display all the ideas for this combination of texts
3 ideas
| 12958 | Love is pleasure in the perfection, well-being or happiness of its object [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: To love is to be disposed to take pleasure in the perfection, well-being or happiness of the object of one's love. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.20) | |
| A reaction: I suppose so, though one might love a pathetic little plant that hangs on in the corner of the garden, just for its fighting qualities. He goes on to deny that we can truly love something that is incapable of happiness. Hm. |
| 12957 | The good is the virtuous, the pleasing, or the useful [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The good is divided into the virtuous, the pleasing, and the useful. ..The good is either pleasing or useful; and virtue itself consists of a pleasure of the mind. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.20) | |
| A reaction: I presume that the useful could be reduced to the pleasing. It strikes me as quite bizarre to define virtue as merely a pleasure of the mind. Aristotle says true virtue must also please the mind, but that is a different idea. |
| 12962 | Pleasure is a sense of perfection [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Fundamentally, pleasure is a sense of perfection, and pain a sense of imperfection. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.21) | |
| A reaction: A bit odd, but I like the idea that there is an intellectual aspect to even the most visceral feelings. |