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Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Des Bosses' and 'Principia Mathematica'

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2 ideas

1. Philosophy / D. Nature of Philosophy / 1. Philosophy

17016	Philosophy must abstract from the senses [Newton]
	Full Idea: In philosophy abstraction from the senses is required.
	From: Isaac Newton (Principia Mathematica [1687], Def 8 Schol)
	A reaction: He particularly means 'natural philosophy' (i.e. science), but there is no real distinction in Newton's time, and I would say this remark is true of modern philosophy.

1. Philosophy / E. Nature of Metaphysics / 5. Metaphysics beyond Science

12780	We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: We can grasp the wisdom of God a priori, and not from the order of the phenomena alone. ... For the senses put nothing forward concerning metaphysical matters.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Des Bosses [1715], 1716.05.29)
	A reaction: Nice instance of the aspirations of big metaphysics, before Kant cut it down to size. The claim is not far off Plato's, that by dialectic we can work out the necessities of the Forms, to which even the gods must bow. Are necessities really kept from us?