Ancient philosophy a new history of western philosophy volume 1 (new history of western philosophy) ( PDFDrive ) 204

In one of his sonnets Michelangelo gives a powerful evocation of the potentialities inherent in a block of marble.. There’s not a concept in an artist’s mind, However great, but in a mar

out simultaneously, the question is whether the result of the division is something coherently conceivable (GC 1 2 316a18) Thirdly, the contrast with the potentiality of producing a statue is a false trail

In one of his sonnets Michelangelo gives a powerful evocation of the potentialities inherent in a block of marble

There’s not a concept in an artist’s mind, However great, but in a marble block It’s hidden there for someone to unlock Whose intellect can teach his hand to Wnd.1 The simultaneous actualization, from a single block of marble, of all the concepts of all the greatest artists would be just as impossible as the simultaneous actualization of all the parts of the continuum In general,

it is a fallacy to argue from

(1) It is both possible that p and possible that q

to

(2) It is possible that both p and q,

and to see this one has only to look at the case where ‘q’ is ‘not p’ Hence, in order to answer Democritus, Aristotle does not need to introduce his distinction between powers that are, and powers that are not, simultan-eously actualizable It is suYcient to point out (as he does; GC 1 2 317a8) that there is a diVerence between saying that whatever is continuous can be divided at any point and saying that whatever is continuous can be divided

at every point

But we should look more closely at the sonnet While the hand and intellect of Michelangelo were unsurpassed at realizing the potentialities

of marble, it may be questioned whether his poem shows an adequate philosophical grasp of the nature of potentiality Clearly, he thinks of potential statues as shadowy realities, already present there in some mysterious way within the uncut marble If one conceives of potentialities

as shadow actualities, then it seems that one can count them and

1 Non ha l’ottimo artista alcun concetto Ch’un marmo solo in se` non circoscriva Col suo soverchio, e solo a quello arriva

La man che ubbidisce all’intelletto.

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