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Again, if the Ideas consist of Ideas (as they must, since elements
are simpler than the compound), it will be further necessary that
the elements also of which the Idea consists, e.g. 'animal' and
'two-footed', should be predicated of many subjects. If not, how
will they come to be known? For there will then be an Idea which
cannot be predicated of more subjects than one. But this is not
thought possible-every Idea is thought to be capable of being shared.
As has been said, then, the impossibility of defining
individuals escapes notice in the case of eternal things, especially
those which are unique, like the sun or the moon. For people err not
only by adding attributes whose removal the sun would survive, e.g.
'going round the earth' or 'night-hidden' (for from their view it
follows that if it stands still or is visible, it will no longer be
the sun; but it is strange if this is so; for 'the sun' means a
certain substance); but also by the mention of attributes which can
belong to another subject; e.g. if another thing with the stated
attributes comes into existence, clearly it will be a sun; the formula
therefore is general. But the sun was supposed to be an individual,
like Cleon or Socrates. After all, why does not one of the
supporters of the Ideas produce a definition of an Idea? It would
become clear, if they tried, that what has now been said is true.
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Evidently even of the things that are thought to be substances,
most are only potencies,-both the parts of animals (for none of them
exists separately; and when they are separated, then too they exist,
all of them, merely as matter) and earth and fire and air; for none of
them is a unity, but as it were a mere heap, till they are worked up
and some unity is made out of them
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