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3 ideas
11856 | Qualities should be predictable from the nature of the subject [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Whenever we find some quality in a subject, we ought to believe that if we understood the nature of both the subject and the quality we would conceive how the quality could arise from it. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref 66) | |
A reaction: This is the idea that powers are prior to properties, which seems right to me. I take essence to be something like the best explanation of qualities. |
12994 | Gold has a real essence, unknown to us, which produces its properties [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The complex idea of gold includes its being something which has a real essence whose detailed constitution is unknown to us, except for the fact that such qualities as malleability depend upon it. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.10) | |
A reaction: This is precisely the view of modern scientific essentialism. The underlying idea I take to be the conception of essence as the thing which explains the properties. |
12808 | Part of our idea of gold is its real essence, which is not known to us in detail [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It is very true that it is part of the complex idea of gold that it is a thing which has a real essence, the constitution of which is not otherwise known to us in detail. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 6.6.345), quoted by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz and Locke on Essences p.201 | |
A reaction: See also Idea 12807. This is the clearest possible statement of Leibniz's clear-cut scientific essentialism, here presented in opposition to Locke (thought I take the latter to be only bothered by our inability to know the hidden constitution). |