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Single Idea 11945
[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
]
Full Idea
It isn't sufficient to say that God has made a general law, for in addition to the decree there has also to be a natural way of carrying it out. It is necessary, that is, that what happens should be explicable in terms of the God-given nature of things.
Gist of Idea
In addition to laws, God must also create appropriate natures for things
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (Letter to the Editor about Bayle [1698], p.205)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'Philosophical Texts', ed/tr. Woolhouse R/Francks,R [OUP 1998], p.205
A Reaction
Thus Leibniz is an ancestor of scientific essentialism, but he was too frightened to take the next step, which is to see that once God has endowed the natures, he doesn't need to wield his laws as well. The natures will do the whole job.
The
22 ideas
with the same theme
[relationship between essences and laws of nature]:
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17005
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Natural things observe certain laws, and things cannot do otherwise if they retain their forms
[Hooker,R]
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17023
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I am not saying gravity is essential to bodies
[Newton]
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17009
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I won't object if someone shows that gravity consistently arises from the action of matter
[Newton]
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19403
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Each of the infinite possible worlds has its own laws, and the individuals contain those laws
[Leibniz]
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13198
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Gravity is within matter because of its structure, and it can be explained.
[Leibniz]
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13093
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The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity
[Leibniz]
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11945
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In addition to laws, God must also create appropriate natures for things
[Leibniz]
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12725
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Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body
[Leibniz, by Garber]
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16507
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The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature
[Leibniz]
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19958
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Laws are the necessary relations that derive from the nature of things
[Montesquieu]
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7206
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Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions
[Nietzsche]
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7140
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Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger
[Nietzsche]
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7142
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All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power
[Nietzsche]
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15470
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Causal laws are summaries of powers
[Martin,CB]
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6614
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A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws
[Ellis]
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18089
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Dispositions are not general laws, but laws of the natures of individual entities
[Place]
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15892
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Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms
[Harré]
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15240
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In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds
[Harré/Madden]
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9434
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Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds
[Mumford]
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23713
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Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers
[Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
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23778
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Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states
[Williams,NE]
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17993
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Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain
[Vetter]
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