Combining Texts

Ideas for 'Substance and Individuation in Leibniz', 'Plurals and Complexes' and 'fragments/reports'

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2 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / A. Relations / 1. Nature of Relations
Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
     Full Idea: The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
     From: Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
     A reaction: The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
The hidden harmony is stronger than the visible [Heraclitus]
     Full Idea: The hidden harmony is stronger (or 'better') than the visible.
     From: Heraclitus (fragments/reports [c.500 BCE], B055), quoted by Hippolytus - Refutation of All Heresies 9.9.5
     A reaction: 'An unapparent connection [harmonia] is stronger than an apparent one' is Curd's translation. I'm taking this for essentialism. It is the basic idea of the essentialising child (see Gelman). The hidden explains the apparent.