12 ideas
| 23026 | We know mathematical axioms, such as subtracting equals from equals leaves equals, by a natural light [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It is by the natural light that the axioms of mathematics are recognised. If we take away the same quantity from two equal things, …a thing we can easily predict without having experienced it. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], p.189) | |
| A reaction: He also says two equal weights will keep a balance level. Plato thinks his slave boy understands halving an area by the natural light, but that is just as likely to be experience. It is too easy to attribut thoughts to a 'natural light'. |
| 13189 | A necessary feature (such as air for humans) is not therefore part of the essence [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: That which is necessary for something does not constitute its essence. Air is necessary for our life, but our life is something other than air. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: Bravo. Why can't modern philosophers hang on to this distinction? They seem to think that because they don't believe in traditional essences they can purloin the word for something else. Same with the word 'abstraction'. |
| 19432 | Intelligible truth is independent of any external things or experiences [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: Intelligible truth is independent of the truth or of the existence outside us of sensible and material things. ....It is generally true that we only know necessary truths by the natural light [of reason] | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: A nice quotation summarising a view for which Leibniz is famous - that there is a tight correlation between necessary truths and our a priori knowledge of them. The obvious challenge comes from Kripke's claim that scientists can discover necessities. |
| 19430 | We know objects by perceptions, but their qualities don't reveal what it is we are perceiving [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: We use the external senses ...to make us know their particular objects ...but they do not make us know what those sensible qualities are ...whether red is small revolving globules causing light, heat a whirling of dust, or sound is waves in air. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: These seems to be exactly the concept of secondary qualities which Locke was promoting. They are unreliable information about the objects we perceive. Primary qualities are reliable information. I like that distinction. |
| 19431 | There is nothing in the understanding but experiences, plus the understanding itself, and the understander [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: It can be said that there is nothing in the understanding which does not come from the senses, except the understanding itself, or that which understands. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Queen Charlotte [1702], 1702) | |
| A reaction: Given that Leibniz is labelled as a 'rationalist', this is awfully close to empiricism. Not Locke's 'tabula rasa' perhaps, but Hume's experiences plus associations. Leibniz has a much loftier notion of understanding and reason than Hume does. |
| 21513 | We can no more expect a precise definition of coherence than we can of the moral ideal [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: I think it is wrong to tie down the advocates of the coherence theory to a precise definition. ...It would be altogether unreasonable to demand that the moral ideal should be exhaustively defined, and the same may be true of the ideal of thought. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.231), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 7.6 | |
| A reaction: I strongly agree. It is not a council of despair. I think the criteria of coherence can be articulated quite well (e.g by Thagard), and the virtues of enquiry can also be quite well specified (e.g. by Zagzebski). Very dissimilar evidence must cohere. |
| 21497 | If undetailed, 'coherence' is just a vague words that covers all possible arguments [Ewing] |
| Full Idea: Without a detailed account, coherence is reduced to the mere muttering of the word 'coherence', which can be interpreted so as to cover all arguments, but only by making its meaning so wide as to rob it of almost all significance. | |
| From: A.C. Ewing (Idealism: a critical survey [1934], p.246), quoted by Erik J. Olsson - Against Coherence 2.2 | |
| A reaction: I'm a fan of coherence, but it is a placeholder, involving no intrinsic or detailed theory. I just think it points to the reality of how we make judgements, especially practical ones. We can categorise the inputs, and explain the required virtues. |
| 22098 | Socrates neglects the gap between knowing what is good and doing good [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: There is a fundamental weakness in Socrates, that he does not take into account the gap between knowing what is good and actually putting this into action. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |
| A reaction: This rejects Socrates's intellectualism about weakness of will. It is perhaps a better criticism that Aristotle's view that desires sometimes overcome the will. It is also the problem of motivation in Kantian deontology. Or utilitarianism. |
| 22096 | Anxiety is not a passing mood, but a response to human freedom [Kierkegaard, by Carlisle] |
| Full Idea: For Kierkegaard anxiety is not simply a mood or an emotion that certain people experience at certain times, but a basic response to freedom that is part of the human condition. | |
| From: report of Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844]) by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |
| A reaction: Outside of Christianity, this may be Kierkegaard's most influential idea - since existential individualism is floating around in the romantic movement. But the Byronic hero experiences a sort of anxiety. If you can't face anxiety, become a monk or nun. |
| 22097 | The ultimate in life is learning to be anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Every human being must learn to be anxious in order that he might not perish either by never having been in anxiety or by succumbing in anxiety. Whoever has learned to be anxious in the right way has learnt the ultimate. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.154), quoted by Clare Carlisle - Kierkegaard: a guide for the perplexed 5 | |
| A reaction: I think this is the most existentialist quotation I have found in Kierkegaard. It sounds circular. You must be in anxiety because otherwise you won't be able to cope with anxiety? I suppose anxiety is facing up to his concept of truth. |
| 21909 | Ultimate knowledge is being anxious in the right way [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: Whoever learns to be anxious in the right way has learned the ultimate. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.187), quoted by Alastair Hannay - Kierkegaard 06 | |
| A reaction: This shows us that Kierkegaard had a rather bizarre mental life which the rest of us have little chance of penetrating. I'll have a go at cataloguing my types of anxiety, but I'm not hopeful. |
| 20758 | Anxiety is staring into the yawning abyss of freedom [Kierkegaard] |
| Full Idea: One may liken anxiety to dizziness. He whose eyes chance to look down into a yawning abyss becomes dizzy. Anxiety is the dizziness of freedom which is when freedom gazes down into its own possibility, grasping at finiteness to sustain itself. | |
| From: Søren Kierkegaard (The Concept of Dread (/Anxiety) [1844], p.55), quoted by Kevin Aho - Existentialism: an introduction 6 'Moods' | |
| A reaction: Most of us rapidly retreat from the thought of the infinity of things we might choose. Choosing bizarrely merely to assert one's freedom is simple stupidity. |