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    If every form is a thought, then every form is a thought ... — Carmelics
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    Home/Philosophy of Language
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    Supports→An infinite regress of forms follows from the assumption that every form is numerically distinct from the form of which it is the intentional object.

    If every form is a thought, then every form is a thought of a form.

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge
    ?Rate how convincing each reason is below to see the overall strength.
    1 reason for
    2 reasons against

    Reasons For

    1 perspective
    Reason for
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    • 1.The intentional object of every thought is a form.
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    • 2.Every form is a thought.
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    Reasons Against

    2 perspectives
    Reason against 1 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Thoughts require a thinker, but forms exist independently of any mind that thinks them (Plato, Republic 507b–509b).
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    • 2.If forms depended on being thought, they would be contingent on minds, undermining their status as eternal, necessary entities.
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    • 3.A form identified with a thought of itself generates an infinite regress no less vicious than the Third Man Argument it was meant to escape.
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    Reason against 2 of 2
    ?
    • 1.Aristotle argues in De Anima (430a3) that the intellect thinks forms without itself becoming those forms, preserving the distinction between act and object.
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    • 2.If the form just is the thought, then the same form thought by different thinkers would be numerically distinct, collapsing the universality that forms are posited to explain.
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    Topics

    Philosophy of LanguageTruth & Knowledge

    Connections

    3 topics

    Modality & Possibility3 linkedConsciousness & Mind2 linkedPersonal Identity2 linked

    Related

    A form identified with a thought of itself generates an infinite regress no less...An infinite regress of forms follows from the assumption that every form is nume...Aristotle argues in De Anima (430a3) that the intellect thinks forms without its...Every form is a thought.
    +7 moreShow less
    Every form is numerically distinct from the form of which it is the intentional ...If forms depended on being thought, they would be contingent on minds, undermini...

    Similar

    The intentional object of every thought is a form.86%Every form is a thought.84%All thoughts have intentional objects: every thought is of something r...80%The Concept is itself a thought-object or object-thought79%

    Source

    AI-extracted
    SEP: plato-parmenides
    View source passageHide passage
    Parmenides’ first argument appears to have the following structure. First, all thoughts have intentional objects: every thought is of something rather than nothing. Second, the object of any thought T is something that T thinks to be one over all the instances. But anything that is thought to be one over all the instances is a form. Parmenides concludes that the intentional object of every thought is a form, and hence if every form is a thought then every form is a thought of a form. Although Pa

    Details

    Type
    premise
    Perspectives
    3 (1 for, 2 against)
    Edits
    1 edit
    If the form just is the thought, then the same form thought by different thinker...
    Non-Identity holds: a form is not identical to the things that participate in it...
    Self-Predication holds: each form predicates itself.
    The intentional object of every thought is a form.
    Thoughts require a thinker, but forms exist independently of any mind that think...