yo what’s Parmenides’ favorite zeppelin song? “What is and what can never be”

Sraffa on Heraclitus & the notion of value as 'universal substance'

The relation between metaphysics and the theory of value is also present in a note written in Italian, where Sraffa (D1/20/4) quotes a passage by Eduard Zeller on a fragment by Heraclitus that can be translated into English as ‘all things are exchanged by fire, and fire for all things, as goods for gold and gold for goods’:

But the importance of a comparison must not be exaggerated. The fire substance becomes something different (?), i.e. it transforms itself, as we will see, in water, land, meteor, but Heraclitus supposes (?) always that fire remains hidden in every derived substance, but not in act, as the Aristotelians (!) would say, but in power/potentiality. This comparison like all comparisons is not the expression of a material identity (?), since, if the substance-fire becomes an absolutely different one, like gold exchanges itself for meat, wood, wine or any other object, it is no more possible to talk of a universal substance. (Sraffa, D3/12/10/24, as translated in Kurz and Salvadori, 2010, p. 202)

— Martins, N. (2013). “Sraffa, Marshall and the Principle of Continuity.” Cambridge Journal of Economics, p. 15

Martins proceeds to analyze for the next couple of pages how this excerpt relates to Sraffa’s viewpoint in general. The overall gist is that while “[t]he idea of a universal substance, a hidden substance behind material things, underpins the labour theory of value and certainly Marx’s interpretation of it” (ibid, 15-6), Sraffa’s own value theory tries to avoid relying upon a universal substance (in which ‘utility’ may be included).

“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen to look like oxen, and each would make the gods' bodies the same shape as they themselves had.”

—Clement, Miscellanies 5.110 = 21B15

For what origin will you seek of it? In what manner, and from where did it grow? I will not allow it to be said nor for you to think ‘from that which does not exist’. For it is not possible to speak or to think of what doesn’t exist.

Parmenides, I hate you.

You just mentioned that which does not exist.

So you can speak of it.

Why do people think this man made sense?

Why does this exist?

“As the mind becomes meditative and withstands the corruptive influences of its everyday environment it becomes better able to behold and recognize the truths which, although they appear to be given by experience, are really already within each individual, awaiting the right stimulus and challenge to dislodge them. Finally, it appears that the soul, both in the present life and hereafter, was regarded not so much substantively as functionally -- not as a thing of gaseous materiality residing in the head or the heart, but as a harmony. The degree to which the harmonious music of the soul is realized determines the direction of its destiny and what other bodily sojourns it must undergo before it has purified itself of all unharmonious elements in order that it may become one with the great cosmic harmony which is the ultimate destiny of all existence.”

—Presocratics, Philip Wheelwright

“Some say the soul is mixed in with the whole universe, and perhaps this is why Thales supposed that all things are full of gods.”

—Aristotle, On The Soul

“And I recall my university reading. Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus stated that you could not step into the same river twice. Everything is changing. Parmenides felt that change was an illusion. Everything was one. A friend of mine called Parmenides a sociopath.”

—http://bit.ly/10R3qmy

Anthropology without philosophy is blind, but philosophy without anthropology is mere intellectual play.

I really wish philosophers paid as much attention to ethnographic evidence as anthropologists pay attention to philosophical theory.

In the mean time, enjoy the link. Never really thought I’d see Chinese classics with Zeno of Citium but there you go.

‘I have inquired into myself.’

~ Heraclitus of Ephesus

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Follow the world’s creators.

Sraffa on Heraclitus & the notion of value as 'universal substance'

“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen to look like oxen, and each would make the gods' bodies the same shape as they themselves had.”

“Some say the soul is mixed in with the whole universe, and perhaps this is why Thales supposed that all things are full of gods.”

“And I recall my university reading. Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus stated that you could not step into the same river twice. Everything is changing. Parmenides felt that change was an illusion. Everything was one. A friend of mine called Parmenides a sociopath.”

Tumblr

Follow the world’s creators.

Sraffa on Heraclitus & the notion of value as 'universal substance'

“If oxen and horses and lions had hands and were able to draw with their hands and do the same things as men, horses would draw the shapes of gods to look like horses and oxen to look like oxen, and each would make the gods' bodies the same shape as they themselves had.”

“Some say the soul is mixed in with the whole universe, and perhaps this is why Thales supposed that all things are full of gods.”

“And I recall my university reading. Heraclitus and Parmenides. Heraclitus stated that you could not step into the same river twice. Everything is changing. Parmenides felt that change was an illusion. Everything was one. A friend of mine called Parmenides a sociopath.”

Philosophy-gasms guaranteed