Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Perception', 'Nietzsche's System' and 'fragments/reports'

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2 ideas

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 7. Later Matter Theories / c. Matter as extension
Locke's solidity is not matter, because that is impenetrability and hardness combined [Robinson,H]
     Full Idea: Notoriously, Locke's filler for Descartes's geometrical matter, solidity, will not do, for that quality collapses on examination into a composite of the dispositional-cum-relational propery of impenetrability, and the secondary quality of hardness.
     From: Howard Robinson (Perception [1994], IX.3)
     A reaction: I would have thought the problem was that 'matter is solidity' turns out on analysis to be a tautology. We have a handful of nearly synonymous words for matter and our experiences of it, but they boil down to some 'given' thing for which we lack words.
26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 7. Eliminating causation
A mind that could see cause and effect as a continuum would deny cause and effect [Richardson]
     Full Idea: An intellect that could see cause and effect as a continuum and a flux, and not, as we do, in terms of an arbitrary division and dismemberment, would repudiate the concept of cause and effect.
     From: John Richardson (Nietzsche's System [2002], §112)
     A reaction: Maybe we do see it as a continuum? The racket swings and the ball is propelled, but the contact is a unity, not two separate events.