display all the ideas for this combination of philosophers
2 ideas
| 13182 | Changeable accidents are modifications of unchanging essences [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Everything accidental or changeable ought to be a modification of something essential or perpetual. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704.06.30) | |
| A reaction: Clear evidence that Leibniz is very much a traditional Aristotelian essentialist, and not as modal logicians tend to characterise him, as a super-essentialist who thinks all properties are essential. They are necessary for identity, but that's different. |
| 12972 | Bodies, like Theseus's ship, are only the same in appearance, and never strictly the same [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We must acknowledge that organic bodies as well as others remain 'the same' only in appearance, and not strictly speaking. It is rather like the river whose water is continually changing, or like Theseus's ship which Athenians constantly repaired. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's standard view, that something only remains the same if it has a unifying substance, and so a collection of planks is just an aggregate, and doesn't have any identity to begin with. |