The term many presupposes the term one, and the term one presupposes the term many.
About this quote
- What does it mean?
- The concepts of many and one depend on each other for their meaning.
- In plain terms
- You cannot understand one without understanding many, and vice versa.
- What can you take from it?
- Opposites define each other in thought.
Where it applies
Putting it to work
Questions to consider
- How do you define unity?
- Can something exist alone?
Another view
Some concepts might exist independently without mutual dependence.
More from Alfred North Whitehead
Philosophy finds religion, and modifies it; and conversely religion is among the data of experience which philosophy must weave into its own scheme. Religion i…
Permalink to quote #30 Creativity is the universal of universals characterizing ultimate matter of fact. It is that ultimate principle by which the many, which are the universe disju…
Permalink to quote #32 Philosophy is the self-correction by consciousness of its own initial excess of subjectivity. Each actual occasion contributes to the circumstances of its orig…
Permalink to quote #29
Related quotes
The tendency has always been strong to believe that whatever received a name must be an entity or thing, having an independent existence of its own; and if no …
John Stuart MillJohn Stuart Mill quote #6 Common Logic is the Grammar of the higher Speech, that is, of Thought; it examines merely the relations of ideas to one another, the Mechanics of Thought, the …
NovalisNovalis quote #41 You cannot conceive the many without the one.
PlatoPlato quote #50