Combining Philosophers

Ideas for Gilles Deleuze, David M. Armstrong and Gottfried Leibniz

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26 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects
13432 The essence of a circle is the equality of its radii [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The essence of a circle consists in the equality of all lines drawn from its centre to its circumference.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669)
     A reaction: Compare Locke in Idea 13431 and Spinoza in Idea 13073 on the essence of geometrical figures. A key question is whether the essence is in the simplest definition, or in a complex and wide-ranging account, e.g. including conic sections for circles.
13088 Subjects include predicates, so full understanding of subjects reveals all the predicates [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The subject-term must always include the predicate-term, in such a way that the man who understood the notion of the subject perfectly would also judge that the predicate belongs to it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics [1686], §8)
     A reaction: Sounds as if every sentence is analytic, but he doesn't mean that. He does, oddly, mean that if we fully understand the name 'Alexander', we understand his complete history, which is a bit silly, I'm afraid. Even God doesn't learn things just from names.
13077 Basic predicates give the complete concept, which then predicts all of the actions [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Apart from those that depend on others, one must only consider together all the basic predicates in order to form the complete concept of Adam adequate to deduce from it everything that is ever to happen to him, as much as is necessary to account for it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06)
     A reaction: This (implausibly) goes beyond mere prediction of properties. Eve's essence seems to be relevant to Adam's life. Note that the complete concept is not every predicate, but only those 'necessary' to predict the events. Cf Idea 13082.
12908 Essences exist in the divine understanding [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Essences exist in the divine understanding before one considers will.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.07.4/14 X)
     A reaction: This is a sort of religious neo-platonism. The great dream seems to be that of mind-reading God, and the result is either Pythagoras (it's numbers!), or Plato (it's pure ideas!), or this (it's essences!). See D.H.Lawrence's poem on geranium and mignottes.
12743 A true being must (unlike a chain) have united parts, with a substantial form as its subject [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In a Being one per se a real union is required consisting not in the situation or motion of parts, as in a chain or a house, but in a unique individual principle and subject of attributes and operations, in us a soul and in a body a substantial form.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De Mundo Praesenti [1686], A6.4.1506), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7
     A reaction: Leibniz is said not to be an essentialist, by making all properties essential, but he is certainly committed to substance, and it sounds like essence here (or one view of essence), when it makes identity possible. This idea is pure Aristotle.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 3. Individual Essences
12931 Particular truths are just instances of general truths [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The reasons for particular truths rest wholly on the more general ones of which they are mere instances.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.01)
     A reaction: Clearly particulars have their own distinctive truth, but the Leibniz case seems to be that a particular is a unique intersection for an array of general truths - and nothing else. Audrey Hepburn's smile has no generalities to it.
12811 We can't know individuals, or determine their exact individuality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: It is impossible for us to have knowledge of individuals and to find the means of determining exactly the individuality of everything.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.3)
     A reaction: Aristotle was clearly also tempted by this doubt (since universals are involved), though individuals are what he wanted to understand. I think they are wrong. Leibniz gives the bizarre reason that we can't know individuals as they each contain infinity.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 4. Essence as Definition
12981 Essence is just the possibility of a thing [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Essence is fundamentally nothing but the possibility of the thing under consideration. Something which is thought possible is expressed by a definition.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.03)
     A reaction: It is unclear whether he means 'possible modes of existence' or 'possible actions of the thing'. Leibniz sees more clearly than Aristotle that essences extend beyond the actual thing, because Leibniz is more aware of the active powers.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 6. Essence as Unifier
12706 Bodies need a soul (or something like it) to avoid being mere phenomena [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every substance is indivisible and consequently every corporeal substance must have a soul or at least an entelechy which is analogous to the soul, since otherwise bodies would be no more than phenomena.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], G II 121), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2
     A reaction: There is a large gap between having 'a soul' and having something 'analogous to a soul'. I take the analogy to be merely as originators of action. Leibniz wants to add appetite and sensation to the Aristotelian forms (but knows this is dubious!).
12753 A substantial bond of powers is needed to unite composites, in addition to monads [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Some realising thing must bring it about that composite substance contains something substantial besides monads, otherwise composites will be mere phenomena. The scholastics' active and passive powers are the substantial bond I am urging.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.01.13), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9
     A reaction: [compressed] This appears to be a major retreat, in the last year of Leibniz's life, from the full monadology he had espoused. How do monads connect to matter, and thus unify it? He is returning to Aristotelian hylomorphism.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / a. Essence as necessary properties
13083 The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Of the essence of a particular thing is what pertains to it necessarily and perpetually; of the concept of an individual thing on the other hand is what pertains to it contingently or per accidens.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Human Freedom and Divine choice [1690], Grua 383), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
     A reaction: This arbitrates on the apparent conflict between his remarks in Idea 13077 and Idea 10382. There seems to be a distinction between the 'concept' of a thing, and the 'complete concept', the latter including the contingent properties.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 7. Essence and Necessity / b. Essence not necessities
13082 The complete concept of an individual includes contingent properties, as well as necessary ones [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: In this complete concept of possible Peter are contained not only essential or necessary things, ..but also existential things, or contingent items included there, because the nature of an individual substance is to have a perfect or complete concept.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Of liberty, Fate and God's grace [1690], Grua 311), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
     A reaction: Compare Idea 13077, where he seems to say that the complete concept is only necessarily linked to properties which will predict future events - though I suppose that would have to include all of the contingent properties mentioned here.
13189 A necessary feature (such as air for humans) is not therefore part of the essence [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: That which is necessary for something does not constitute its essence. Air is necessary for our life, but our life is something other than air.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702)
     A reaction: Bravo. Why can't modern philosophers hang on to this distinction? They seem to think that because they don't believe in traditional essences they can purloin the word for something else. Same with the word 'abstraction'.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 8. Essence as Explanatory
5057 If you fully understand a subject and its qualities, you see how the second derive from the first [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every time we find some quality in a subject, we ought to think that, if we understood the nature of this subject and of this quality, we should conceive how this quality could result from it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref)
     A reaction: Thus (in Kripke's analogy) God cannot make 'subjects' on Thursday and then add 'qualities' on Friday. Add the point that all subjects are physical, and I say you have the whole story. The physical entails the mental. The laws result from the qualities.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 9. Essence and Properties
13191 The properties of a thing flow from its essence [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: It is the same to look for perfection in an essence and in the properties that flow from an essence.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Wolff [1715], 1715.05.18)
     A reaction: It is helpful to have Leibniz spelling out his commitment to the traditional view of essence, as that from which the more evident properties flow.
11878 Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P]
     Full Idea: The view standardly attributed to Leibniz, that makes all an individual's properties essential to it should be regarded as an extreme version of essentialism, not a denial of essentialism.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.1
     A reaction: Wiggins disagrees, saying that Leibniz was not an essentialist, which is an interesting topic of research for those who are interested. I would take Leibniz to be not an essentialist, on that basis, as essentialism makes a distinction. See Quine on that.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 10. Essence as Species
12906 Truths about species are eternal or necessary, but individual truths concern what exists [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The concept of a species contains only eternal or necessary truths, whereas the concept of an individual contains, regarded as possible, what in fact exists or what is related to the existence of things and to time.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1686.06)
     A reaction: This seems to be what is behind the preference some have for kind-essences rather than individual essences. But the individual must be explained, as well as the kind. Not all tigers are identical. The two are, of course, compatible.
12987 For some sorts, a member of it is necessarily a member [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: There are sorts or species such that if an individual has ever been of such a sort or species it cannot (naturally, at least) stop being of it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.06)
     A reaction: Note the thoughtful 'naturally, at least', which blocks genetic engineering. But natural selection is genetic engineering. Crucially, Leibniz is not attributing this to all sorts or species, and allows exceptions.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 12. Essential Parts
12884 The same whole ceases to exist if a part is lost [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: We cannot say - with complete fidelity to the truth of things - that the same whole continues to exist if a part of it is lost.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27.11)
     A reaction: This is the reference Simons 1987:319 gives when he claims that Leibniz accepts mereological essentialism. I think this is mereological necessity of identity, but not what I call 'essentialism'. That has to distinguish essential from non-essential.
12781 A composite substance is a mere aggregate if its essence is just its parts [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: An aggregate, but not a composite substance, is resolved into parts. A composite substance only needs the coming together of parts, but is not essentially constituted by them, otherwise it would be an aggregate.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29)
     A reaction: The point is that there is more to some things than there mere parts. Only some unifying principle, in addition to the mere parts, bestows a unity. Mereology is a limited activity if it has nothing to say about this issue.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 13. Nominal Essence
12975 We have a distinct idea of gold, to define it, but not a perfect idea, to understand it [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: That gold is a metal which resists cupellation and is insoluble in aquafortis is a distinct idea, for it gives us the criteria or definition of 'gold'. But it is not a perfect idea, because we know too little about cupellation and actions of aquafortis.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.31)
     A reaction: This connects the 'perfect idea' of something with knowing its active substance, and hence its essence. See Idea 12976 for the connection between perfect ideas and definitions.
12805 If two people apply a single term to different resemblances, they refer to two different things [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If one person applies the name 'avarice' to one resemblance, and some one else to another, there will be two different species designated by the same name.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 6.6.292), quoted by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz and Locke on Essences p.199
     A reaction: Part of Leibniz's sustained attack on Locke's nominal essences. There is clearly an uninteresting nominal essence, where a 'big brown bear' is necessarily brown, but in the interesting respects I think Leibniz is right.
12806 Locke needs many instances to show a natural kind, but why not a single instance? [Leibniz, by Jolley]
     Full Idea: Leibniz points out that it is a concealed premise of Locke's argument that if a natural kind exists it must have many instances, but there seems no a priori objection to the idea of a species with just one member.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 6.6.311) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz and Locke on Essences p.200
     A reaction: I can't see this bothering Locke. Generally we formulate nominal essences by induction from bundles of ideas, but we can formulate a cautious first stab at it from one instance. If you see a new creature, is it a normal one, or a 'monster'?
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 14. Knowledge of Essences
12694 Essence is the distinct thinkability of anything [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: (Essence) is the distinct thinkability (cogitabilitas) of anything.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Notes on John Wilkins [1672], A6.2.487-8), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
     A reaction: A very original remark from the young Leibniz. It is neutral as to whether this is a real feature of objects, or a feature of human mental capacities. Presumably accidental features are thinkable, so 'distinct' is the key word.
9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 15. Against Essentialism
11862 Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Leibniz was not an essentialist.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.2 n4
     A reaction: Assuming this is right, it is rather helpful, because you can read mountains of Leibniz without ever being quite sure. Mackie says he IS an extreme essentialist, treating all properties as essential. Wiggins makes more sense there.
15753 Essences might support Resemblance Nominalism, but they are too coarse and ill-defined [Armstrong]
     Full Idea: A sophisticated Resemblance theory can appeal to the natures of the resembling things, from which the resemblances flow. The natures are suitably internal, but are as coarse as the things themselves (and perhaps are the things themselves).
     From: David M. Armstrong (Properties [1992], 1)
     A reaction: Note that this is essentialism as an underpinning for Resemblance Nominalism. His objection is that he just can't believe in essences, because they are too 'coarse' - which I take to mean that we cannot distinguish the boundaries of an essence.