display all the ideas for this combination of texts
23 ideas
| 12990 | Real (non-logical) abstract terms are either essences or accidents [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Real (as opposed to logical) abstract terms, or at least those which are conceived as real, are either essences or parts of essences, or else accidents (i.e. beings added to a substance). | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.08) | |
| A reaction: Interesting to refer to accidents as 'beings'. This seems to fit abstraction by ignoring, since you can either ignore the accidents to get the essence, or ignore the essence to get the accidents. |
| 12939 | Wholly uniform things like space and numbers are mere abstractions [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Things which are uniform, containing no variety, are always mere abstractions: for instance, time, space, and the other entities of pure mathematics. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.01) | |
| A reaction: I presume that being 'mere abstractions' denies them ontological status, and makes them creations of thought. If so, I like this idea a lot. |
| 12979 | The only way we can determine individuals is by keeping hold of them [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for us to know individuals or to find any way of precisely determining the individuality of any thing except by keeping hold of the thing itself. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.03) | |
| A reaction: 'The tallest woman in London' seems to determine someone perfectly well, though only by cross-referencing universal concepts like 'tall'. |
| 12971 | If two individuals could be indistinguishable, there could be no principle of individuation [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If two individuals were perfectly similar and equal and, in short, indistinguishable in themselves, there would be no principle of individuation. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: This seems to be the main motive for Leibniz's unusual claim that there cannot be two indiscernible individuals, but it looks suspiciously like an a priori claim made about what should be an a posteriori discovery. Are electrons distinguishable? |
| 13098 | We use things to distinguish places and times, not vice versa [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is by means of things that we must distinguish one time and place from another, rather than vice versa. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: This rests on Leibniz's relative view of space (as opposed to Newton's absolute view). If you need to re-identify a thing to individuate it, re-identifying the exact place or time seems impossible, but it is usually manageable with thing. |
| 13075 | No two things are quite the same, so there must be an internal principle of distinction [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In addition to the difference of time or of place there must always be an internal principle of distinction: although there can be many things of the same kind, it is still the case that none of them are ever exactly alike. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: This rests on Leibniz's unusual view that all things (even electrons) are qualitatively distinct. Personally I disagree with that, but agree with the idea. Things have time and place because they have identity, not the other way around. |
| 12953 | Fluidity is basic, and we divide into bodies according to our needs [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Fluidity is the fundamental condition, and the division into bodies is carried out - there being no obstacle to it - according to our need. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.13) | |
| A reaction: Leibniz is referring to what he usually calls 'aggregates', like piles of bricks, which are things lacking a unifying substance. There may be no true substances, in which fluidity is the order of the day. |
| 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. |
| 12968 | A 'substratum' is just a metaphor for whatever supports several predicates [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: From the beginning we conceive several predicates in a single subject, and that is all there is to these metaphorical words 'support' and 'substratum'. So I do not see why it is made out to involve a problem. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.23) | |
| A reaction: The question is whether the substratum is 'bare' if you remove all the predicates, and clearly Leibniz believes you are left with true essential substance (although the removal process is presumably only possible in thought, thanks to God). |
| 12931 | Particular truths are just instances of general truths [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The reasons for particular truths rest wholly on the more general ones of which they are mere instances. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 1.01) | |
| A reaction: Clearly particulars have their own distinctive truth, but the Leibniz case seems to be that a particular is a unique intersection for an array of general truths - and nothing else. Audrey Hepburn's smile has no generalities to it. |
| 12811 | We can't know individuals, or determine their exact individuality [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is impossible for us to have knowledge of individuals and to find the means of determining exactly the individuality of everything. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.3) | |
| A reaction: Aristotle was clearly also tempted by this doubt (since universals are involved), though individuals are what he wanted to understand. I think they are wrong. Leibniz gives the bizarre reason that we can't know individuals as they each contain infinity. |
| 12981 | Essence is just the possibility of a thing [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Essence is fundamentally nothing but the possibility of the thing under consideration. Something which is thought possible is expressed by a definition. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.03) | |
| A reaction: It is unclear whether he means 'possible modes of existence' or 'possible actions of the thing'. Leibniz sees more clearly than Aristotle that essences extend beyond the actual thing, because Leibniz is more aware of the active powers. |
| 5057 | If you fully understand a subject and its qualities, you see how the second derive from the first [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Every time we find some quality in a subject, we ought to think that, if we understood the nature of this subject and of this quality, we should conceive how this quality could result from it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref) | |
| A reaction: Thus (in Kripke's analogy) God cannot make 'subjects' on Thursday and then add 'qualities' on Friday. Add the point that all subjects are physical, and I say you have the whole story. The physical entails the mental. The laws result from the qualities. |
| 12987 | For some sorts, a member of it is necessarily a member [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: There are sorts or species such that if an individual has ever been of such a sort or species it cannot (naturally, at least) stop being of it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 3.06) | |
| A reaction: Note the thoughtful 'naturally, at least', which blocks genetic engineering. But natural selection is genetic engineering. Crucially, Leibniz is not attributing this to all sorts or species, and allows exceptions. |
| 12884 | The same whole ceases to exist if a part is lost [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We cannot say - with complete fidelity to the truth of things - that the same whole continues to exist if a part of it is lost. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27.11) | |
| A reaction: This is the reference Simons 1987:319 gives when he claims that Leibniz accepts mereological essentialism. I think this is mereological necessity of identity, but not what I call 'essentialism'. That has to distinguish essential from non-essential. |
| 12975 | We have a distinct idea of gold, to define it, but not a perfect idea, to understand it [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: That gold is a metal which resists cupellation and is insoluble in aquafortis is a distinct idea, for it gives us the criteria or definition of 'gold'. But it is not a perfect idea, because we know too little about cupellation and actions of aquafortis. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.31) | |
| A reaction: This connects the 'perfect idea' of something with knowing its active substance, and hence its essence. See Idea 12976 for the connection between perfect ideas and definitions. |
| 12805 | If two people apply a single term to different resemblances, they refer to two different things [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: If one person applies the name 'avarice' to one resemblance, and some one else to another, there will be two different species designated by the same name. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 6.6.292), quoted by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz and Locke on Essences p.199 | |
| A reaction: Part of Leibniz's sustained attack on Locke's nominal essences. There is clearly an uninteresting nominal essence, where a 'big brown bear' is necessarily brown, but in the interesting respects I think Leibniz is right. |
| 12806 | Locke needs many instances to show a natural kind, but why not a single instance? [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
| Full Idea: Leibniz points out that it is a concealed premise of Locke's argument that if a natural kind exists it must have many instances, but there seems no a priori objection to the idea of a species with just one member. | |
| From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 6.6.311) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz and Locke on Essences p.200 | |
| A reaction: I can't see this bothering Locke. Generally we formulate nominal essences by induction from bundles of ideas, but we can formulate a cautious first stab at it from one instance. If you see a new creature, is it a normal one, or a 'monster'? |
| 12972 | Bodies, like Theseus's ship, are only the same in appearance, and never strictly the same [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We must acknowledge that organic bodies as well as others remain 'the same' only in appearance, and not strictly speaking. It is rather like the river whose water is continually changing, or like Theseus's ship which Athenians constantly repaired. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], 2.27) | |
| A reaction: This is Leibniz's standard view, that something only remains the same if it has a unifying substance, and so a collection of planks is just an aggregate, and doesn't have any identity to begin with. |
| 5055 | No two things are totally identical [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: By virtue of insensible variations, two individual things can never be perfectly alike. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (New Essays on Human Understanding [1704], Pref) | |
| A reaction: This sounds a bit like the 'discernibility of non-identicals', except that he says that the differences may not be 'sensible'. He has to be talking of physical things, since I presume that, say, the symmetry of two circles is perfectly identical. |