“Now as for motion and rest, unless there is agreement on the manner and the conditions in which these two come to be, we will have many obstacles to face in our subsequent course of reasoning. Although we have already said something about them, we need to say this as well: there will be no motion in a state of uniformity. For it is difficult, or rather impossible, for something to be moved without something to set it in motion, or something to set a thing in motion without something to be moved by it. When either is absent, there is no motion, but [when they are present] it is quite impossible for them to be uniform. And so let us always presume that rest is found in a state of uniformity and to attribute motion to a state of non-uniformity.”
Sunday, June 22, 2014
TIMAEUS....EXCERPT
PLATO: COMPLETE WORKS, “TIMAEUS,” edited by John M. Cooper (Hackett Pub., Indianapolis, IN: 1995), 1260
“Now as for motion and rest, unless there is agreement on the manner and the conditions in which these two come to be, we will have many obstacles to face in our subsequent course of reasoning. Although we have already said something about them, we need to say this as well: there will be no motion in a state of uniformity. For it is difficult, or rather impossible, for something to be moved without something to set it in motion, or something to set a thing in motion without something to be moved by it. When either is absent, there is no motion, but [when they are present] it is quite impossible for them to be uniform. And so let us always presume that rest is found in a state of uniformity and to attribute motion to a state of non-uniformity.”
“Now as for motion and rest, unless there is agreement on the manner and the conditions in which these two come to be, we will have many obstacles to face in our subsequent course of reasoning. Although we have already said something about them, we need to say this as well: there will be no motion in a state of uniformity. For it is difficult, or rather impossible, for something to be moved without something to set it in motion, or something to set a thing in motion without something to be moved by it. When either is absent, there is no motion, but [when they are present] it is quite impossible for them to be uniform. And so let us always presume that rest is found in a state of uniformity and to attribute motion to a state of non-uniformity.”