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Single Idea 12986
[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 3. Unity Problems / e. Vague objects
]
Full Idea
There are vague and imperfect essences, as in the question of how few hairs a man can have without being bald.
Gist of Idea
The essence of baldness is vague and imperfect
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.05)
Book Ref
Leibniz,Gottfried: 'New Essays on Human Understanding', ed/tr. Remnant/Bennett [CUP 1996], p.302
A Reaction
This example is much discussed in contemporary debate, but I now learn that it has a venerable history. The surprise here is the word 'essences', because I had taken Leibnizian essences to be 'perfect ideas', and hence precise.
The
106 ideas
from 'New Essays on Human Understanding'
5056
|
Material or immaterial substances cannot be conceived without their essential activity
[Leibniz]
|
5057
|
If you fully understand a subject and its qualities, you see how the second derive from the first
[Leibniz]
|
5055
|
No two things are totally identical
[Leibniz]
|
5053
|
The instances confirming a general truth are never enough to establish its necessity
[Leibniz]
|
5054
|
Animal thought is a shadow of reasoning, connecting sequences of images by imagination
[Leibniz]
|
5058
|
Animals have thought and sensation, and indestructible immaterial souls
[Leibniz]
|
11855
|
Substances cannot be bare, but have activity as their essence
[Leibniz]
|
11856
|
Qualities should be predictable from the nature of the subject
[Leibniz]
|
12931
|
Particular truths are just instances of general truths
[Leibniz]
|
17079
|
Proofs of necessity come from the understanding, where they have their source
[Leibniz]
|
4302
|
You may experience a universal truth, but only reason can tell you that it is always true
[Leibniz]
|
12930
|
The senses are confused, and necessities come from distinct intellectual ideas
[Leibniz]
|
12929
|
All of our thoughts come from within the soul, and not from the senses
[Leibniz]
|
12933
|
Arithmetic and geometry are implicitly innate, awaiting revelation
[Leibniz]
|
12932
|
The idea of being must come from our own existence
[Leibniz]
|
19360
|
General principles, even if unconscious, are indispensable for thinking
[Leibniz]
|
12937
|
We shouldn't just accept Euclid's axioms, but try to demonstrate them
[Leibniz]
|
12935
|
Every feeling is the perception of a truth
[Leibniz]
|
12934
|
We can't want everyone to have more than their share, so a further standard is needed
[Leibniz]
|
12936
|
There are natural rewards and punishments, like illness after over-indulgence
[Leibniz]
|
12944
|
It is a serious mistake to think that we are aware of all of our perceptions
[Leibniz]
|
12942
|
Memory doesn't make identity; a man who relearned everything would still be the same man
[Leibniz]
|
12945
|
Thoughts correspond to sensations, but ideas are independent of thoughts
[Leibniz]
|
12938
|
An idea is an independent inner object, which expresses the qualities of things
[Leibniz]
|
12940
|
What is left of the 'blank page' if you remove the ideas?
[Leibniz]
|
12941
|
There cannot be power without action; the power is a disposition to act
[Leibniz]
|
12939
|
Wholly uniform things like space and numbers are mere abstractions
[Leibniz]
|
12943
|
Individuality is in the bond substance gives between past and future
[Leibniz]
|
12946
|
The idea of the will includes the understanding
[Leibniz]
|
19357
|
The idea of green seems simple, but it must be compounded of the ideas of blue and yellow
[Leibniz]
|
12947
|
We only believe in sensible things when reason helps the senses
[Leibniz]
|
12948
|
A pain doesn't resemble the movement of a pin, but it resembles the bodily movement pins cause
[Leibniz]
|
19358
|
Colour and pain must express the nature of their stimuli, without exact resemblance
[Leibniz]
|
12950
|
We must distinguish images from exact defined ideas
[Leibniz]
|
12949
|
Light takes time to reach us, so objects we see may now not exist
[Leibniz]
|
12951
|
Abstraction attends to the general, not the particular, and involves universal truths
[Leibniz]
|
12952
|
Space is an order among actual and possible things
[Leibniz]
|
12953
|
Fluidity is basic, and we divide into bodies according to our needs
[Leibniz]
|
12956
|
Only whole numbers are multitudes of units
[Leibniz]
|
12955
|
If there were duration without change, we could never establish its length
[Leibniz]
|
12954
|
God's essence is the source of possibilities, and his will the source of existents
[Leibniz]
|
12957
|
The good is the virtuous, the pleasing, or the useful
[Leibniz]
|
12958
|
Love is pleasure in the perfection, well-being or happiness of its object
[Leibniz]
|
12962
|
Pleasure is a sense of perfection
[Leibniz]
|
19364
|
Volition automatically endeavours to move towards what it sees as good (and away from bad)
[Leibniz]
|
19368
|
The will determines action, by what is seen as good, but it does not necessitate it
[Leibniz]
|
12964
|
If would be absurd not to disagree with someone's taste if it was a taste for poisons
[Leibniz]
|
12963
|
Opposing reason is opposing truth, since reason is a chain of truths
[Leibniz]
|
12959
|
We discern active power from our minds, so mind must be involved in all active powers
[Leibniz]
|
12965
|
All occurrence in the depth of a substance is spontaneous 'action'
[Leibniz]
|
12960
|
We understand things when they are distinct, and we can derive necessities from them
[Leibniz]
|
19328
|
Without the principle of sufficient reason, God's existence could not be demonstrated
[Leibniz]
|
12967
|
I use the word 'entelechy' for a power, to include endeavour, as well as mere aptitude
[Leibniz]
|
12966
|
Objects of ideas can be divided into abstract and concrete, and then further subdivided
[Leibniz]
|
12969
|
The active powers which are not essential to the substance are the 'real qualities'
[Leibniz]
|
12968
|
A 'substratum' is just a metaphor for whatever supports several predicates
[Leibniz]
|
12970
|
We can imagine two bodies interpenetrating, as two rays of light seem to
[Leibniz]
|
12972
|
Bodies, like Theseus's ship, are only the same in appearance, and never strictly the same
[Leibniz]
|
12971
|
If two individuals could be indistinguishable, there could be no principle of individuation
[Leibniz]
|
13098
|
We use things to distinguish places and times, not vice versa
[Leibniz]
|
13075
|
No two things are quite the same, so there must be an internal principle of distinction
[Leibniz]
|
12973
|
We know our own identity by psychological continuity, even if there are some gaps
[Leibniz]
|
12884
|
The same whole ceases to exist if a part is lost
[Leibniz]
|
12974
|
People who can't apply names usually don't understand the thing to which it applies
[Leibniz]
|
12976
|
If our ideas of a thing are imperfect, the thing can have several unconnected definitions
[Leibniz]
|
12975
|
We have a distinct idea of gold, to define it, but not a perfect idea, to understand it
[Leibniz]
|
12978
|
A perfect idea of an object shows that the object is possible
[Leibniz]
|
12977
|
We will only connect our various definitions of gold when we understand it more deeply
[Leibniz]
|
12981
|
Essence is just the possibility of a thing
[Leibniz]
|
12982
|
One essence can be expressed by several definitions
[Leibniz]
|
12984
|
Real definitions, unlike nominal definitions, display possibilities
[Leibniz]
|
12983
|
A nominal definition is of the qualities, but the real definition is of the essential inner structure
[Leibniz]
|
12980
|
Genus and differentia might be swapped, and 'rational animal' become 'animable rational'
[Leibniz]
|
12979
|
The only way we can determine individuals is by keeping hold of them
[Leibniz]
|
12985
|
Maybe motion is definable as 'change of place'
[Leibniz]
|
12986
|
The essence of baldness is vague and imperfect
[Leibniz]
|
12987
|
For some sorts, a member of it is necessarily a member
[Leibniz]
|
12989
|
Our true divisions of nature match reality, but are probably incomplete
[Leibniz]
|
12988
|
The universe contains everything possible for its perfect harmony
[Leibniz]
|
12990
|
Real (non-logical) abstract terms are either essences or accidents
[Leibniz]
|
12992
|
Logic teaches us how to order and connect our thoughts
[Leibniz]
|
12993
|
Have five categories - substance, quantity, quality, action/passion, relation - and their combinations
[Leibniz]
|
12991
|
Children learn language fast, with little instruction and few definitions
[Leibniz]
|
12994
|
Gold has a real essence, unknown to us, which produces its properties
[Leibniz]
|
12995
|
The name 'gold' means what we know of gold, and also further facts about it which only others know
[Leibniz]
|
12811
|
We can't know individuals, or determine their exact individuality
[Leibniz]
|
12998
|
Understanding grasps the agreements and disagreements of ideas
[Leibniz]
|
12996
|
I know more than I think, since I know I think A then B then C
[Leibniz]
|
12997
|
Analysis is the art of finding the middle term
[Leibniz]
|
12999
|
Substances are primary powers; their ways of being are the derivative powers
[Leibniz]
|
13000
|
Truth is correspondence between mental propositions and what they are about
[Leibniz]
|
13002
|
It is always good to reduce the number of axioms
[Leibniz]
|
13001
|
Our sensation of green is a confused idea, like objects blurred by movement
[Leibniz]
|
13003
|
The Cogito doesn't prove existence, because 'I am thinking' already includes 'I am'
[Leibniz]
|
13006
|
Certainty is where practical doubt is insane, or at least blameworthy
[Leibniz]
|
13005
|
Truth arises among sensations from grounding reasons and from regularities
[Leibniz]
|
10056
|
At bottom eternal truths are all conditional
[Leibniz]
|
13008
|
Geometry, unlike sensation, lets us glimpse eternal truths and their necessity
[Leibniz]
|
13009
|
A reason is a known truth which leads to assent to some further truth
[Leibniz]
|
12805
|
If two people apply a single term to different resemblances, they refer to two different things
[Leibniz]
|
12806
|
Locke needs many instances to show a natural kind, but why not a single instance?
[Leibniz, by Jolley]
|
12808
|
Part of our idea of gold is its real essence, which is not known to us in detail
[Leibniz]
|
12807
|
The word 'gold' means a hidden constitution known to experts, and not just its appearances
[Leibniz]
|
1414
|
A perfection is a simple quality, which is positive and absolute, and has no limit
[Leibniz]
|
21252
|
Perfections must have overlapping parts if their incompatibility is to be proved
[Leibniz]
|
21253
|
Descartes needs to demonstrate how other people can attain his clear and distinct conceptions
[Leibniz]
|