display all the ideas for this combination of texts
9 ideas
229 | The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become [Plato] |
Full Idea: The one was and is and will be and was becoming and is becoming and will become. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 155d) | |
A reaction: This seems to be rhetorical, rather a precise theory, given that the One is said to be eternal and unchanging. The One is not just what we call 'reality'. |
21821 | Plato's Parmenides has a three-part theory, of Primal One, a One-Many, and a One-and-Many [Plato, by Plotinus] |
Full Idea: The Platonic Parmenides is more exact [than Parmenides himself]; the distinction is made between the Primal One, a strictly pure Unity, and a secondary One which is a One-Many, and a third which is a One-and-Many. | |
From: report of Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE]) by Plotinus - The Enneads 5.1.08 | |
A reaction: Plotinus approves of this three-part theory. Parmenides has the problem that the highest Being contains no movement. By placing the One outside Being you can give it powers which an existent thing cannot have. Cf the concept of God. |
7644 | The monad idea incomprehensibly spiritualises matter, instead of materialising soul [La Mettrie on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The Leibnizians with their monads have constructed an incomprehensible hypothesis. They have spiritualized matter rather than materialising the soul. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716]) by Julien Offray de La Mettrie - Machine Man p.3 | |
A reaction: I agree with La Mettrie. This disagreement shows, I think, how important the problem of interaction between mind and body was in the century after Descartes. Drastic action seemed needed to bridge the gap, one way or the other. |
11857 | He replaced Aristotelian continuants with monads [Leibniz, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: In the end Leibniz dethroned Aristotelian continuants, seen as imperfect from his point of view, in favour of monads. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716]) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 3.1 | |
A reaction: I take the 'continuants' to be either the 'ultimate subject of predication' (in 'Categories'), or 'essences' (in 'Metaphysics'). Since monads seem to be mental (presumably to explain the powers of things), this strikes me as a bit mad. |
7843 | Is a drop of urine really an infinity of thinking monads? [Voltaire on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Can you really maintain that a drop of urine is an infinity of monads, and that each one of these has ideas, however obscure, of the entire universe? | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716]) by Francois-Marie Voltaire - works Vol 22:434 | |
A reaction: Monads are a bit like Christian theology - if you meet them cold they seem totally ridiculous, but if you meet them after ten years of careful preliminary study they make (apparently) complete sense. Defenders of panpsychism presumably like them. |
12751 | It is unclear in 'Monadology' how extended bodies relate to mind-like monads. [Garber on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It is never clear in the 'Monadologie' how exactly the world of extended bodies is related to the world of simple substances, the world of non-extended and mind-like monads. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 9 | |
A reaction: Leibniz was always going to hit the interaction problem, as soon as he started giving an increasingly spiritual account of what a substance, and hence marginalising the 'force' which had held centre-stage earlier on. Presumably they are 'parallel'. |
19363 | Changes in a monad come from an internal principle, and the diversity within its substance [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: A monad's natural changes come from an internal principle, ...but there must be diversity in that which changes, which produces the specification and variety of substances. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716], §11-12) | |
A reaction: You don't have to like monads to like this generalisation (and Perkins says Leibniz had a genius for generalisations). Metaphysics must give an account of change. Succeeding time-slices etc explain nothing. Principle and substance must meet. |
19352 | A 'monad' has basic perception and appetite; a 'soul' has distinct perception and memory [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The general name 'monad' or 'entelechy' may suffice for those substances which have nothing but perception and appetition; the name 'souls' may be reserved for those having perception that is more distinct and accompanied by memory. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Monadology [1716], §19) | |
A reaction: It is basic to the study of Leibniz that you don't think monads are full-blown consciousnesses. He isn't really a panpsychist, because the level of mental activity is so minimal. There seem to be degrees of monadhood. |
221 | Absolute ideas, such as the Good and the Beautiful, cannot be known by us [Plato] |
Full Idea: The absolute good and the beautiful and all which we conceive to be absolute ideas are unknown to us. | |
From: Plato (Parmenides [c.364 BCE], 134c) | |
A reaction: These seems to thoroughly pre-empt Plato's Theory of Forms a century before he created it. Which shows (as Simone Weil says) that Plato was just part of a long tradition. |