5060
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All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7)
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A reaction:
This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd.
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8329
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Either causal relations are given in experience, or they are unobserved and theoretical [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
There is a fundamental choice between the realist approach to causation which says that the relation is immediately given in experience, and the view that causation is a theoretical relation, and so not directly observable.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
Even if immediate experience is involved, there is a step of abstraction in calling it a cause, and picking out events. A 'theoretical relation' is not of much interest there if no observations are involved. I don't think a choice is required here.
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8324
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The problem is to explain how causal laws and relations connect, and how they link to the world [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
Causal states of affairs encompass causal laws, and causal relations between events or states of affairs; two key questions concern the relation between causal laws and causal relations, and the relation between these and non-causal affairs.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
This is the agenda for modern analytical philosophy. I'm not quite clear what would count as an answer. When have you 'explained' a relation? Does calling it 'gravity', or finding an equation, explain that relation? Do gravitinos explain it?
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5059
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Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5)
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A reaction:
Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes.
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8328
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Causation isn't energy transfer, because an electron is caused by previous temporal parts [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
The temporal parts of an electron (for example) are causally related, but this relation does not involve any transfer of energy or momentum. Causation cannot be identified with physical energy relations, and physicalist reductions look unpromising.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
This idea, plus Idea 8327, are their grounds for rejecting Fair's proposal (Idea 8326). It feels like a different use of 'cause' when we say 'the existence of x was caused by its existence yesterday'. It is more like inertia. Destruction needs energy.
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8325
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The dominant view is that causal laws are prior; a minority say causes can be explained singly [Sosa/Tooley]
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Full Idea:
The dominant view is that causal laws are more basic than causal relations, with relations being logically supervenient on causal laws, and on properties and event relations; some, though, defend the singularist view, in which events alone can be related.
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From:
E Sosa / M Tooley (Introduction to 'Causation' [1993], §1)
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A reaction:
I am deeply suspicious about laws (see Idea 5470). I suspect that the laws are merely descriptions of the regularities that arise from the single instances of causation. We won't explain the single instances, but then laws don't 'explain' them either.
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