Seite - 484 - in The Complete Plato
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an eternal connection, but anything else which, not being the idea, exists only
in the form of the idea, may also lay claim to it. I will try to make this clearer
by an example:—The odd number is always called by the name of odd?
Very true.
But is this the only thing which is called odd? Are there not other things
which have their own name, and yet are called odd, because, although not the
same as oddness, they are never without oddness?—that is what I mean to ask
—whether numbers such as the number three are not of the class of odd. And
there are many other examples: would you not say, for example, that three
may be called by its proper name, and also be called odd, which is not the
same with three? and this may be said not only of three but also of five, and
of every alternate number—each of them without being oddness is odd, and in
the same way two and four, and the other series of alternate numbers, has
every number even, without being evenness. Do you agree?
Of course.
Then now mark the point at which I am aiming:—not only do essential
opposites exclude one another, but also concrete things, which, although not
in themselves opposed, contain opposites; these, I say, likewise reject the idea
which is opposed to that which is contained in them, and when it approaches
them they either perish or withdraw. For example; Will not the number three
endure annihilation or anything sooner than be converted into an even
number, while remaining three?
Very true, said Cebes.
And yet, he said, the number two is certainly not opposed to the number
three?
It is not.
Then not only do opposite ideas repel the advance of one another, but also
there are other natures which repel the approach of opposites.
Very true, he said.
Suppose, he said, that we endeavour, if possible, to determine what these
are.
By all means.
Are they not, Cebes, such as compel the things of which they have
possession, not only to take their own form, but also the form of some
opposite?
What do you mean?
484
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Buch The Complete Plato"
The Complete Plato
- Titel
- The Complete Plato
- Autor
- Plato
- Datum
- ~347 B.C.
- Sprache
- englisch
- Lizenz
- PD
- Abmessungen
- 21.0 x 29.7 cm
- Seiten
- 1612
- Schlagwörter
- Philosophy, Antique, Philosophie, Antike, Dialogues, Metaphysik, Metaphysics, Ideologie, Ideology, Englisch
- Kategorien
- Geisteswissenschaften
- International