{"id":4924,"date":"2025-05-04T13:11:40","date_gmt":"2025-05-04T13:11:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/?p=4924"},"modified":"2025-05-04T19:40:08","modified_gmt":"2025-05-04T19:40:08","slug":"ai-and-locus-classicus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2025\/05\/04\/ai-and-locus-classicus\/","title":{"rendered":"AI and &#8220;locus classicus&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>can you assist in finding a locus classicus for a given idea or claim<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT said:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Absolutely\u2014I\u2019d be happy to help track down a locus classicus. A \u201clocus classicus\u201d is the earliest or most authoritative passage where a particular idea, term, or argument is laid out. To get started:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Specify the idea or claim<\/strong> you have in mind.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>If possible, <strong>give any context<\/strong>\u2014field (philosophy, science, literature), approximate era, keywords or phrases used.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li>Let me know if you\u2019d like secondary sources or commentaries that discuss its importance.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I have that, I can suggest candidate primary texts, pinpoint passages, and, where helpful, bring in scholarly references. What\u2019s the idea or claim you\u2019re interested in?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>o4-mini<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">You said:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>in philosoph, what is the locus classicus for a distinction between a substance and a process<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT said:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Thought for 4 seconds<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A good place to start\u2014and the traditional \u201clocus classicus\u201d in Western metaphysics\u2014is Aristotle, who in two key works sets out (a) what a substance is and (b) how change or process (kinesis) must be understood as distinct from substance:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Substance (ousia)<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Categories<\/strong>, Chapter 5 (ch. 8 in some editions): \u201cSubstance\u201d is treated as the primary category\u2014\u201cthat which is neither predicated of a subject nor present in a subject\u201d (cf. 1a 9\u201310).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Metaphysics<\/strong>, Book \u0396 (Zeta, Book VII), especially 1028a\u20131030a: a more developed account of substance as \u201cthat which underlies and remains constant through change.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Process \/ Change (kinesis)<\/strong>\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Physics<\/strong>, Book III, Chapter 1 (201a 11ff.): Aristotle defines motion (kinesis) as \u201cthe actuality of what is potential, insofar as it is potential,\u201d and distinguishes different kinds of change (substantial, quantitative, qualitative, etc.).<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Metaphysics<\/strong>, Book \u0398 (Theta, Book IX), especially 1048a\u20131049a: the famous discussion of actuality (energeia) versus potentiality (dunamis), which grounds the very notion of process or activity.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Together, these passages lay down the classic contrast between <strong>ousia<\/strong> (a stable bearer of properties) and <strong>kinesis\/energeia<\/strong> (the dynamic unfolding or actualization of potentials). If you\u2019re tracing subsequent debates, virtually every medieval and early-modern author (from the Peripatetics through Aquinas and on to Leibniz) will take these Aristotelian loci as their starting-points.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>o4-mini<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">You said:<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p>what about Broad&#8217;s distinction<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h6 class=\"wp-block-heading\">ChatGPT said:<\/h6>\n\n\n\n<p>Thought for 7 seconds<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>In Broad\u2019s own work the classic statement of the distinction between substances (\u201cthings\u201d or \u201ccontinuants\u201d) and processes (\u201cevents\u201d or \u201coccurrents\u201d) is found in<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p><strong>C.\u2009D. Broad, <em>Examination of McTaggart\u2019s Philosophy<\/em>, Vol. I (Cambridge University Press, 1933), Chapter VII, \u00a7\u00a7 \u201cIndependent Discussion of the Notion of Substance.\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>In that section Broad notes that in ordinary language there are two fundamentally different kinds of \u201csubstantive names\u201d:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ol class=\"wp-block-list\">\n<li><strong>Thing-names (continuants\/substances)<\/strong> \u2013 e.g. \u201ctable,\u201d \u201crock,\u201d \u201criver\u201d \u2013 which naturally take what he calls \u201cdispositional\u201d adjectives (poisonous, fusible, massive) but reject many process-oriented modifiers.<\/li>\n\n\n\n<li><strong>Process-names (occurrents\/events)<\/strong> \u2013 e.g. \u201csneeze,\u201d \u201cflash of light,\u201d \u201cconcert\u201d \u2013 which take adverbial or temporal modifiers (quickly, at noon) but reject most substance-oriented predicates.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n\n\n\n<p>Broad\u2019s strategy is to show that certain predicate-phrase\u2009+\u2009substantive-name combinations are grammatical (and hence intelligible) only with one class or the other, and that this linguistic fact points to a real ontological distinction:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\">\n<p>\u201cIn Indo-European languages, at any rate, there are at least two kinds of substantive-name, viz., thing-names and process-names. \u2026 There are several different kinds of adjective-phrase which can be conjoined with thing-names to give intelligible sentences. If any of these be joined with process-names the result is nonsense. Similarly \u2026\u201d<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;\u2014Broad, <em>Examination of McTaggart\u2019s Philosophy<\/em>, Vol. I, ch. VII (pp. 132\u2013138) <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ditext.com\/chrucky\/chru-4.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ditext<\/a><a href=\"https:\/\/www.ditext.com\/chrucky\/manifest.html?utm_source=chatgpt.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Ditext<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>He labels the former \u201ccontinuants\u201d or \u201cthings,\u201d and the latter \u201coccurrents\u201d or \u201cevents.\u201d This passage has become the standard reference whenever contemporary metaphysicians discuss the continuant-occurrent (substance-process) distinction.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>can you assist in finding a locus classicus for a given idea or claim ChatGPT said: Absolutely\u2014I\u2019d be happy to help track down a locus classicus. A \u201clocus classicus\u201d is the earliest or most authoritative passage where a particular idea, term, or argument is laid out. To get started: Once I have that, I can &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/2025\/05\/04\/ai-and-locus-classicus\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> &#8220;AI and &#8220;locus classicus&#8221;&#8221;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[60,61],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4924","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ai-assist","category-philosophy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4924","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4924"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4924\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4925,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4924\/revisions\/4925"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4924"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4924"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ditext.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4924"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}