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Plato: Complete Works QUOTES

Plato: Complete Works QUOTES

1 " Again, if there is to be change of change and becoming of becoming, we shall
have an infinite regress. Thus if one of a series of changes is to be a change
of change, the preceding change must also be so: e.g. if simple becoming was
ever in process of becoming, then that which was becoming was also in process
of becoming, so that we should not yet have arrived at what was in process of
simple becoming but only at what was already in process of becoming in process
of becoming. And this again was sometime in process of becoming, so that it is not
yet in process of becoming in process of becoming. And since in an infinite series
there is no first term, here there will be no first stage and therefore no following
stage either. On this hypothesis, then, nothing can become or be moved or change.
Again, if a thing is capable of any particular motion, it is also capable of the
corresponding contrary motion or the corresponding coming to rest, and a thing
that is capable of becoming is also capable of perishing: consequently, what is in
process of becoming in process of becoming is in process of perishing at the very
moment when it is in process of becoming in process of becoming; since it cannot
be in process of perishing when it is just beginning to become or after it has ceased
to become; for that which is in process of perishing must be in existence. "

― Plato , Plato: Complete Works