Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Wittgenstein', 'Comments on a Certain Broadsheet' and 'The Rationalists'

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7 ideas

9. Objects / B. Unity of Objects / 2. Substance / c. Types of substance

4304	Descartes says there are two substance, Spinoza one, and Leibniz infinitely many [Cottingham]
	Full Idea: Descartes was a dualist about substance, Spinoza was a monist, and Leibniz was a pluralist (an infinity of substances).
	From: John Cottingham (The Rationalists [1988], p.76)
	A reaction: Spinoza is appealing. We posit a substance, as the necessary basis for existence, but it is unclear how more than one substance can be differentiated. If mind is a separate substance, why isn't iron? Why aren't numbers?

12. Knowledge Sources / A. A Priori Knowledge / 4. A Priori as Necessities

2602	What experience could prove 'If a=c and b=c then a=b'? [Descartes]
	Full Idea: Please tell me what the corporeal motion is that is capable of forming some common notion to the effect that 'things which are equal to a third thing are equal to each other'.
	From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.366)

12. Knowledge Sources / C. Rationalism / 1. Rationalism

4303	The notion of substance lies at the heart of rationalist metaphysics [Cottingham]
	Full Idea: The notion of substance lies at the heart of rationalist metaphysics.
	From: John Cottingham (The Rationalists [1988], p.75)
	A reaction: The idea of 'substance' has had an interesting revival in modern philosophy (though not, obviously, in physics). Maybe physics and philosophy have views of reality which are not complementary, but are rivals.

15. Nature of Minds / A. Nature of Mind / 4. Other Minds / d. Other minds by analogy

7091	The argument from analogy is not a strong inference, since the other being might be an actor or a robot [Grayling]
	Full Idea: The argument from analogy is a weak one, because it does not logically guarantee the inference I draw to the other's inner states, for he might be dissimulating or acting, or may even be a cleverly contrived robot which feels nothing.
	From: A.C. Grayling (Wittgenstein [1988], Ch.3)
	A reaction: This gives the impression that for an argument to be strong it must logically guarantee its inference. It strikes me that analogy is a good reason for believing in other minds, but that is because I am looking for the best explanation, not logical proof.

18. Thought / D. Concepts / 2. Origin of Concepts / c. Nativist concepts

2600	The mind's innate ideas are part of its capacity for thought [Descartes]
	Full Idea: I have never written or taken the view that the mind requires innate ideas which are something distinct from its own faculty of thinking.
	From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.365)

2601	Qualia must be innate, because physical motions do not contain them [Descartes]
	Full Idea: The ideas of pains, colours, sounds etc. must be all the more innate if, on the occasion of certain corporeal motions, our mind is to be capable of representing them to itself, for there is no similarity between these ideas and the corporeal motions.
	From: René Descartes (Comments on a Certain Broadsheet [1644], p.365)
	A reaction: Simple and brilliant! We know perfectly well that there is no redness zooming through the air from a tomato (or the air would be pink!). Redness occurs when the light arrives, so we add the redness, so it is innate.

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 9. General Causation / d. Causal necessity

4306	For rationalists, it is necessary that effects be deducible from their causes [Cottingham]
	Full Idea: The rationalist view of causation takes it that to make effects intelligible, it must be shown that they are in principle deducible from their causes.
	From: John Cottingham (The Rationalists [1988], p.92)
	A reaction: This has intuitive appeal, but deduction is only possible with further premises, such as the laws of physics. The effects of human behaviour look a bit tricky, even if we cause them.