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Single Idea 13093
[filed under theme 26. Natural Theory / D. Laws of Nature / 8. Scientific Essentialism / c. Essence and laws
]
Full Idea
Nothing is permanent in things except the law itself, which involves a continuous succession ...The fact that a certain law persists ...is the very fact that constitutes the same substance.
Gist of Idea
The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity
Source
Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], 1704)
Book Ref
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J: 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz' [CUP 1999], p.220
A Reaction
Aristotle and Leibniz are the very clear ancestors of modern scientific essentialism. I've left out a few inconvenient bits, about containing 'the whole universe', and containing all 'future states'. For Leibniz, laws are entirely rooted in things.
The
22 ideas
with the same theme
[relationship between essences and laws of nature]:
17005
|
Natural things observe certain laws, and things cannot do otherwise if they retain their forms
[Hooker,R]
|
17023
|
I am not saying gravity is essential to bodies
[Newton]
|
17009
|
I won't object if someone shows that gravity consistently arises from the action of matter
[Newton]
|
19403
|
Each of the infinite possible worlds has its own laws, and the individuals contain those laws
[Leibniz]
|
13198
|
Gravity is within matter because of its structure, and it can be explained.
[Leibniz]
|
13093
|
The only permanence in things, constituting their substance, is a law of continuity
[Leibniz]
|
11945
|
In addition to laws, God must also create appropriate natures for things
[Leibniz]
|
12725
|
Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body
[Leibniz, by Garber]
|
16507
|
The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature
[Leibniz]
|
19958
|
Laws are the necessary relations that derive from the nature of things
[Montesquieu]
|
7206
|
Things are strong or weak, and do not behave regularly or according to rules or compulsions
[Nietzsche]
|
7140
|
Chemical 'laws' are merely the establishment of power relations between weaker and stronger
[Nietzsche]
|
7142
|
All motions and 'laws' are symptoms of inner events, traceable to the will to power
[Nietzsche]
|
15470
|
Causal laws are summaries of powers
[Martin,CB]
|
6614
|
A hierarchy of natural kinds is elaborate ontology, but needed to explain natural laws
[Ellis]
|
18089
|
Dispositions are not general laws, but laws of the natures of individual entities
[Place]
|
15892
|
Laws of nature state necessary connections of things, events and properties, based on models of mechanisms
[Harré]
|
15240
|
In lawful universal statements (unlike accidental ones) we see why the regularity holds
[Harré/Madden]
|
9434
|
Laws of nature are just the possession of essential properties by natural kinds
[Mumford]
|
23713
|
Most laws supervene on fundamental laws, which are explained by basic powers
[Bird, by Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
|
23778
|
Powers contain lawlike features, pointing to possible future states
[Williams,NE]
|
17993
|
Laws are relations of kinds, quantities and qualities, supervening on the essences of a domain
[Vetter]
|