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Single Idea 12965

[filed under theme 8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic ]

Full Idea

Anything which occurs in what is strictly a substance must be a case of 'action' in the metaphysically rigorous sense of something which occurs in the substance spontaneously, arising out of its own depths.

Gist of Idea

All occurrence in the depth of a substance is spontaneous 'action'

Source

Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.21)

Book Ref

Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.210

A Reaction

I love this idea, which fits in with scientific essentialism. The question is whether Leibniz has idenified the end point of all explanations. Cutting edge physics is trying to give further explanations for what seemed basic, such as mass and gravity.

Related Ideas

Idea 12783 Primitive force is what gives a composite its reality [Leibniz]

Idea 13169 I call Aristotle's entelechies 'primitive forces', which originate activity [Leibniz]

The 39 ideas with the same theme [powers seen as the foundation of physical reality]:

15773 Actualities are arranged by priority, going back to what initiates process [Aristotle]
11387 The main characteristic of the source of change is activity [energeia] [Aristotle, by Politis]
18451 The presence of the incorporeal is only known by certain kinds of disposition [Porphyry]
16635 Incorporeal substances are powers or forces [Descartes, by Pasnau]
17195 Things persevere through a force which derives from God [Spinoza]
17011 I suspect that each particle of bodies has attractive or repelling forces [Newton]
12710 As well as extension, bodies contain powers [Leibniz]
12965 All occurrence in the depth of a substance is spontaneous 'action' [Leibniz]
12999 Substances are primary powers; their ways of being are the derivative powers [Leibniz]
13079 A substance contains the laws of its operations, and its actions come from its own depth [Leibniz]
12749 Derivate forces are in phenomena, but primitive forces are in the internal strivings of substances [Leibniz]
12708 The soul is not a substance but a substantial form, the first active faculty [Leibniz]
12723 The most primitive thing in substances is force, which leads to their actions and dispositions [Leibniz]
23664 Powers are quite distinct and simple, and so cannot be defined [Reid]
23669 Thinkers say that matter has intrinsic powers, but is also passive and acted upon [Reid]
23228 The principle of activity and generation is found in a self-moving basic force [Fichte]
17534 A 'probability wave' is a quantitative version of Aristotle's potential, a mid-way type of reality [Heisenberg]
14329 Some dispositional properties (such as mental ones) may have no categorical base [Price,HH]
15487 If unmanifested partnerless dispositions are still real, and are not just qualities, they can explain properties [Martin,CB]
12676 Causal powers can't rest on things which lack causal power [Ellis]
15218 Scientists define copper almost entirely (bar atomic number) in terms of its dispositions [Harré/Madden]
15302 We explain powers by the natures of things, but explanations end in inexplicable powers [Harré/Madden]
15303 Maybe a physical field qualifies as ultimate, if its nature is identical with its powers [Harré/Madden]
9476 If dispositions are more fundamental than causes, then they won't conceptually reduce to them [Bird on Lewis]
11934 The physical world has a feature very like mental intentionality [Molnar]
11947 Dispositions and external powers arise entirely from intrinsic powers in objects [Molnar]
11952 The Standard Model suggest that particles are entirely dispositional, and hence are powers [Molnar]
11953 Some powers are ungrounded, and others rest on them, and are derivative [Molnar]
16556 Penicillin causes nothing; the cause is what penicillin does [Machamer/Darden/Craver]
14294 Dispositions are attacked as mere regularities of events, or place-holders for unknown properties [Mumford]
9446 Properties are just natural clusters of powers [Mumford]
17996 Powers are claimed to be basic because fundamental particles lack internal structure [Psillos]
15127 A categorical basis could hardly explain a disposition if it had no powers of its own [Hawthorne]
14540 Only real powers are fundamental [Bird, by Mumford/Anjum]
23771 Fundamental physics describes everything in terms of powers [Williams,NE]
12467 Powers come from concrete particulars, not from the laws of nature [Jacobs]
14555 Powers offer no more explanation of nature than laws do [Mumford/Anjum]
22632 Physics understands the charge of an electron as a power, not as a quality [Ingthorsson]
23714 Dispositional essentialism (unlike the grounding view) says only fundamental properties are powers [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]