display all the ideas for this combination of texts
5 ideas
| 5645 | The dialectical opposition of being and nothing is resolved in passing to the concept of becoming [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: The concept of being contains within itself it own negation - nothing - and the dialectical opposition between these two concepts is resolved only in the passage to a new concept, becoming, which contains the truth of the passage from nothing to being. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: The idea that one concept 'contains' another, or that an opposition could be 'resolved' by a new concept, sounds doubtful to me. For most analytical philosophers, and for Aristotle, oppositions are contradictions, and cannot and should not be 'resolved'. |
| 7696 | Leibniz first asked 'why is there something rather than nothing?' [Leibniz, by Jacquette] |
| Full Idea: The historical honour of having first raised the question "Why is there something rather than nothing?" belongs to Leibniz. | |
| From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697]) by Dale Jacquette - Ontology Ch.3 | |
| A reaction: I presume that people before Leibniz may well have had the thought, but not bothered to even articulate it, because there seemed nothing to say by way of answer, other than some reference to the inscrutable will of God. |
| 19341 | There must be a straining towards existence in the essence of all possible things [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Since something rather than nothing exists, there is a certain urge for existence, or (so to speak) a straining toward existence in possible things or in possibility or essence itself; in a word, essence in and of itself strives for existence. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.150) | |
| A reaction: Thus 'essence precedes existence'. Not sure I understand this, but at least it places an active power at the root of everything (though Leibniz probably sees that as divine). The Big Bang triggered by a 'quantum fluctuation'? |
| 19428 | Because something does exist, there must be a drive in possible things towards existence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: From the very fact that something exists rather than nothing, we recognise that there is in possible things, that is, in the very possibility or essence, a certain exigent need of existence, and, so to speak, some claim to existence. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (On the Ultimate Origination of Things [1697], p.347) | |
| A reaction: I love the fact that Leibniz tried to explain why there is something rather than nothing. Bede Rundle and Dale Jacquette are similar heroes. As Leibniz tells us, contradictions have no claim to existence, but non-contradictions do. |
| 5646 | Hegel gives an ontological proof of the existence of everything [Hegel, by Scruton] |
| Full Idea: It would not be unfair to say that Hegel's metaphysics consists of an ontological proof of the existence of everything. | |
| From: report of Georg W.F.Hegel (works [1812]) by Roger Scruton - Short History of Modern Philosophy Ch.12 | |
| A reaction: This is so gloriously far from David Hume that we must all find some appeal in it. The next question would be whether necessary existence has been proved. If so, given death, decay and entropy, what is it that has to exist? 2nd Law of Thermodynamics? |