/lit/ - Literature

>>21537890
2.1 The Heavenly System

The ordered universe should be explained as more than the will of God
- it has existed forever and has had no beginning
- Will of God continuously reintroduces known forms in new substances to perpetuate the unity of Idea
Aristotle's Quintessence

Every living thing is a combination of Soul and body-kind
- Souls are eternal
- body is not
physical mass is always in flux, but self-contained in the cosmos (t. Heraclitus)

Celestial fire
- substance constituting the stars
- better than regular fire (t. Aristotle)
- fire is the only element of the celestials (some gods are made of fire)
- the Soul would still exist if the universe was annihilated

5. God made the celestial order
God made "the gods" who made living things on earth
- it is law that God's offspring are immortal
- God -> gods -> Soul -> souls -> animals

6. Timaeus
- claim: that the All consisted of earth and fire, and so too the stars
-- this is probably true
-- if air existed in the stars it must be continually be changing into fire (hydrogen->fire->helium)
- claim: two solid figures need two intermediaries for coherence
-- this isn't the case for earth and water since they don't need intermediaries
- claim: earth can't exist without water
-- how can there be earth if it's existence depends on water? This isn't true
- claim (still Timaeus): Earth needs fire to be visible
-- wrong, you only need light. We can see that snow hasn't melted despite being visible

Gold is created by becoming dense or consolidating itself
- Fire does the same thing to become the Soul

Plato: "The four elements enter the composition of every living thing"
- no, but we do see properties of each of these four elements, like the solidity of earth, incandescence of fire, air's "yielding softness".
..
Which "God" is he referring to in 5? I'm just assuming Chaos from Hesiod.