display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 12932 | The idea of being must come from our own existence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I would like to know how we could have the idea of being if we did not, as beings ourselves, find being within us. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: I could envisage a creature with an entirely 'externa' mind, that just focused on environment, and took its own place in it unthinkingly for granted. I suppose he's right, though. |
| 12966 | Objects of ideas can be divided into abstract and concrete, and then further subdivided [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Divide terms, objects of ideas, into abstract and concrete, then the abstract into absolute and relational, the absolute into attributes and modifications, and those two into simple and composite; the concrete are substances and their substantial things. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.22) | |
| A reaction: Make your tree from this: ABSTRACT{absolute[attributes(simple)(composite)][modifications(simple)(composite)],relations}CONCRETE{[substance][substantial form]} |
| 12993 | Have five categories - substance, quantity, quality, action/passion, relation - and their combinations [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The scheme of categories is very useful, and it might be that all that is needed are five general headings for beings - namely substance, quantity, quality, action or passion, and relation - with any formed by composition from those. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.10) | |
| A reaction: 'Action or passion' as a single category sounds intriguing. He is very keen on active force in the world of physical objects, which presumably falls into this category. His plan sounds, initially, as good as any I have heard. |
| 12989 | Our true divisions of nature match reality, but are probably incomplete [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It can be said that whatever we truthfully distinguish or compare is also distinguished or made alike by nature, although nature has distinctions and comparisons which are unknown to us and which may be better than ours. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.06) | |
| A reaction: This seems to me to be correct, though it is more like the credo of the sensible realist than it is like any sort of argument. |