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3 ideas
| 20362 | We saw unity in things because our ego seemed unified (but now we doubt the ego!) [Nietzsche] |
| Full Idea: We borrowed the concept of unity from our 'ego' concept - our oldest article of faith. If we did not hold ourselves to be unified, we would never have formed the concept 'thing'. Now, somewhat late, we are convinced that the ego does not guarantee unity. | |
| From: Friedrich Nietzsche (The Will to Power (notebooks) [1888], §635) | |
| A reaction: Nietzsche tells a similar story about the emergence and subsequent undermining of truth. I am becoming an enthusiast for Nietzsche's account of how our psychology has generated out metaphysics - which doesn't make the metaphysics false. |
| 13571 | Scientific essentialism doesn't really need Kripkean individual essences [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: My current view is that individual essences (about which Kripke's essentialism has a lot to say) do not matter much from the point of view of a scientific essentialist. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], Intro) | |
| A reaction: [Kripke parenthesis on p.54] Presumably this is because science is only committed to dealing in generalities, and so natural kinds are needed for such things. I'm inclined to regard individual essences as prior in the pure ontology of the thing. |
| 13578 | The old idea that identity depends on essence and behaviour is rejected by the empiricists [Ellis] |
| Full Idea: The old Aristotelian idea that the identity of a thing might depend on its essential nature, which would dispose it to behave in certain ways, is firmly rejected by empiricists. | |
| From: Brian Ellis (Scientific Essentialism [2001], 1.10) | |
| A reaction: Ellis is accusing empiricists of having a falsely passive concept of objects. This dispute is best captured in the disagreement between Locke and Leibniz on the subject. |