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Ideas for 'Philosophical Explanations', 'New Essays on Human Understanding' and 'The Structure of Appearance'

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10 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
12959 We discern active power from our minds, so mind must be involved in all active powers [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The clearest idea of active power comes to us from the mind. So active power occurs only in things which are analogous to minds, that is, in entelechies; for strictly matter exhibits only passive power.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.21)
     A reaction: If this is meant to be a precise argument, then 'so' and 'only' are blatantly unjustified. I guess that if it isn't analogous to a mind then he won't allow it to be a TRUE active power! I say mind arises from the entelechies of the physical brain.
12967 I use the word 'entelechy' for a power, to include endeavour, as well as mere aptitude [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: If 'power' is the source of action, it means more than aptitude or ability. It also includes endeavour. It is in order to express this sense that I appropriate the term 'entelechy' to stand for power.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.22)
     A reaction: An 'entelechy' is, roughly, an instantiated thing, but I like what Leibniz is fishing for here - that we will never understand the world if we think of it as passive.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic
12965 All occurrence in the depth of a substance is spontaneous 'action' [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Anything which occurs in what is strictly a substance must be a case of 'action' in the metaphysically rigorous sense of something which occurs in the substance spontaneously, arising out of its own depths.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.21)
     A reaction: I love this idea, which fits in with scientific essentialism. The question is whether Leibniz has idenified the end point of all explanations. Cutting edge physics is trying to give further explanations for what seemed basic, such as mass and gravity.
12999 Substances are primary powers; their ways of being are the derivative powers [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Primary powers are what make up the substances themselves; derivative powers, or 'faculties' if you like, are merely 'ways of being' - and they must be derived from substances.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 4.03)
     A reaction: We might talk of 'deep' and 'surface' properties, or maybe 'powers' and 'qualities' is better. 'Primary' and 'derivative' only gives the logical relationship, but not the causal relationship.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 4. Powers as Essence
5056 Material or immaterial substances cannot be conceived without their essential activity [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: I maintain that substances, whether material or immaterial, cannot be conceived in their bare essence without any activity, activity being of the essence of substance in general.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref)
     A reaction: Thus there could be no 'tabula rasa', because that would be an inactive mental substance. This strikes me as a nice question for modern physicists. Do they regard movement as essential, or an addition to bare particles? I'm with Leibniz. Essentialism.
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 5. Powers and Properties
12969 The active powers which are not essential to the substance are the 'real qualities' [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Powers which are not essential to substance, and which include not merely an aptitude but also a certain endeavour, are exactly what are or should be meant by 'real qualities'.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.23)
     A reaction: An important part of Leibniz's account. There are thus essential powers, in the 'depth' of the substance, and more peripheral powers, which also initiate action, and give rise to the qualities. The second must derive from the first?
8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 6. Dispositions / b. Dispositions and powers
12941 There cannot be power without action; the power is a disposition to act [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Where will one ever find in the world a faculty consisting in sheer power without performing an act? There is always a particular disposition to action, and towards one action rather than another.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01)
     A reaction: This is muddled. Leibniz defends powers in the possibilities of things, but he must then accept that some possibilities may never be realised, as with two complex chemicals which never ever come into contact with one another.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 2. Resemblance Nominalism
7956 If all and only red things were round things, we would need to specify the 'respect' of the resemblance [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: According to Goodman's 'companionship difficulty', resemblance nominalism has a problem if, say, all and only the red things were the round things, because we cannot distinguish the two different respects in which the things resemble one another.
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
     A reaction: Goodman opts for extreme linguististic nominalism in response to this (Idea 7952), whereas Russell opts for a sort of Platonism (4441). The current idea gives Russell a further problem, of needing a universal of the respect of the resemblance.
7957 Without respects of resemblance, we would collect blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock together [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: Goodman's 'imperfect community' problem for Resemblance Nominalism says that without mention of respects in which things resemble, we end up with a heterogeneous collection with nothing wholly in common (blue book, blue pen, red pen, red clock).
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951]) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things Ch.6
     A reaction: This suggests Wittgenstein's 'family' resemblance as a way out (Idea 4141), but a blue book and a red clock seem totally unrelated. Nice objection! At this point we start to think that the tropes resemble, rather than the objects.
8. Modes of Existence / E. Nominalism / 3. Predicate Nominalism
7952 If we apply the same word to different things, it is only because we are willing to do so [Goodman, by Macdonald,C]
     Full Idea: Predicate nominalism is the view that what all things to which the same word applies have in common is simply our willingness to apply the same word to them.
     From: report of Nelson Goodman (The Structure of Appearance [1951], Ch.6) by Cynthia Macdonald - Varieties of Things
     A reaction: This is Goodman's 'extreme nominalist' position. This seems also to be an anti-realist position, as it denies any 'joints' to nature (Idea 7953). It strikes me as daft. WHY are we willing to apply words in certain ways?