display all the ideas for this combination of texts
4 ideas
| 12943 | Individuality is in the bond substance gives between past and future [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Within each substance there is a perfect bond between the future and the past, which is what creates the identity of the individual. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01) | |
| A reaction: I'm not quite sure if this means anything, but the idea that a bond across time is a necessity for intrinsic identity is interesting. The 'bond' would, I take it, have to be a causal one. |
| 11855 | Substances cannot be bare, but have activity as their essence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: I maintain that substances (material or immaterial) cannot be conceived in their bare essence devoid of activity; that activity is of the essence of substance in general | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref 65) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz liked the idea that God was the source of this activity, but this remark makes Leibniz a direct ancestor of modern scientific essentialism. |
| 12970 | We can imagine two bodies interpenetrating, as two rays of light seem to [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We find that two shadows or two rays of light interpenetrate, and we could devise an imaginary world where bodies did the same. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: I suspect this is a case of being able to imagine something when you don't fully understand it (like a bonfire on the Moon), but when you fully understand the modern physics of it, you see the necessity of separation between objects. |
| 12986 | The essence of baldness is vague and imperfect [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There are vague and imperfect essences, as in the question of how few hairs a man can have without being bald. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.05) | |
| A reaction: This example is much discussed in contemporary debate, but I now learn that it has a venerable history. The surprise here is the word 'essences', because I had taken Leibnizian essences to be 'perfect ideas', and hence precise. |