Цитаты из книг — Pierre Duhem, Roger Ariew

In every eternal thing, insofar as it is eternal, and in every incorruptible thing, insofar as it is incorruptible, it is not possible to distinguish between what it is (esse) and what it can be (posse). Everything that can be in such a substance actually is. In fact, if such a substance can possess something and does not…

[The existence of two worlds] does not require one to admit the void. The void, in fact, is an empty place (locus inanis); it is the surface of a body, a surface capable of containing another body, but containing none. If there existed another world, it would have its own place as does this one. There would be no void…

Between the convex surfaces delimiting the differing worlds, there necessarily exists a certain amount of space. Therefore, either a body exists occupying this space or not. But there cannot be a body filling this space; this body, in reality, would be estranged from all worlds since it would be outside the spheres…

Here, there surfaces a more important question, namely: If one admitted that the void allowed passage, would a change of place be accomplished instantaneously or would it require time? . . . If the void allowed passage, there would be a dimension of space that would create a before and after so that the void would not…

...any diminution of a real thing goes toward nothingness, and the cause of this nothingness is matter; on the other hand, any addition goes toward being, and form is the cause of being; the infinite exists entirely by matter as the finite form.

The above reasoning is valid for a power that has to accept the world as it is, a world one considers as bounded, that cannot add any body, no matter how small, to the bodies already existing; it is valid, hence, for a power that cannot create.

The indivisible is nothing more than the lack of continuity; the instant, for example, is formally nothing more than the lack of continuity; the point is nothing more than the absence of length, and the word point expresses nothing positive .... Hence the line is simply the privation of width, and the surface the…

The essence of the infinite is only potential, and in this way it resembles the essence of matter, not form; in fact, the essence of the infinite resides in its potentiality, while the essence of form and limitation resides in its actuality. The finite therefore resembles form and the infinite matter.

Infinity, then, is not by itself repugnant to multitude; the repugnance toward being infinite is introduced into multitude when an order of nature or of location in space is introduced.

The sense of these assertions is that we cannot conceive an infinity of multiple existent things which have, by their nature, a certain order, or else which are on this side or that side of each other. It will be thus for an infinite series of causes; necessarily, the order between the cause and the effect is an order of…

Belief in the individual survival of the human soul gives the objection a more pressing formulation. Aristotle attributes no beginning to the human species in the same way that he attributes no beginning to the world. At each instant of time it is true that an infinity of men were born, lived, and died; but according to the…