Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Morality and the emotions' and 'De arcanus motus'

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9 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 1. Powers
12733 Because of the definitions of cause, effect and power, cause and effect have the same power [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: The primary mechanical axiom is that the whole cause and the entire effect have the same power [potentia]. ..This depends on the definition of cause, effect and power.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De arcanus motus [1676], 203), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6
     A reaction: This is a useful reminder that if one is going to build a metaphysics on powers (which I intend to do), then the conservation laws in physics are highly relevant.
10. Modality / A. Necessity / 2. Nature of Necessity
12734 Every necessary proposition is demonstrable to someone who understands [Leibniz]
     Full Idea: Every necessary proposition is demonstrable, at least by someone who understands it.
     From: Gottfried Leibniz (De arcanus motus [1676], 203), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6
     A reaction: This kind of optimism leads to the crisis of the Hilbert Programme in the 1930s. Gödel seems to have conclusively proved that Leibniz was wrong. What would Leibniz have made of Gödel?
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
24008 Reference to a person's emotions is often essential to understanding their actions [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: The reference to a man's emotions has a significance for our understanding of his moral sincerity, not as a substitute for or addition to how he acts, but as, on occasion, underlying our understanding of how he acts.
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.223)
     A reaction: Williams aims to rescue emotion from the emotivists, and replace it at the centre of traditional modes of moral judgement. I suppose we could assess one rogue robot as behaving 'badly' in a community of robots.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / g. Controlling emotions
24009 Moral education must involve learning about various types of feeling towards things [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: If moral education does not revolve around what to fear, to be angry about, to despise, and where to draw the line between kindness and a stupid sentimentality - I do not know what it is. (Though there are principles, of truth-telling and justice).
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
     A reaction: He cites Aristotle as the obvious source of this correct idea. The examples of principle both require us to place a high value on truth and justice, and not just follow rules in the style of arithmetic.
22. Metaethics / A. Ethics Foundations / 2. Source of Ethics / h. Expressivism
24007 Emotivism saw morality as expressing emotions, and influencing others' emotions [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: Emotivism held that there were two purposes of moral judgements: to express the emotions of the speaker, and to influence the emotions of his hearers.
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.209)
     A reaction: I take Ayer to be typical of the first project, and Hare of the second. The theory is much more plausible when the second aim is added. Would we ever utter a moral opinion if we didn't hope to influence someone?
23. Ethics / C. Virtue Theory / 2. Elements of Virtue Theory / e. Character
24010 An admirable human being should have certain kinds of emotional responses [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: One's conception of an admirable human being implies that he should be disposed to certain kinds of emotional response, and not to others.
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.225)
     A reaction: So are the good emotions an indicator of being a good person, or is that what their goodness consists of? The goodness must be cashed out in actions, and presumably good emotions both promise good actions, and motivate them.
23. Ethics / D. Deontological Ethics / 6. Motivation for Duty
24012 Kant's love of consistency is too rigid, and it even overrides normal fairness [Williams,B]
     Full Idea: There is a certain moral woodenness or even insolence in Kant's blank regard for consistency. It smacks of Keynes's Principle of Unfairness - that if you can't do a good turn to everybody, you shouldn't do it to anybody.
     From: Bernard Williams (Morality and the emotions [1965], p.226)
     A reaction: He says it also turns each of us into a Supreme Legislator, which deifies man. It is clearly not the case that morality consists entirely of rules and principles, but Williams recognises their role, in truth-telling for example.
26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 5. Infinite in Nature
1748 Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless [Archelaus, by Diog. Laertius]
     Full Idea: Archelaus was the first person to say that the universe is boundless.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 02.Ar.3
27. Natural Reality / G. Biology / 3. Evolution
5989 Archelaus said life began in a primeval slime [Archelaus, by Schofield]
     Full Idea: Archelaus wrote that life on Earth began in a primeval slime.
     From: report of Archelaus (fragments/reports [c.450 BCE]) by Malcolm Schofield - Archelaus
     A reaction: This sounds like a fairly clearcut assertion of the production of life by evolution. Darwin's contribution was to propose the mechanism for achieving it. We should honour the name of Archelaus for this idea.