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Single Idea 13091

[filed under theme 9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined ]

Full Idea

To the traditional idea of substance (independent, subjects of predication, active, persistent) Leibniz adds, distinctively, complete individual concept, law-of-the-series, active force, form and soul or entelechy.

Gist of Idea

Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul

Source

report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.1

Book Ref

Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J: 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz' [CUP 1999], p.217


A Reaction

'Form' seems to be Aristotelian, and 'soul' seems ridiculous. I don't think the 'complete concept' is much help. However, the 'law-in-the-series' is very interesting (Idea 13079), if employed sensibly, and 'active force' is spot-on. Powers define reality.

Related Idea

Idea 13079 A substance contains the laws of its operations, and its actions come from its own depth [Leibniz]


The 58 ideas from 'works'

Leibniz aims to give coherent rational support for empiricism [Leibniz, by Perkins]
Metaphysics is a science of the intelligible nature of being [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
Leibniz tried to combine mechanistic physics with scholastic metaphysics [Leibniz, by Pasnau]
Reason is the faculty for grasping apriori necessary truths [Leibniz, by Burge]
For Leibniz rationality is based on non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA]
Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA]
Leibniz is inclined to regard all truths as provable [Leibniz, by Frege]
Number cannot be defined as addition of ones, since that needs the number; it is a single act of abstraction [Fine,K on Leibniz]
Nature uses the infinite everywhere [Leibniz]
A tangent is a line connecting two points on a curve that are infinitely close together [Leibniz]
Substances are essentially active [Leibniz, by Jolley]
Leibniz proposes monads, since there must be basic things, which are immaterial in order to have unity [Leibniz, by Jolley]
If relations can be reduced to, or supervene on, monadic properties of relata, they are not real [Leibniz, by Swoyer]
Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber]
The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
Leibniz moved from individuation by whole entity to individuation by substantial form [Leibniz, by Garber]
The laws-of-the-series plays a haecceitist role [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM]
Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
Leibniz strengthened hylomorphism by connecting it to force in physics [Leibniz, by Garber]
Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P]
Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins]
Two eggs can't be identical, because the same truths can't apply to both of them [Leibniz]
Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz]
Necessary truths are those provable from identities by pure logic in finite steps [Leibniz, by Hacking]
A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist [Leibniz]
Leibniz narrows down God's options to one, by non-contradiction, sufficient reason, indiscernibles, compossibility [Leibniz, by Harré]
Each monad expresses all its compatible monads; a possible world is the resulting equivalence class [Leibniz, by Rumfitt]
Leibniz proposed possible worlds, because they might be evil, where God would not create evil things [Leibniz, by Stewart,M]
Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins]
Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi]
Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley]
Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection [Leibniz, by Gardner]
Leibniz introduced the idea of degrees of consciousness, essential for his monads [Leibniz, by Perkins]
We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz]
Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi]
Occasionalism give a false view of natural laws, miracles, and substances [Leibniz, by Jolley]
Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD]
Limited awareness leads to bad choices, and unconscious awareness makes us choose the bad [Leibniz, by Perkins]
Humans are moral, and capable of reward and punishment, because of memory and self-consciousness [Leibniz, by Jolley]
Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley]
Leibniz rejected atoms, because they must be elastic, and hence have parts [Leibniz, by Garber]
Leibniz struggled to reconcile bodies with a reality of purely soul-like entities [Jolley on Leibniz]
Leibniz eventually said resistance, rather than extension, was the essence of body [Leibniz, by Pasnau]
God's existence is either necessary or impossible [Leibniz, by Scruton]
Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body [Leibniz, by Garber]
Leibniz had an unusual commitment to the causal completeness of physics [Leibniz, by Papineau]
Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M]
Leibniz uses 'force' to mean both activity and potential [Leibniz]
The essence of substance is the law of its changes, as in the series of numbers [Leibniz]
Microscopes and the continuum suggest that matter is endlessly divisible [Leibniz]
The continuum is not divided like sand, but folded like paper [Leibniz, by Arthur,R]
The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature [Leibniz]
Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz]
Relations aren't in any monad, so they are distributed, so they are not real [Leibniz]
How can things be incompatible, if all positive terms seem to be compatible? [Leibniz]