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16620
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A chair is wood, and its shape is the form; it isn't 'compounded' of the matter and form [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Nothing can be compounded of matter and form. The matter of a chair is wood; the form is the figure it has, apt for the intended use. Does his Lordship think the chair compounded of the wood and the figure?
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:302), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
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A reaction:
Aristotle does use the word 'shape' [morphe] when he is discussing hylomorphism, and the statue example seems to support it, but elsewhere the form is a much deeper principle of individuation.
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16622
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Essence is just an artificial word from logic, giving a way of thinking about substances [Hobbes]
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Full Idea:
Essence and all other abstract names are words artificial belonging to the art of logic, and signify only the manner how we consider the substance itself.
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From:
Thomas Hobbes (Letter to Bramhall [1650], 4:308), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671
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A reaction:
I sympathise quite a lot with this view, but not with its dismissive tone. The key question I take to be: if you reject essences entirely (having read too much physics), how are we going to think about entities in the world in future?
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9354
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Why should necessities only be knowable a priori? That Hesperus is Phosporus is known empirically [Devitt]
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Full Idea:
Why should we accept that necessities can only be known a priori? Prima facie, some necessities are known empirically; for example, that water is necessarily H2O, and that Hesperus is necessarily Phosphorus.
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From:
Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
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A reaction:
An important question, whatever your view. If the only thing we can know a priori is necessities, it doesn't follow that necessities can only be known a priori. It gets interesting if we say that some necessities can never be known a priori.
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9353
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We explain away a priori knowledge, not as directly empirical, but as indirectly holistically empirical [Devitt]
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Full Idea:
We have no need to turn to an a priori explanation of our knowledge of mathematics and logic. Our intuitions that this knowledge is not justified in some direct empirical way is preserved. It is justified in an indirect holistic way.
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From:
Michael Devitt (There is no a Priori [2005], §2)
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A reaction:
I think this is roughly the right story, but the only way it will work is if we have some sort of theory of abstraction, which gets us up the ladder of generalisations to the ones which, it appears, are necessarily true.
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