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13083
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The essence is the necessary properties, and the concept includes what is contingent [Leibniz]
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Full Idea:
Of the essence of a particular thing is what pertains to it necessarily and perpetually; of the concept of an individual thing on the other hand is what pertains to it contingently or per accidens.
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From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Human Freedom and Divine choice [1690], Grua 383), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.3.1
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A reaction:
This arbitrates on the apparent conflict between his remarks in Idea 13077 and Idea 10382. There seems to be a distinction between the 'concept' of a thing, and the 'complete concept', the latter including the contingent properties.
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9145
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We form the image of a cardinal number by a double abstraction, from the elements and from their order [Cantor]
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Full Idea:
We call 'cardinal number' the general concept which, by means of our active faculty of thought, arises when we make abstraction from an aggregate of its various elements, and of their order. From this double abstraction the number is an image in our mind.
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From:
George Cantor (Beitrage [1915], §1), quoted by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence Intro
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A reaction:
[compressed] This is the great Cantor, creator of set theory, endorsing the traditional abstractionism which Frege and his followers so despise. Fine offers a defence of it. The Frege view is platonist, because it refuses to connect numbers to the world.
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