structure for 'Modes of Existence'    |     alphabetical list of themes    |     unexpand these ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence

[powers as giving the essential nature of each thing]

24 ideas
The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: The hidden harmony is stronger (or 'better') than the visible.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B055), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.5
     A reaction: 'An unapparent connection [harmonia] is stronger than an apparent one' is Curd's translation. I'm taking this for essentialism. It is the basic idea of the essentialising child (see Gelman). The hidden explains the apparent.
Sight is the essence of the eye, fitting its definition; the eye itself is just the matter [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: If the eye were an animal, sight would have been its soul, for sight is the substance or essence of the eye which corresponds to the formula, the eye being merely the matter of seeing; when seeing is removed it is no longer an eye,except in name.
     From: Aristotle (De Anima [c.329 BCE], 412b19)
     A reaction: This is a drastic view of form as merely function, which occasionally appears in Aristotle. To say a blind eye is not an eye is a tricky move in metaphysics. So what is it? In some sense it is still an eye.
Giving the function of a house defines its actuality [Aristotle]
     Full Idea: Those who propose that a house is 'a receptacle to shelter chattels and living beings', or something of the sort, speak of the actuality.
     From: Aristotle (Metaphysics [c.324 BCE], 1043a16)
     A reaction: This, with Idea 16752, endorses the idea that the function is the essence of something. The eye is natural, the house is an artifact. This seems different from the concept of form implied elsewhere. He says materials of a house are just potential.
The essence of a thing is its effort to persevere [Spinoza]
     Full Idea: The effort by which each thing endeavours to persevere in its own being is nothing but the actual essence of the thing itself.
     From: Baruch de Spinoza (The Ethics [1675], III Pr 07)
     A reaction: This is exactly the sort of thing that Leibniz frequently said. They were much more conscious of the active power of essences than in the scholastic tradition. This is Nietzsche's will to power. Spinoza talks of 'power' in his demonstration of this.
What is the texture - the real essence - which makes substances behave in distinct ways? [Locke]
     Full Idea: What is that texture of parts, that real essence, that makes lead, and antinomy fusible; wood and stone not?
     From: John Locke (Essay Conc Human Understanding (2nd Ed) [1694], 3.06.09)
     A reaction: This quotation gives better support to Alexander's claim in Idea 15973. Locke actually says plainly that the texture (i.e. powerful combination of fine-grained corpuscles) is the essence of these substances (with, presumably, intrinsic powers).
The question is whether force is self-sufficient in bodies, and essential, or dependent on something [Lenfant]
     Full Idea: The whole question is to know if the force to act in bodies is in matter something distinct and independent of everything else that one conceives there. Without that, this force cannot be its essence, and will remain the result of some primitive quality.
     From: Jacques Lenfant (Letters to Leibniz [1693], 1693.11.07), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 8
     A reaction: This challenge to Leibniz highlights the drama of trying to simultaneously arrive at explanations of things, and to decide the nature of essence. Leibniz replied that force is primitive, because it is the 'principle' of behaviour and dispositions.
The substantial form is the principle of action or the primitive force of acting [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The substantial form is the principle of action or the primitive force of acting.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De Mundo Praesenti [1686], A6.4.1507-8), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3
     A reaction: The clearest statement of the modification of Aristotle's hylomorphism which Leibniz preferred in his middle period, and which strikes me as an improvement, and about right. Shame that monads got too much of a grip on him, but he was trying to dig deeper.
Material or immaterial substances cannot be conceived without their essential activity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I maintain that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref)
     A reaction: Thus there could be no 'tabula rasa', because that would be an inactive mental substance. This strikes me as a nice question for modern physicists. Do they regard movement as essential, or an addition to bare particles? I'm with Leibniz. Essentialism.
I call Aristotle's entelechies 'primitive forces', which originate activity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Forms establish the true general principles of nature. Aristotle calls them 'first entelechies'; I call them, perhaps more intelligibly, 'primitive forces', which contain not only act or the completion of possibility, but also an original activity.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.139)
     A reaction: As in Idea 13168, I take Leibniz to be unifying Aristotle with modern science, and offering an active view of nature in tune with modern scientific essentialism. Laws arise from primitive force, and are not imposed from without.
My formal unifying atoms are substantial forms, which are forces like appetites [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: To find real entities I had recourse to a unified formal atom. Hence I rehabilitated the substantial forms in a way to render them intelligible. I found that their nature consists in force, from which follows something analogous to sensation and appetite.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New system of communication of substances [1695], p.139)
     A reaction: [several lines are here compressed] This passage sums up the key to Leibniz's essentialism, which I take to be a connection between Aristotelian form and the physicists' notion of force. This gives us a modern version of Aristotelianism for science.
Thought terminates in force, rather than extension [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I believe that our thought is completed and terminated more in the notion of the dynamic [i.e. force] than in that of extension.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Burcher De Volder [1706], G II 170), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4
     A reaction: Presenting this as the place where 'our thought' is 'terminated' seems to place it as mainly having a role in explanation, rather than in speculative metaphysics.
There is active and passive power in the substantial chain and in the essence of a composite [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I do not say there is a chain midway between matter and form, but that the substantial form and primary matter of the composite, in the Scholastic sense (the primitive power, active and passive) are in the chain, and in the essence of the composite.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29)
     A reaction: Note that this implies an essence of primitive power, and not just a collection of all properties. This is the clearest account in these letters of the nature of the 'substantial chain' he has added to his monads.
Primitive force is what gives a composite its reality [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The first entelechy of a composite is a constitutive part of the composite substance, namely its primitive force.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29)
     A reaction: For me, Leibniz's most interesting proposal is to characterise Aristotelian 'form' as an active thing, which offers an intrinsic account of movement, and a bottom level for explanations. There always remains the inexplicable. Why anything? Why this?
Essence is primitive force, or a law of change [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The essence of substances consists in the primitive force of action, or the law of the sequence of changes.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Foucher [1675], 1676)
     A reaction: [a 1676 note on Foucher's reply] It take these to be the two key distinctive Leibnizian contributions to the sort of metaphysic that is needed by modern science. Nature works with intrinsic essences, which are forces determining action.
Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber]
     Full Idea: Leibniz's form contains both sensation and appetite, and he seems to associate appetite with the ability a body has to act on another.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3
     A reaction: It strikes me (you may be surprised to hear) that this concept is not unlike Nietzsche's all-mastering 'will to power'. I offer Idea 7140 in evidence.
The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: In Leibniz's view, the essence of a thing is fundamentally the real possibilities of that thing.
     From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 4.3.3
     A reaction: Note that the essences are individual. On the whole I would prefer Leibniz in his own words, but this is too good to lose (..but see Idea 12981). It is the aspect of Leibniz that fits perfectly with modern scientific essentialism.
Substances contain a source of change or principle of activity [Wiggins]
     Full Idea: Substances are things that have a source of change or principle of activity within them.
     From: David Wiggins (Substance [1995], 4.4.1)
     A reaction: A vey significant concession. I think we can talk of 'essences' and 'powers', and drop talk of 'substances'. 'Powers' is a much better word, because it immediately pushes the active ingredient to the forefront.
The possible Aristotelian view that forms are real and active principles is clearly wrong [Fine,K, by Pasnau]
     Full Idea: Aristotle seems to have a possible basis for the belief [in individual forms], namely that forms are real and active principles in the world, which is denied by any right-minded modern.
     From: report of Kit Fine (A Puzzle Concerning Matter and Form [1994], p.19) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 24.3 n8
     A reaction: Pasnau says this is the view of forms promoted by the scholastics, whereas Aristotle's own view should be understood as 'metaphysical'.
If properties are powers, then causal relations are internal relations [Heil]
     Full Idea: On the conception that properties are powers, it is no longer obvious that causal relations are external relations. Given the powers - all the powers in play - you have the manifestations.
     From: John Heil (Relations [2009], 'Causal')
     A reaction: This also delivers on a plate the necessity felt to be in causal relations, because the relation is inevitable once you are given the relata. But can you have an accidental (rather than essential) internal relation? Not in the case of numbers.
We need to distinguish the essential from the non-essential powers [Oderberg]
     Full Idea: We need a theory of essence to help us distinguish between the powers that do and do not belong to the essence of a thing.
     From: David S. Oderberg (Real Essentialism [2007], 6.3)
     A reaction: I take this to be a very good reason for searching for the essence of things, though the need to distinguish does not guarantee that there really is something to distinguish. Maybe powers just come and go. A power is essential in you but not in me?
There is no centralised power, but we still need essence for a metaphysical understanding [Pasnau]
     Full Idea: One could empirically reject a centralised power within a substance - and still think a genuine substance requires a form of some more abstract kind, not for a physical explanation, but for a full metaphysical understanding of how things are.
     From: Robert Pasnau (Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 [2011], 25.2)
     A reaction: This divorce of the 'metaphysical' from the physical is a running theme in Pasnau, and he cites support from Leibniz. I'm not sure I understand 'metaphysical' understanding, if it is actually contrary to physics. I take it to be 'psychological'.
Essence is a thing's necessities, but what about its possibilities (which may not be realised)? [Vetter]
     Full Idea: Essence is, as it were, necessity rooted in things, ...but how about possibility rooted in things? ...Having the potential to Φ, unlike being essentially Φ, does not entail being actually Φ.
     From: Barbara Vetter (Essence and Potentiality [2010], §2)
     A reaction: To me this invites the question 'what is it about the entity which endows it with its rooted possibilities?' A thing has possibilities because it has a certain nature (at a given time).
A power is a property which consists entirely of dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
     Full Idea: In the 'dispositional essentialist' account (the main view) …what it is to be a power is to be a property whose essence is exhaustively constituted by dispositions.
     From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.4)
     A reaction: [compressed] Sounds wrong to me. A very complex property (such as 'stormy' weather) could be nothing more than a large bundle of dispositions, but that wouldn't make it a 'power', which has to be simpler and more basic.
Powers are qualitative properties which fully ground dispositions [Friend/Kimpton-Nye]
     Full Idea: In the 'grounding' view of powers …powers are qualitative, because their essence can be specified independently of any dispositions or relations, but they fully ground dispositions.
     From: Friend/Kimpton-Nye (Dispositions and Powers [2023], 3.4)
     A reaction: [compressed] They give this as the rival view to dispositional essentialism. It may be a mistake to call a power a property (which needs to be 'of' something). Not sure how powers can be both fundamental and qualitative. Don't they also ground qualities?