Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'Letter to G.H. Schaller', 'Syntagma' and 'Understanding'

unexpand these ideas     |    start again     |     specify just one area for these texts

---

8 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / B. Properties / 8. Properties as Modes

16730	If matter is entirely atoms, anything else we notice in it can only be modes [Gassendi]
	Full Idea: Since these atoms are the whole of the corporeal matter or substance that exists in bodies, if we conceive or notice anything else to exist in these bodies, that is not a substance but only some kind of mode of the substance.
	From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
	A reaction: If the atoms have a few qualities of their own, are they just modes? If they are genuine powers, then there can be emergent powers, which are rather more than mere 'modes'.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19691	Unlike knowledge, you can achieve understanding through luck [Grimm]
	Full Idea: It may be that understanding is compatible with luck, in a way that knowledge is not.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
	A reaction: [He cites Kvanvig and Prichard] If so, then we cannot say that knowledge is a lesser type of understanding. If you ask a trusted person how a mechanism works, and they have a wild guess that is luckily right, you would then understand it.

19690	'Grasping' a structure seems to be modal, because we must anticipate its behaviour [Grimm]
	Full Idea: 'Graspng' a structure would seem to bring into play something like a modal sense or ability, not just to register how things are, but also to anticipate how certain elements of the system would behave.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 2)
	A reaction: In the case of the chronology of some historical events, talking of 'grasping' or 'understanding' seems wrong because the facts are static and invariant. That seems to support the present idea. But you might 'understand' a pattern if you can reproduce it.

19692	You may have 'weak' understanding, if by luck you can answer a set of 'why questions' [Grimm]
	Full Idea: There may be a 'weak' sense of understanding, where all you need to do is to be able to answer 'why questions' successfully, where one might have come by this ability in a lucky way.
	From: Stephen R. Grimm (Understanding [2011], 3)
	A reaction: We can see this point (in Idea 19691), but the idea that one could come by true complex understanding of something by purely lucky means is a bit absurd. Surely you would get one or two why questions wrong? 100%, just by luck?

14. Science / D. Explanation / 2. Types of Explanation / j. Explanations by reduction

16619	We observe qualities, and use 'induction' to refer to the substances lying under them [Gassendi]
	Full Idea: Nothing beyond qualities is perceived by the senses. …When we refer to the substance in which the qualities inhere, we do this through induction, by which we reason that some subject lies under the quality.
	From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.6.1), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 07.1
	A reaction: He talks of 'induction' (in an older usage), but he seems to mean abduction, since he never makes any observations of the substances being proposed.

16. Persons / F. Free Will / 5. Against Free Will

4871	A thing is free if it acts only by the necessity of its own nature [Spinoza]
	Full Idea: I say that a thing is free, which exists and acts solely by the necessity of its own nature.
	From: Baruch de Spinoza (Letter to G.H. Schaller [1674], 1674.10)
	A reaction: Of course, this isn't 'freedom' at all, but it seems to exactly right as an account of so-called freedom. In the case of a human being the 'necessity of our own nature' is character, and virtue and vice are the expressions of the necessities of character.

26. Natural Theory / A. Speculations on Nature / 6. Early Matter Theories / g. Atomism

16593	Atoms are not points, but hard indivisible things, which no force in nature can divide [Gassendi]
	Full Idea: The vulgar think atoms lack parts and are free of all magnitude, and hence nothing other than a mathematical point, but it is something solid and hard and compact, as to leave no room for division, separation and cutting. No force in nature can divide it.
	From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.3.5), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 03.2
	A reaction: If you gloatingly think the atom has now been split, ask whether electrons and quarks now fit his description. Pasnau notes that though atoms are indivisible, they are not incorruptible, and could go out of existence, or be squashed.

16729	How do mere atoms produce qualities like colour, flavour and odour? [Gassendi]
	Full Idea: If the only material principles of things are atoms, having only size, shape, and weight, or motion, then why are so many additional qualities created and existing within the things: color, heat, flavor, odor, and innumerable others?
	From: Pierre Gassendi (Syntagma [1658], II.1.5.7), quoted by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 22.4
	A reaction: This is pretty much the 'hard question' about the mind-body relation. Bacon said that heat was just motion of matter. I would say that this problem is gradually being solved in my lifetime.