Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Consciousness', 'Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason' and 'Sententia on 'Posterior Analytics''

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6 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 5. Reason for Existence

5062	First: there must be reasons; Second: why anything at all?; Third: why this? [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: We rise to metaphysics by saying 'nothing takes place without a reason', then asking 'why is there something rather than nothing?, and then 'why do things exist as they do?'
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason [1714], §7)
	A reaction: Wonderful. This is what we pay philosophers for - to attempt to go to the heart of the mystery, and then start formulating the appropriate questions. The question of 'why this?' is the sweetest question. The first one seems a little intractable.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 2. Reduction

6531	Institutions are not reducible as types, but they are as tokens [Lycan]
	Full Idea: Institutional types are irreducible, though I assume that institutional tokens are reducible in the sense of strict identity, all the way down to the subatomic level.
	From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
	A reaction: This seems a promising distinction, as the boundaries of 'institutions' disappear when you begin to reduce them to lower levels (cf. Idea 4601), and yet plenty of institutions are self-evidently no more than physics. Plants are invisible as physics.

6532	Types cannot be reduced, but levels of reduction are varied groupings of the same tokens [Lycan]
	Full Idea: If types cannot be reduced to more physical levels, this is not an embarrassment, as long as our institutional categories, our physiological categories, and our physical categories are just alternative groupings of the same tokens.
	From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
	A reaction: This is a self-evident truth about a car engine, so I don't see why it wouldn't apply equally to a brain. Lycan's identification of the type as the thing which cannot be reduced seems a promising explanation of much confusion among philosophers.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 3. Levels of Reality

6534	One location may contain molecules, a metal strip, a key, an opener of doors, and a human tragedy [Lycan]
	Full Idea: One space-time slice may be occupied by a collection of molecules, a metal strip, a key, an allower of entry to hotel rooms, a facilitator of adultery, and a destroyer souls.
	From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.3)
	A reaction: Desdemona's handkerchief is a nice example. This sort of remark seems to be felt by some philosophers to be heartless wickedness, and yet it so screamingly self-evident that it is impossible to deny.

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads

19377	A monad and its body are living, so life is everywhere, and comes in infinite degrees [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Each monad, together with a particular body, makes up a living substance. Thus, there is not only life everywhere, joined to limbs or organs, but there are also infinite degrees of life in the monads, some dominating more or less over others.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Principles of Nature and Grace based on Reason [1714], 4)
	A reaction: Two key ideas: that each monad is linked to a body (which is presumably passive), and the infinite degrees of life in monads. Thus rocks consist of monads, but at an exceedingly low degree of life. They are stubborn and responsive.

7. Existence / E. Categories / 3. Proposed Categories

6529	I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics [Lycan]
	Full Idea: I see the 'role'/'occupant' distinction as fundamental to metaphysics.
	From: William Lycan (Consciousness [1987], 4.0)
	A reaction: A passing remark in a discussion of functionalism about the mind, but I find it appealing. Causation is basic to materialistic metaphysics, and it creates networks of regular causes. It leaves open the essentialist question of WHY it has that role.