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Ideas for 'works (fragments)', 'Letters to Antoine Arnauld' and 'Gravity and Grace (9 extracts)'

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3 ideas

7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 3. Being / g. Particular being
What is not truly one being is not truly a being either [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: What is not truly one being is not truly a being either.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.04.30), quoted by Alain Badiou - Briefings on Existence 1
     A reaction: Badiou quotes this as identifying Being with the One. I say Leibniz had no concept of 'gunk', and thought everything must have a 'this' identity in order to exist, which is just the sort of thing a logician would come up with.
7. Existence / A. Nature of Existence / 6. Criterion for Existence
Whatever participates in substance exists [Zeno of Citium, by Stobaeus]
     Full Idea: Zeno says that whatever participates in substance exists.
     From: report of Zeno (Citium) (fragments/reports [c.294 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.05a
     A reaction: This seems Aristotelian, implying that only objects exist. Unformed stuff would not normally qualify as a 'substance'. So does mud exist? See the ideas of Henry Laycock.
7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 5. Supervenience / a. Nature of supervenience
A thing 'expresses' another if they have a constant and fixed relationship [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: One thing 'expresses' another (in my terminology) when there exists a constant and fixed relationship between what can be said of one and of the other. This is the way that a perspectival projection expresses its ground-plan.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Antoine Arnauld [1686], 1687.10.09)
     A reaction: Arnauld was puzzled by what Leibniz might mean by 'express', and it occurs to me that Leibniz was fishing for the modern concept of 'supervenience'. It also sounds a bit like the idea of 'covariance' between mind and world. Maybe he means 'function'.