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Ideas for 'works', 'Bertrand Russell: Spirit of Solitude' and 'On Nature Itself (De Ipsa Natura)'

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3 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / d. Substance defined
Substance is a force for acting and being acted upon [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The very substance in things consists of a force for acting and being acted upon.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (On Nature Itself (De Ipsa Natura) [1698], §08)
     A reaction: Garber places this text just before the spiritual notion of monads took a grip on Leibniz. He seems to have thought that only some non-physical entity, with appetite and perception, could generate force. Wrong.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / a. Hylomorphism
The unmoved mover and the soul show Aristotelian form as the ultimate mereological atom [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Aristotle's discussion of the unmoved mover and of the soul confirms the suspicion that form, when it is not thought of as the object represented in a definition, plays the role of the ultimate mereological atom within his system.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 6.6
     A reaction: Aristotle is concerned with which things are 'divisible', and he cites these two examples as indivisible, but they may be too unusual to offer an actual theory of how Aristotle builds up wholes from atoms. He denies atoms in matter.
9. Objects / C. Structure of Objects / 2. Hylomorphism / d. Form as unifier
The 'form' is the recipe for building wholes of a particular kind [Aristotle, by Koslicki]
     Full Idea: Thus in Aristotle we may think of an object's formal components as a sort of recipe for how to build wholes of that particular kind.
     From: report of Aristotle (works [c.330 BCE]) by Kathrin Koslicki - The Structure of Objects 7.2.5
     A reaction: In the elusive business of pinning down what Aristotle means by the crucial idea of 'form', this analogy strikes me as being quite illuminating. It would fit DNA in living things, and the design of an artifact.