green numbers give full details | back to texts | unexpand these ideas
| 19378 | Early modern possibility is what occurs sometime; for Leibniz, it is what is not contradictory |
| Full Idea: For Descartes, Hobbes and Spinoza, if a state of things is possible, it must occur at some time, whether past, present or future. For Leibniz possibility makes no reference to time; an individual is possible if its concept contains no contradiction. | |||
| From: Richard T.W. Arthur (Leibniz [2014], 4 'Contingent') | |||
| A reaction: It has always struck me as fallacious to say that anything that is possible must at some time occur. If '6' is possible on the die, what will constrain it to eventually come up when thrown? Mere non-contradiction doesn't imply possibility either. |
| 19380 | Occasionalism contradicts the Eucharist, which needs genuine changes of substance |
| Full Idea: The Jesuits rejected occasionalism ... because it is incompatible with the Catholic interpretation of the Eucharist, which there is genuine change of substance of the bread into the substance of Christ (transubstantiation). | |||
| From: Richard T.W. Arthur (Leibniz [2014], 5 'Substance') | |||
| A reaction: Not sure I understand this, but I take it that the Eucharist needs a real relation across the substance-spirit boundary, and not just a co-ordination. |