35 ideas
| 16665 | There are entities, and then positive 'modes', modifying aspects outside the thing's essence [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: Beyond the entities there are certain real 'modes', which are positive, and in their own right act on those entities, giving them something that is outside their whole essence as individuals existing in reality. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
| A reaction: Suárez is apparently the first person to formulate a proper account of properties as 'modes' of a thing, rather than as accidents which are separate, or are wholly integrated into a thing. A typical compromise proposal in philosophy. Can modes act? |
| 16666 | A mode determines the state and character of a quantity, without adding to it [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: The inherence of quantity is called its mode, because it affects that quantity, which serves to ultimately determine the state and character of its existence, but does not add to it any new proper entity, but only modifies the preexisting entity. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.1.17), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
| A reaction: He seems to present mode as a very active thing, like someone who gives it a coat of paint, or hammers it into a new shape. I don't see how a 'mode' can have any ontological status at all. To exist, there has to be some way to exist. |
| 16667 | Substances are incomplete unless they have modes [Suárez, by Pasnau] |
| Full Idea: In the view of Suárez, substances are radically incomplete entities that cannot exist at all until determined in various ways by things of another kind, modes. …Modes are regarded as completers for their subjects. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 13.3 | |
| A reaction: This is correct. In order to be a piece of clay it needs a shape, a mass, a colour etc. Treating clay as an object independently from its shape is a misunderstanding. |
| 17007 | Forms must rule over faculties and accidents, and are the source of action and unity [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: A form is required that, as it were, rules over all those faculties and accidents, and is the source of all actions and natural motions of such a being, and in which the whole variety of accidents and powers has its root and unity. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.1.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4 | |
| A reaction: Pasnau emphasises that this is scholastics giving a very physical and causal emphasis to forms, which made them vulnerable to doubts among the new experiment physicists. Pasnau says forms are 'metaphysical', following Leibniz. |
| 16780 | Partial forms of leaf and fruit are united in the whole form of the tree [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: In a tree the part of the form that is in the leaf is not the same character as the part that is in the fruit., but yet they are partial forms, and apt to be united ….to compose one complete form of the whole. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.30), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 26.6 | |
| A reaction: This is a common scholastic view, the main opponent of which was Aquinas, who says each thing only has one form. Do leaves have different DNA from the bark or the fruit? Presumably not (since I only have one DNA), which supports Aquinas. |
| 16758 | The best support for substantial forms is the co-ordinated unity of a natural being [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: The most powerful arguments establishing substantial forms are based on the necessity, for the perfect constitution of a natural being, that all the faculties and operations of that being are rooted in one essential principle. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 15.10.64), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.4 | |
| A reaction: Note Idea 15756, that this stability not only applies to biological entities (the usual Aristotelian examples), but also to non-living natural kinds. We might say that the drive for survival is someone united around a single entity. |
| 16743 | We can get at the essential nature of 'quantity' by knowing bulk and extension [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: We can say that the form that gives corporeal bulk [molem] or extension to things is the essential nature of quantity. To have bulk is to expel a similar bulk from the same space. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.4.16), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 539 | |
| A reaction: This is one step away from asking why, once we knew the bulk and extension of the thing, we would still have any interest in trying to grasp something called its 'quantity'. |
| 13074 | Only natural kinds and their members have real essences [Suárez, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
| Full Idea: On Suarez's account, only natural kinds and their members have real essences. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (works [1588]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 1.3.1 n21 | |
| A reaction: Interesting. Rather than say that everything is a member of some kind, we leave quirky individuals out, with no essence at all. What is the status of the very first exemplar of a given kind? |
| 16742 | We only know essences through non-essential features, esp. those closest to the essence [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: We can almost never set out the essences of things, as they are in things. Instead, we work through their connection to some non-essential feature, and we seem to succeed well enough when we spell it out through the feature closest to the essence. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.4.16), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 23.5 | |
| A reaction: It is a common view that with geometrical figures we can actually experience the essence itself. So has science broken through, and discerned actual essences of things? |
| 22143 | Identity does not exclude possible or imagined difference [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: To be really the same excludes being really other, but does not exclude being other modally or mentally. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 7.65) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: So the statue and the clay are identical, but they could become separate, or be imagined as separate. |
| 22144 | Real Essential distinction: A and B are of different natural kinds [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The Real Essential distinction says if A and B are not of the same natural kind, then they are essentially distinct. This is the highest degree of distinction. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: Boulter says Peter is essentially distinct from a cabbage, because neither has the nature of the other. |
| 22146 | Minor Real distinction: B needs A, but A doesn't need B [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The Minor Real distinction is if A can exist without B, but B ceases to exist without A. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: This is one-way independence. Boulter's example is Peter and Peter's actual weight. |
| 22145 | Major Real distinction: A and B have independent existences [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The Major Real distinction is if A can exist in the real order without B, and B can exist in the real order without A. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: Boulter's example is the distinction between Peter and Paul, where their identity of kind is irrelevant. This is two-way independence. |
| 22147 | Conceptual/Mental distinction: one thing can be conceived of in two different ways [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The Conceptual or Mental distinction is when A and B are actually identical but we have two different ways of conceiving them. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: This is the Morning and Evening Star. I bet Frege never read Suarez. This seems to be Spinoza's concept of mind/body. |
| 22148 | Modal distinction: A isn't B or its property, but still needs B [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The Modal distinction is when A is not B or a property of B, but still could not possibly exist without B. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: Duns Scotus proposed in, Ockham rejected it, but Suarez supports it. Suarez proposes that light's dependence on the Sun is distinct from the light itself, in this 'modal' way. |
| 22149 | Scholastics assess possibility by what has actually happened in reality [Suárez, by Boulter] |
| Full Idea: The scholastic view is that Actuality is our only guide to possibility in the real order. One knows that it is possible to separate A and B if one knows that A and B have actually been separated or are separate. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], Bk VII) by Stephen Boulter - Why Medieval Philosophy Matters 4 | |
| A reaction: It may be possible to separate A and B even though it has never happened, but it is hard to see how we could know that. (But if I put my pen down where it has never been before, I know I can pick it up again, even though this has not previously happened). |
| 3061 | Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing [Anaxarchus, by Diog. Laertius] |
| Full Idea: Anaxarchus said that he was not even sure that he knew nothing. | |
| From: report of Anaxarchus (fragments/reports [c.340 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 09.10.1 |
| 20289 | Ethics is universalisable - it must involve an impartial and universal view of things [Singer] |
| Full Idea: A distinguishng feature of ethics is that ethical judgements are universalisable. Ethics requires us to go beyond our own personal point of view to a standpoint like that of the impartial spectator who takes a universal point of view. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 10) | |
| A reaction: I'm thinking that ethical agents are more 'situated' than that. Suppose a finance minister stole billions in tax and gave it to a poor country. Good from the universal angle, perhaps, but a shocking betrayal of his own community. |
| 20286 | Following an inner voice for morality is irresponsible in a rational agent [Singer] |
| Full Idea: When following conscience means doing as one's 'internal voice' prompts one to do, to follow one's conscience it so abdicate one's responsibility as a rational agent. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Seems dead right. An inner voice is far more likely to be your culture and upbringing than to be an absolute moral truth. It may not be entirely wrong, though, to behave as your culture requires. |
| 20282 | The sanctity of a human life depends either on being of our species, or on being a person [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The doctrine of the sanctity of human life has two separate claims, one that there is a special value in the life of a member of our species, and the other that there is a special value in the life of a person. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 04) |
| 20278 | 'Marginal utility' says something is more useful if it is in short supply [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The economic principle of marginal utility states that for a given individual a set amount of something is more useful when the individual has little of it than when he has a lot. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: But individuals may very a lot on this one. 'He can't get enough of X'. I may be desperate to buy 10,000 books, but you may consider such a need ridiculous, so who decides? |
| 20281 | Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me? [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Most striking is the impact of the contract model on our attitude to future generations. 'Why should I do anything for posterity? What has posterity ever done for me?' would be the view we ought to take. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 03) | |
| A reaction: I should bury my mobile phone for future archaeologists, because it will be more valuable then than it is now. Singer cites the disposal of nuclear waste as an instance. |
| 20276 | Conflict of rules might be avoided by greater complexity, or by a hierarchy of rules [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Those who think ethics is a system of rules can rescue their position by finding more complicated and more specific rules which do not conflict, or by ranking the rules in some hierarchical structure to resolve conflicts. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 01) | |
| A reaction: The problem is that clear-cut rules seem to produce conflicts. I would have thought that more specific rules would increase that problem. Safety is in generality. |
| 20290 | Psychopaths may just be bored, because they cannot participate in normal emotional life [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Maybe psychopaths are bored because their emotional poverty means that they cannot take interest in, or gain satisfaction from, what for others are the most important things in life: love, family, success in business or professional life, etc. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 10) | |
| A reaction: [he cites Hervey Cleckley for this] Maybe boredom is a symptom of some human inadequacy, but it might sometimes be a mark of superiority. It drives people to both creation and destruction. Quite a good account of criminal behaviour. |
| 20288 | You can't condemn violent revolution without assessing the evils it prevents [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It would be one-sided to say that violent revolution is always absolutely wrong, without taking account of the evils that the revolutionaries are trying to stop. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: This seems like common sense, but there are plenty of right-wing authoritarians who would claim that stable authority has priority over all social wrongs. I think that view is mistaken. But the problem is, how to know the future? |
| 21997 | In Marxism the state will be superseded [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It is a famous Marxist doctrine that the state will be superseded. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Marx [1980], 9) | |
| A reaction: Why is that final state communism rather than anarchism? |
| 20287 | If 49% of the population can be wrong, so can 51% [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The case for majority rule should not be overstated. No sensible democrat would claim that the majority is always right. If 49% of the population can be wrong, so can 51%. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 09) | |
| A reaction: Well said! We can't possibly put a figure on when the majority become right. In the recent Brexit referendum hardly anyone seemed to understand the issues very well, so none of us have a clue about who was right. |
| 21993 | Materialist history says we are subject to incomprehensible forces [Singer] |
| Full Idea: The materialist conception of history tells us that human beings are totally subject to forces they do not understand and control. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Marx [1980], 6) | |
| A reaction: How does Marx know the forces? An exceptionally influential idea, because it is a modern commonplace that we have very little control over our own lives (apart from right wingers asserting that 'you can have anything if you really really want it'). |
| 20277 | Equality of interests is a minimal principle, not implying equal treatment [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Equal consideration of interests is a minimal principle of equality in the sense that it does not dictate equal treatment. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: Do those convicted of serious crime retain equal interests? Should a huge group of people sacrifice all of their interests, because of the powerful interests of one person? |
| 20279 | Equality of opportunity unfairly rewards those lucky enough to have great ability [Singer] |
| Full Idea: Equality of opportunity is not an attractive ideal. It rewards the lucky, who inherit those abilities that allow them to pursue interesting and lucrative careers. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 02) | |
| A reaction: He makes it sound like cheating. Singer has a highly individualistic view, but society as a whole needs the development of talent, wherever it can be found. |
| 20285 | If a right entails having the relevant desire, many creatures might have no right to life [Singer] |
| Full Idea: If to have a right one must have the ability to desire that to which one has a right, then to have a right to life one must be able to desire one's own continued existence. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 07) | |
| A reaction: The unborn, small infants, and persons in comas may well lack the relevant desire (at least consciously - arguably even a plant has a non-conscious 'desire' or drive for life). The idea that a right entails a conscious desire seems daft. |
| 20284 | Why should a potential person have the rights of an actual person? [Singer] |
| Full Idea: A prince may be a potential king, but he does not have the rights of a king. Why should a potential person have the rights of a person? | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 06) | |
| A reaction: But the prince is probably accorded special rights, merely on the grounds that he is the potential king. An unborn potential king is always considered as special. |
| 20283 | Killing a chimp is worse than killing a human too defective to be a person [Singer] |
| Full Idea: It seems that killing a chimpanzee is worse than the killing of a gravely defective human who is not a person. ...[p.103] the effects on relatives of the defective human will sometimes constitute additional indirect reasons against killing the human. | |
| From: Peter Singer (Practical Ethics [1979], 05) | |
| A reaction: Singer's most notorious idea. Perhaps we should all carry cards (perhaps combined with donor cards) saying how many people will care if we die. |
| 7563 | The old 'influx' view of causation says it is a flow of accidental properties from A to B [Suárez, by Jolley] |
| Full Idea: The 'influx' model of causation says that causes involve a process of contagion, as it were; when the kettle boils, the gas infects the water inside the kettle with its own 'individual accident' of heat, which literally flows from one to the other. | |
| From: report of Francisco Suárez (works [1588]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.2 | |
| A reaction: This nicely captures the scholastic target of Hume's sceptical thinking on the subject. However, see Idea 2542, where the idea of influx has had a revival. It is hard to see how the water could change if it didn't 'catch' something from the gas. |
| 16682 | Other things could occupy the same location as an angel [Suárez] |
| Full Idea: An angelic substance could be penetrated by other bodies in the same location. | |
| From: Francisco Suárez (Disputationes metaphysicae [1597], 40.2.21), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.3 | |
| A reaction: So am I co-located with an angel right now? |