22 ideas
7083 | Highest reason is aesthetic, and truth and good are subordinate to beauty [Hegel] |
Full Idea: I am now convinced that the highest act of reason, which embraces all ideas, is an aesthetic act, and that truth and goodness are brothers only in beauty. | |
From: Georg W.F.Hegel (Oldest System Prog. of German Idealism [1796]), quoted by Simon Critchley - Continental Philosophy - V. Short Intro Append | |
A reaction: This seems to be the distinctive value framework of the romantic movement and the nineteenth century, where art is destined to replace religion. However, Plato in the Symposium is an interesting ally. Aim for beauty, and the rest follows? |
2098 | The principle of sufficient reason is needed if we are to proceed from maths to physics [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: In order to proceed from mathematics to physics the principle of sufficient reason is necessary, that nothing happens without there being a reason why it should be thus rather than otherwise. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], §2) |
3646 | There is always a reason why things are thus rather than otherwise [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nothing happens without a sufficient reason why it should be thus rather than otherwise. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.2) |
2104 | No reason could limit the quantity of matter, so there is no limit [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: There is no possible reason which could limit the quantity of matter; therefore there cannot in fact be any such limitation. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.21) |
9406 | A class is natural when everybody can spot further members of it [Quinton] |
Full Idea: To say that a class is natural is to say that when some of its members are shown to people they pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: He concedes a number of problems with his view, but I admire his attempt to at least begin to distinguish the natural (real!) classes from the ersatz ones. A mention of causal powers would greatly improve his story. |
19385 | All simply substances are in harmony, because they all represent the one universe [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: All simple substances will always have a harmony among themselves, because they always represent the same universe. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], V §91), quoted by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz | |
A reaction: We can accept that the universe itself does not contain contradictions (how could it), but it is a leap of faith to say that all monads represent the universe well enough to avoid contradictions. Maps can contradict one another. |
15730 | Extreme nominalists say all classification is arbitrary convention [Quinton] |
Full Idea: Pure, extreme nominalism sees all classification as the product of arbitrary convention. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: I'm not sure what the word 'arbitrary' is doing there. Nominalists are not daft, and if they can classify any way they like, they are not likely to choose an 'arbitrary' system. Pragmatism tells the right story here. |
21346 | The ratio between two lines can't be a feature of one, and cannot be in both [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: If the ratio of two lines L and M is conceived as abstracted from them both, without considering which is the subject and which the object, which will then be the subject? We cannot say both, for then we should have an accident in two subjects. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5th Paper, §47), quoted by John Heil - Relations 'External' | |
A reaction: [compressed] Leibniz is rejecting external relations as having any status in ontology. It looks like a mistake (originating in Aristotle) to try to shoehorn the ontology of relations into the substance-properties framework. |
15728 | The naturalness of a class depends as much on the observers as on the objects [Quinton] |
Full Idea: The naturalness of a class depends as essentially on the nature of the observers who classify as it does on the nature of the objects that they classify. ...It depends on our perceptual apparatus, and on our relatively mutable needs and interests. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: This seems to translate 'natural' as 'natural for us', which is not much use to scientists, who spend quite a lot of effort combating folk wisdom. Do desirable sports cars constitute a natural class? |
9407 | Properties imply natural classes which can be picked out by everybody [Quinton] |
Full Idea: To say there are properties is to say there are natural classes, classes introduction to some of whose members enables people to pick out others without hesitation and in agreement. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: Aristotle would like this approach, but it doesn't find many friends among modern logician/philosophers. We should go on to ask why people agree on these things. Causal powers will then come into it. |
15729 | Uninstantiated properties must be defined using the instantiated ones [Quinton] |
Full Idea: Properties that have no concrete instances must be defined in terms of those that have. | |
From: Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], 9 'Nat') | |
A reaction: I wonder what the dodo used to smell like? |
8520 | An individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position [Quinton, by Campbell,K] |
Full Idea: Quinton proposes that an individual is a union of a group of qualities and a position. | |
From: report of Anthony Quinton (The Nature of Things [1973], Pt I) by Keith Campbell - The Metaphysic of Abstract Particulars §5 | |
A reaction: This seems the obvious defence of a bundle account of objects against the charge that indiscernibles would have to be identical. It introduces, however, 'positions' into the ontology, but maybe that price must be paid. Materialism needs space. |
2105 | Things are infinitely subdivisible and contain new worlds, which atoms would make impossible [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The least corpuscle is actually subdivided ad infinitum and contains a world of new created things, which this universe would lack if this corpuscle were an atom. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.PS) |
2106 | The only simple things are monads, with no parts or extension [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: According to me there is nothing simple except true monads, which have no parts and no extensions. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5.24) |
2102 | Atomism is irrational because it suggests that two atoms can be indistinguishable [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: There are no two individuals indiscernible from one another - leaves, or drops of water, for example. This is an argument against atoms, which, like the void, are opposed to the principles of a true metaphysic. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.04) |
20965 | Leibniz upheld conservations of momentum and energy [Leibniz, by Papineau] |
Full Idea: In place of Descartes's conservation of 'quantity of motion', Leibniz upheld both the conservation of linear momentum and the conservation of kinetic energy. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5th paper) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness App 2 | |
A reaction: The point is that momentum involves velocity (which includes direction) rather than speed. Leibniz more or less invented the concept of 'energy' ('vis viva'). Papineau says these two leave no room for causation by mental substance. |
2103 | The idea that the universe could be moved forward with no other change is just a fantasy [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: To say that God could cause the universe to move forward in a straight line or otherwise without changing it in any other way is another fanciful supposition. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 4.14) |
2100 | Space and time are purely relative [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: I have more than once stated that I held space to be something purely relative, like time. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.4) |
2107 | No time exists except instants, and instants are not even a part of time, so time does not exist [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: How could a thing exist, no part of which ever exists? In the case of time, nothing exists but instants, and an instant is not even a part of time. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 5.49) |
2101 | If everything in the universe happened a year earlier, there would be no discernible difference [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: To ask why God did not make everything a year sooner would be reasonable if time were something apart from temporal things, but time is just the succession of things, which remains the same if the universe is created a year sooner. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], 3.6) |
22894 | If time were absolute that would make God's existence dependent on it [Leibniz, by Bardon] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argues that if time is a thing in itself, and God is 'in' time, then God would be dependent for His existence on the existence of time. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716]) by Adrian Bardon - Brief History of the Philosophy of Time 3 'Newton' | |
A reaction: Hence Leibniz says time is merely relations between events. Not sure what he thinks an event is. What is God made of? Is there some divine matter upon which God's existence must depend? |
2099 | The existence of God, and all metaphysics, follows from the Principle of Sufficient Reason [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: By this principle alone, that there must be a sufficient reason why things are thus rather than otherwise, I prove the existence of the Divinity, and all the rest of metaphysics or natural theology. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Samuel Clarke [1716], §2) |