Combining Texts

Ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Discourse on Metaphysics' and 'What is Cantor's Continuum Problem?'

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2 ideas

2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 2. Sufficient Reason
Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch]
     Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent.
     From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c
     A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'.
2. Reason / B. Laws of Thought / 6. Ockham's Razor
Reason avoids multiplying hypotheses or principles [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Reason requires that we avoid multiplying hypotheses or principles, in somewhat the same way that the simplest system is always preferred in astronomy.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Discourse on Metaphysics [1686], 5)
     A reaction: He offers this principle without mentioning Ockham, as if it were self-evident.