10 ideas
| 12714 | The substantial form is the principle of action or the primitive force of acting [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: The substantial form is the principle of action or the primitive force of acting. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (De Mundo Praesenti [1686], A6.4.1507-8), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3 | |
| A reaction: The clearest statement of the modification of Aristotle's hylomorphism which Leibniz preferred in his middle period, and which strikes me as an improvement, and about right. Shame that monads got too much of a grip on him, but he was trying to dig deeper. |
| 12743 | A true being must (unlike a chain) have united parts, with a substantial form as its subject [Leibniz] |
| Full Idea: In a Being one per se a real union is required consisting not in the situation or motion of parts, as in a chain or a house, but in a unique individual principle and subject of attributes and operations, in us a soul and in a body a substantial form. | |
| From: Gottfried Leibniz (De Mundo Praesenti [1686], A6.4.1506), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 7 | |
| A reaction: Leibniz is said not to be an essentialist, by making all properties essential, but he is certainly committed to substance, and it sounds like essence here (or one view of essence), when it makes identity possible. This idea is pure Aristotle. |
| 12608 | Concepts are distinguished by roles in judgement, and are thus tied to rationality [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: 'Concept' is a notion tied, in the classical Fregean manner, to cognitive significance. Concepts are distinct if we can judge rationally of one, without the other. Concepts are constitutively and definitionally tied to rationality in this way. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], 2.2) | |
| A reaction: It seems to a bit optimistic to say, more or less, that thinking is impossible if it isn't rational. Rational beings have been selected for. As Quine nicely observed, duffers at induction have all been weeded out - but they may have existed, briefly. |
| 12605 | A sense is individuated by the conditions for reference [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: My basic Fregean idea is that a sense is individuated by the fundamental condition for something to be its reference. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: For something to actually be its reference (as opposed to imagined reference), truth must be involved. This needs the post-1891 Frege view of such things, and not just the view of concepts as functions which he started with. |
| 12607 | Fregean concepts have their essence fixed by reference-conditions [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: The Fregean view is that the essence of a concept is given by the fundamental condition for something to be its reference. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], 2.1) | |
| A reaction: Peacocke is a supporter of the Fregean view. How does this work for concepts of odd creatures in a fantasy novel? Or for mistaken or confused concepts? For Burge's 'arthritis in my thigh'? I don't reject the Fregean view. |
| 12609 | Concepts have distinctive reasons and norms [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: For each concept, there will be some reasons or norms distinctive of that concept. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], 2.3) | |
| A reaction: This is Peacocke's bold Fregean thesis (and it sounds rather Kantian to me). I dislike the word 'norms' (long story), but reasons are interesting. The trouble is the distinction between being a reason for something (its cause) and being a reason for me. |
| 12604 | Any explanation of a concept must involve reference and truth [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: For some particular concept, we can argue that some of its distinctive features are adequately explained only by a possession-condition that involves reference and truth essentially. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], Intro) | |
| A reaction: He reached this view via the earlier assertion that it is the role in judgement which key to understanding concepts. I like any view of such things which says that truth plays a role. |
| 12610 | Encountering novel sentences shows conclusively that meaning must be compositional [Peacocke] |
| Full Idea: The phenomenon of understanding sentences one has never encountered before is decisive against theories of meaning which do not proceed compositionally. | |
| From: Christopher Peacocke (Truly Understood [2008], 4.3) | |
| A reaction: I agree entirely. It seems obvious, as soon as you begin to slowly construct a long and unusual sentence, and follow the mental processes of the listener. |
| 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 |
| 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. |