting to itself something that it lacked. But being lacks nothing and the only thing other to being is nothing/nothingness. Being would thus, in any change, become
- even more being or
- less being or
- no being
In any change. Therefore being would remain unchangeable.

I concede that in the scenario of my response to Parmenides' argument, the sum of every being, i.e. Being, would remain unchangeable. But I have no objection to Being remaining unchangeable. What matters is that Being remaining unchangeable be compatible with something changing. And Being remaining unchanngeable is compatible with something changing in my scenario.

Last edited by truthseeker (7/11/2015 11:51 am)

truthseeker wrote:

Timocrates wrote:

truthseeker wrote:

Let me state to be what I take to be an argument equivalent to the rendtion of Parmenides's argument DanielCC presented in the thread to which you linked:

1. Everything that changes is changed by something else.
2. Being and only Being exists.
C. Therefore, nothing changes.

This argument is valid. One can avoid the conclusion by accepting one of the following:

~1. Something that changes is changed by itself.
~2. Something other than Being exists.

One can refute the above rendition of Parmenides without invoking potency.

But that just raises the problem again. How can Being - 'the All' - "change itself"? This would seem to imply its imparting to itself something that it lacked. But being lacks nothing and the only thing other to being is nothing/nothingness. Being would thus, in any change, become
- even more being or
- less being or
- no being
In any change. Therefore being would remain unchangeable.

I concede that in the scenario of my response to Parmenides' argument, the sum of every being, i.e. Being, would remain unchangeable. But I have no objection to Being remaining unchangeable. What matters is that Being remaining unchangeable be compatible with something changing. And Being remaining unchanngeable is compatible with something changing...

That doesn't seem to be a logically possible scenario.

truthseeker wrote:

Timocrates wrote:

truthseeker wrote:

Let me state to be what I take to be an argument equivalent to the rendtion of Parmenides's argument DanielCC presented in the thread to which you linked:

1. Everything that changes is changed by something else.
2. Being and only Being exists.
C. Therefore, nothing changes.

This argument is valid. One can avoid the conclusion by accepting one of the following:

~1. Something that changes is changed by itself.
~2. Something other than Being exists.

One can refute the above rendition of Parmenides without invoking potency.

But that just raises the problem again. How can Being - 'the All' - "change itself"? This would seem to imply its imparting to itself something that it lacked. But being lacks nothing and the only thing other to being is nothing/nothingness. Being would thus, in any change, become
- even more being or
- less being or
- no being
In any change. Therefore being would remain unchangeable.

I concede that in the scenario of my response to Parmenides' argument, the sum of every being, i.e. Being, would remain unchangeable. But I have no objection to Being remaining unchangeable. What matters is that Being remaining unchangeable be compatible with something changing. And Being remaining unchanngeable is compatible with something changing in my scenario.

I imagine this is because I'm still only wading into philosophy, but I don't know how we come to the definite conclusion that "Everything that changes is changed by something else."  To my eye, animals seem to change themselves.  Even if we want to say, "The animal doesn't cause change in itself.  Components of the animal cause changes to other components of the animal," why couldn't we also say that about "being"? (i.e. some entities that constitute part of "being" in general cause changes to other entities.)
And if there is such a thing as free will, I would think that would require that any entity with free will can cause change in itself.
 

Timocrates wrote:

This is an important point, but we have to focus on the idea of being as pure, simple and absolute. Being so understood cannot change at all, let alone even be thought to "change itself." Once we grant plurality to being, however, change then becomes logically possible.

Now to take your animal example, for an animal "to change itself" implies its 1) having being and simulatneously 2) lacking being in some way. Indeed, even if we accept "changing itself" to mean "causing a deprivation in itself" (for example, causing itself to become blind) that would still require the possibility for being to be "lacking being in some way" and the necessity for this possibly being so. At this point, to be logically coherent, we start having to differentiate between act and potency.

(Sorry if this double posts.)  Thanks for the reply.
I think I don't understand the terms.  I've gone over the Paramenides argument a few times in Feser's Aquinas and blog posts and I think I've never understood it.
I think part of the problem is that I thought when Paramenides spoke of "being" he more or less meant "everything."  In that case, you wouldn't call it simple. (I don't know what you mean by pure or absolute.)
I also don't understand why something changing requires it to be "lacking being" in any sense, I think again because I'm not sure what "being" means here. 

Last edited by ArmandoAlvarez (7/11/2015 3:39 pm)

ArmandoAlvarez wrote:

Timocrates wrote:

This is an important point, but we have to focus on the idea of being as pure, simple and absolute. Being so understood cannot change at all, let alone even be thought to "change itself." Once we grant plurality to being, however, change then becomes logically possible.

Now to take your animal example, for an animal "to change itself" implies its 1) having being and simulatneously 2) lacking being in some way. Indeed, even if we accept "changing itself" to mean "causing a deprivation in itself" (for example, causing itself to become blind) that would still require the possibility for being to be "lacking being in some way" and the necessity for this possibly being so. At this point, to be logically coherent, we start having to differentiate between act and potency.

(Sorry if this double posts.)  Thanks for the reply.
I think I don't understand the terms.  I've gone over the Paramenides argument a few times in Feser's Aquinas and blog posts and I think I've never understood it.
I think part of the problem is that I thought when Paramenides spoke of "being" he more or less meant "everything."

Actually, Parmenides would probably not have thought in terms of "everything" as this implied multiplicity of being, which for him was impossible. The apparent mutliplicity of being was, for him, an illusion at best. There was only Being. Parmenides' thinking excluded the possibility that there could be many beings or, more specifically and especially, more than one substance. This consequence followed from his original understanding of being (or his assumptions about the nature of being).

ArmandoAlvarez wrote:

In that case, you wouldn't call it simple. (I don't know what you mean by pure or absolute.)
I also don't understand why something changing requires it to be "lacking being" in any sense.. 

Well, let's consider the possibilities here. If we say something becomes something, this is only possible by making a distinction in being between the two; otherwise, something would become itself and there would in fact be no change. But in what can we make this distinction? As Parmenides' points out, it can't be in nothing or non-being "itself" that such a distinction can be drawn. Therefore the distinction or difference must be found in being, such that when something changes it must be from one kind of being or being in one way to another kind of being or being in another way. This means either the addition or removal of some being or being in a way. In either case (we are speaking of change only as change from something to something not something to nothing) some kind of potentiality is necessary. Thus, the animal becomes after maturing an actually seeing animal from only being potentially one or, (and presumably by accident), becomes a blind animal that, when it was actually seeing was only potentially blind.

The argument also in change will often include the fact that only being can change being, as nothing is the cause of nothing. Thus any change requires being acting on being; and whatever difference arises requires also, again, admittance of potentiality or potential being.

Last edited by Timocrates (7/11/2015 3:54 pm)