119 ideas
9199 | Wisdom for one instant is as good as wisdom for eternity [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: If a person has wisdom for one instant, he is no less happy than he who possesses it for eternity. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Pierre Hadot - Philosophy as a way of life 8 | |
A reaction: [Hadot quotes Plutarch 'On Common Conceptions' 8,1062a] This makes it sound awfully like some sort of Buddhist 'enlightenment', which strikes like lightning. He does wisdom recognise itself - by a warm glow, or by the cautious thought that got you there? |
20853 | Wise men should try to participate in politics, since they are a good influence [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The wise man will participate in politics unless something prevents him, for he will restrain vice and promote virtue. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.121 | |
A reaction: [from lost On Ways of Life Bk 1] We have made modern politics so hostile for its participants, thanks to cruel media pressure, that the best people now run a mile from it. Disastrous. |
19359 | Leibniz aims to give coherent rational support for empiricism [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's philosophy largely serves to justify and enable a coherent empirical account of the world. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.I | |
A reaction: A nice counter to the simplistic idea of Locke as empiricist and Leibniz as rationalist. Leibniz is explicit that science needs a separate 'metaphysics' to underpin it. Perkins says Locke constructs experience, and Leibniz analyses it. |
20772 | Three branches of philosophy: first logic, second ethics, third physics (which ends with theology) [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: There are three kinds of philosophical theorems, logical, ethical, and physical; of these the logic should be placed first, ethics second, and physics third (and theology is the final topic in physics). | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035a | |
A reaction: [in his lost 'On Lives' Bk 4] 'Theology is the final topic in physics'! That should create a stir in theology departments. Is this an order of study, or of importance? You come to theology right at the end of your studies. |
13086 | Metaphysics is a science of the intelligible nature of being [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, metaphysics is above all a science of the intelligible nature of being. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 4.3.1 | |
A reaction: [Their footnote gives two quotes in support] I could take this as my motto. We are not studying the 'nature of being', because we can't. We are studying what is 'intelligible' about it; my thesis is that the need for intelligibility imposes an order. |
16710 | Leibniz tried to combine mechanistic physics with scholastic metaphysics [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Leibniz made a sustained attempt to combine a mechanistic physics with something like a scholastic metaphysics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 20.1 | |
A reaction: This seems to me clear enough, and a lot of current philosophers seem to underestimate how Aristotelian Leibniz was. |
16897 | Reason is the faculty for grasping apriori necessary truths [Leibniz, by Burge] |
Full Idea: Leibniz actually characterises reason as the faculty for apprehending priori, necessary truths. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Tyler Burge - Frege on Apriority (with ps) 2 | |
A reaction: No wonder it is called the Age of Reason when the claims are this grandiose. |
3346 | For Leibniz rationality is based on non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Leibniz distinguished two fundamental principles of rationality - the principle of non-contradiction and the principle of sufficient reason. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18 |
5969 | Chrysippus said the uncaused is non-existent [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus said that the uncaused is altogether non-existent. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
A reaction: The difficulty is to see what empirical basis there can be for such a claim, or what argument of any kind other than an intuition. Induction is the obvious answer, but Hume teaches us scepticism about any claim that 'there can be no exceptions'. |
3347 | Leibniz said the principle of sufficient reason is synthetic a priori, since its denial is not illogical [Leibniz, by Benardete,JA] |
Full Idea: Leibniz assigns synthetic a priori status to the principle of sufficient reason, readily conceding that one can deny it without fear of inconsistency. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by José A. Benardete - Metaphysics: the logical approach Ch.18 |
8627 | Leibniz is inclined to regard all truths as provable [Leibniz, by Frege] |
Full Idea: Leibniz has an inclination to regard all truths as provable. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §15 | |
A reaction: Leibniz sounds like the epitome of Enlightenment optimism about the powers of reason. Could God prove every truth? It's a nice thought. |
21388 | The causes of future true events must exist now, so they will happen because of destiny [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: True future events cannot be such as do not possess causes on account of which they will happen; therefore that which is true must possess causes: and so, when the [true future events] happen they will have happened as a result of destiny. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 9.23-8 | |
A reaction: [exact ref unclear] Presumably the current causes are the truthmakers for the future events, and so the past is the truthmaker of the future, if you are a determinist. |
20780 | Graspable presentations are criteria of facts, and are molded according to their objects [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Of presentations, some are graspable, some non-graspable. The graspable presentation, which they say is the criterion of facts [pragmata], is that which comes from an existing object and is stamped and molded in accordance wth the existing object itself. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.46 | |
A reaction: [in lost Physics Bk 2] The big modern anguish over truth-as-correspondence is how you are supposed to verify the 'accordance'. This idea seems to blur the ideas of truth and justification (the 'criterion'), and you can't have both as accordance. |
20793 | How could you ever know that the presentation is similar to the object? [Sext.Empiricus on Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: One cannot say that the soul grasps the externally existing objects by means of the states of the senses on the basis of the similarity of these states to the externally existing objects. For on what basis will it know the similarity? | |
From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism 2.74 | |
A reaction: This exactly the main modern reason for rejecting the correspondence theory of truth. You are welcome to affirm a robust view of truth, but supporting it by claiming a correspondence or resemblance is dubious. |
8077 | Stoic propositional logic is like chemistry - how atoms make molecules, not the innards of atoms [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
Full Idea: In Stoic logic propositions are treated the way atoms are treated in present-day chemistry, where the focus is on the way atoms fit together to form molecules, rather than on the internal structure of the atoms. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: A nice analogy to explain the nature of Propositional Logic, which was invented by the Stoics (N.B. after Aristotle had invented predicate logic). |
20791 | Chrysippus has five obvious 'indemonstrables' of reasoning [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus has five indemonstrables that do not need demonstration:1) If 1st the 2nd, but 1st, so 2nd; 2) If 1st the 2nd, but not 2nd, so not 1st; 3) Not 1st and 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 4) 1st or 2nd, the 1st, so not 2nd; 5) 1st or 2nd, not 2nd, so 1st. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.80-81 | |
A reaction: [from his lost text 'Dialectics'; squashed to fit into one quote] 1) is Modus Ponens, 2) is Modus Tollens. 4) and 5) are Disjunctive Syllogisms. 3) seems a bit complex to be an indemonstrable. |
8078 | Modus ponens is one of five inference rules identified by the Stoics [Chrysippus, by Devlin] |
Full Idea: Modus ponens is just one of the five different inference rules identified by the Stoics. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Keith Devlin - Goodbye Descartes Ch.2 | |
A reaction: Modus ponens strikes me as being more like a definition of implication than a 'rule'. Implication is what gets you from one truth to another. All the implications of a truth must also be true. |
6023 | Every proposition is either true or false [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: We hold fast to the position, defended by Chrysippus, that every proposition is either true or false. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 38 | |
A reaction: I am intrigued to know exactly how you defend this claim. It may depend what you mean by a proposition. A badly expressed proposition may have indeterminate truth, quite apart from the vague, the undecidable etc. |
9147 | Number cannot be defined as addition of ones, since that needs the number; it is a single act of abstraction [Fine,K on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's talk of the addition of ones cannot define number, since it cannot be specified how often they are added without using the number itself. Number must be an organic unity of ones, achieved by a single act of abstraction. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Kit Fine - Cantorian Abstraction: Recon. and Defence §1 | |
A reaction: I doubt whether 'abstraction' is the right word for this part of the process. It seems more like a 'gestalt'. The first point is clearly right, that it is the wrong way round if you try to define number by means of addition. |
19375 | The continuum is not divided like sand, but folded like paper [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
Full Idea: Leibniz said the division of the continuum should not be conceived 'to be like the division of sand into grains, but like that of a tunic or a sheet of paper into folds'. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A VI iii 555) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz | |
A reaction: This from the man who invented calculus. This thought might apply well to the modern physicist's concept of a 'field'. |
18080 | A tangent is a line connecting two points on a curve that are infinitely close together [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: We have only to keep in mind that to find a tangent means to draw a line that connects two points of a curve at an infinitely small distance. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.1 | |
A reaction: [The quote can be tracked through Kitcher's footnote] |
18081 | Nature uses the infinite everywhere [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nature uses the infinite in everything it does. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Philip Kitcher - The Nature of Mathematical Knowledge 10.1 | |
A reaction: [The quote can be tracked through Kitcher's footnote] He seems to have had in mind the infinitely small. |
5992 | Chrysippus says action is the criterion for existence, which must be physical [Chrysippus, by Tieleman] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus regarded power to act and be acted upon as the criterion for existence or being - a test satisfied by bodies alone. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Teun L. Tieleman - Chrysippus | |
A reaction: This defines existence in terms of causation. Is he ruling out a priori a particle (say) which exists, but never interacts with anything? If so, he is inclining towards anti-realism. |
7565 | Leibniz proposes monads, since there must be basic things, which are immaterial in order to have unity [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz believes in monads because it would be contrary to reason or divine wisdom if everything was compounds, down to infinity; there must be ultimate unified building-blocks; they cannot be material, for material things lack genuine unity. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.3 | |
A reaction: It is hard to discern the basis for the claim that only immaterial things can have unity. The Greeks proposed atoms, and we have no reason to think that electrons lack unity. |
21673 | There are simple and complex facts; the latter depend on further facts [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says there are two classes of facts, simple and complex. An instance of a simple fact is 'Socrates will die at a given date', ...but 'Milo will wrestle at Olympia' is a complex statement, because there can be no wrestling without an opponent. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 13.30 | |
A reaction: We might say that there are atomic and complex facts, but our atomic facts tend to be much simpler, usually just saying some object has some property. |
16652 | Stoics categories are Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation [Chrysippus, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: The Stoics proposed a rather modest categorisation of Substrate, Quality, Disposition, and Relation. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 12.1 |
10419 | If relations can be reduced to, or supervene on, monadic properties of relata, they are not real [Leibniz, by Swoyer] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that relations could be reduced to monadic properties and so were dispensable, and some still agree, saying relations supervene on monadic properties of the relata, and are not actually real. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Chris Swoyer - Properties 7.4 | |
A reaction: At the very least a background of space and/or time seem required, in addition to any properties the relata may have. y only becomes 'to the left of x' when x appears to its right, so the relation doesn't seem to be intrinsic to y. |
13078 | Relations aren't in any monad, so they are distributed, so they are not real [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The relations which connect two monads are not in either the one or the other, but equally in both at once; and therefore properly speaking, in neither. I do not think you would wish to posit an accident which would inhere simultaneously in two subjects. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:517), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 2.4.3 | |
A reaction: Where Russell affirms relations as universals, and scholastics make them properties of individuals, Leibniz denies their reality entirely. It seems obvious that once the objects and properties are there, the relations come for free. |
12713 | Forms have sensation and appetite, the latter being the ability to act on other bodies [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's form contains both sensation and appetite, and he seems to associate appetite with the ability a body has to act on another. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3 | |
A reaction: It strikes me (you may be surprised to hear) that this concept is not unlike Nietzsche's all-mastering 'will to power'. I offer Idea 7140 in evidence. |
13087 | The essence of a thing is its real possibilities [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: In Leibniz's view, the essence of a thing is fundamentally the real possibilities of that thing. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 4.3.3 | |
A reaction: Note that the essences are individual. On the whole I would prefer Leibniz in his own words, but this is too good to lose (..but see Idea 12981). It is the aspect of Leibniz that fits perfectly with modern scientific essentialism. |
12701 | Leibniz moved from individuation by whole entity to individuation by substantial form [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: By 1680 Leibniz had clearly abandoned the 'whole entity' conception of individuation, for a conception grounded in substantial form alone. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 2 | |
A reaction: In other words, Leibniz became more of an Aristotelian, and more of an essentialist. |
13105 | The laws-of-the-series plays a haecceitist role [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: Leibniz takes the laws-of-the-series to play a haecceitistic role. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 7.5 | |
A reaction: Idea 13092 for law-in-the-series. He thinks that a law-in-a-series is unique to a substance, and so can individuate it. That is a pretty good proposal, if anything is going to do the job. Perhaps I do believe in haecceities, as unique bundles of powers? |
16513 | Identity of a substance is the law of its persistence [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: For there to be a certain persisting law which involves the future states of that which we conceive as one and the same continuant, this is what I say constitute's a substance's identity. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:264), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 3.1 | |
A reaction: This is a key remark for those who thing 'persistence conditions' are basic to metaphysics. I'm not so sure. |
12035 | Leibniz bases pure primitive entities on conjunctions of qualitative properties [Leibniz, by Adams,RM] |
Full Idea: Leibniz is committed with apparent consistency to both a purely qualitative character of all thisnesses, and to primitiveness of individual identity. He regards thisnesses as conjunctions of simpler, logically independent suchnesses. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Merrihew Adams - Primitive Thisness and Primitive Identity 5 | |
A reaction: Hence Leibniz is held to say that all of the qualitative properties are 'essential' to the object, since all of them are needed to constitute its identity. Hence absolutely nothing about an object, even an electron, could be different, which is daft. |
13091 | Leibnizian substances add concept, law, force, form and soul [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: To the traditional idea of substance (independent, subjects of predication, active, persistent) Leibniz adds, distinctively, complete individual concept, law-of-the-series, active force, form and soul or entelechy. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.1 | |
A reaction: 'Form' seems to be Aristotelian, and 'soul' seems ridiculous. I don't think the 'complete concept' is much help. However, the 'law-in-the-series' is very interesting (Idea 13079), if employed sensibly, and 'active force' is spot-on. Powers define reality. |
7561 | Substances are essentially active [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, it is the very essence of substances to be sources of activity. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.2 | |
A reaction: This makes the views of Leibniz sympathetic to modern essentialism (of which I am a fan), because it places active power at the centre of what it is to exist, rather than action being imposed on matter which is otherwise passive. |
16058 | Dion and Theon coexist, but Theon lacks a foot. If Dion loses a foot, he ousts Theon? [Chrysippus, by Philo of Alexandria] |
Full Idea: If two individuals occupied one substance …let one individual (Dion) be thought of as whole-limbed, the other (Theon) as minus one foot. Then let one of Dion's feet be amputated. Theon is the stronger candidate to have perished. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Philo (Alex) - On the Eternity of the World 48 | |
A reaction: [SVF 2.397 - from Chrysippus's lost 'On the Growing Argument'] This is the original of Tibbles the Cat. Dion must persist to change, and then ousts Theon (it seems). Philo protests at Theon ceasing to exist when nothing has happened to him. |
12715 | Leibniz strengthened hylomorphism by connecting it to force in physics [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: A standard criticism of the scholastic notions of matter and form is that they are obscure and unintelligible. But in Leibniz's system they are connected directly with notions of active and passive force that play an intelligible roles in his physics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
A reaction: This seems to me to be very appealing. Aristotle was clearly on the right lines, but just ran out of things to say, once he had pointed in the right direction. Maybe 'fields' and 'strings' can fill out the Aristotelian conception of form. |
11878 | Leibniz's view (that all properties are essential) is extreme essentialism, not its denial [Leibniz, by Mackie,P] |
Full Idea: The view standardly attributed to Leibniz, that makes all an individual's properties essential to it should be regarded as an extreme version of essentialism, not a denial of essentialism. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Penelope Mackie - How Things Might Have Been 1.1 | |
A reaction: Wiggins disagrees, saying that Leibniz was not an essentialist, which is an interesting topic of research for those who are interested. I would take Leibniz to be not an essentialist, on that basis, as essentialism makes a distinction. See Quine on that. |
11862 | Leibniz was not an essentialist [Leibniz, by Wiggins] |
Full Idea: Leibniz was not an essentialist. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance Renewed 4.2 n4 | |
A reaction: Assuming this is right, it is rather helpful, because you can read mountains of Leibniz without ever being quite sure. Mackie says he IS an extreme essentialist, treating all properties as essential. Wiggins makes more sense there. |
16059 | Change of matter doesn't destroy identity - in Dion and Theon change is a condition of identity [Chrysippus, by Long/Sedley] |
Full Idea: The Growing Argument said any change of matter is a change of identity. Chrysippus presents it with a case (Dion and Theon) where material diminution is the necessary condition of enduring identity, since the diminished footless Dion survives. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by AA Long / DN Sedley - Hellenic Philosophers commentary 28:175 | |
A reaction: [The example, in Idea 16058, is the original of Tibbles the Cat] This is a lovely bold idea which I haven't met in the modern discussions - that identity actually requires change. The concept of identity is meaningless without change? |
16504 | Two eggs can't be identical, because the same truths can't apply to both of them [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It isn't possible to have two particulars that are similar in all respects - for example two eggs - for it is necessary that some things can be said about one of them that cannot be said about the other, else they could be substituted for one another. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 2.2 | |
A reaction: [from a 'fragment' for which Wiggins gives a reference] This quotation doesn't rest the distinctness of the eggs on some intrinsic difference, but on the fact that we can say different things about the two eggs. |
8650 | Things are the same if one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's definition is as follows: Things are the same as each other, of which one can be substituted for the other without loss of truth ('salva veritate'). | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Gottlob Frege - Grundlagen der Arithmetik (Foundations) §65 | |
A reaction: Frege doesn't give a reference. (Anyone know it?). This famous definition is impressive, but has problems when the items being substituted appear in contexts of belief. 'Oedipus believes Jocasta (his mother!) would make a good wife'. |
13828 | Necessary truths are those provable from identities by pure logic in finite steps [Leibniz, by Hacking] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that the necessary truths are just those which can be proved from identities by pure logic in a finite number of steps. ...[232] this claim is vindicated by Gentzen's sequent calculus. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Ian Hacking - What is Logic? §01 | |
A reaction: This seems an odd idea, as if there were no necessary truths other than those for which a proof could be constructed. Sounds like intuitionism. |
13084 | How can things be incompatible, if all positive terms seem to be compatible? [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: It is yet unknown to me what is the reason of the incompossibility of things, or how it is that different essences can be opposed to each other, seeing that all purely positive terms seem to be compatible. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G VII:194), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.4.4 | |
A reaction: Since 'heavy' seems straightforwardly opposed to 'light', we would have to ask what he means by 'positive'. The suspicion is that all things are compossible by definition, so it is not surprising that impossibilities are a bit puzzling. |
4307 | A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: A reason must be given why contingent beings should exist rather than not exist. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) | |
A reaction: Spinoza rejects all contingency, but this seems an interesting support for it, even though we may need a reason for something where God does not because it is self-evident. |
15883 | Leibniz narrows down God's options to one, by non-contradiction, sufficient reason, indiscernibles, compossibility [Leibniz, by Harré] |
Full Idea: Leibniz sets up increasingly stringent conditions possible worlds must meet. The weakest is non-contradiction, for truths of reason; then sufficient reason, for rational worlds; then identity of indiscernibles, for duplicates; then compossibility. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Rom Harré - Laws of Nature 4 | |
A reaction: [my summary of a very nice two pages by Harré] God is the source of the principles which do the narrowing down. |
18822 | Each monad expresses all its compatible monads; a possible world is the resulting equivalence class [Leibniz, by Rumfitt] |
Full Idea: Leibniz argued that each monad mirrors or expresses every monad with which it is compossible. Hence compossibility is an equivalence relation among monads; possible worlds may then be identified as the corresponding equivalence classes. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Ian Rumfitt - The Boundary Stones of Thought 6.1 | |
A reaction: [Rumfitt cites Benson Mates 1986:IV.1 for this claim] There is an analogous world of all the human minds that are in communication with one another - something like a 'culture'. |
7837 | Leibniz proposed possible worlds, because they might be evil, where God would not create evil things [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
Full Idea: In his early writings the principle of sufficient reason made it difficult for Leibniz to conceive of possible things;...raising this to possible worlds means God does not choose things that are evil, but chooses a world which must have evil in it. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.14 | |
A reaction: Where we think of possible worlds as explanations for conditional and counterfactual truths (I take it), Leibniz developed the original idea as part of his huge effort to achieve a consistent theodicy. |
13080 | Leibniz has a counterpart view of de re counterfactuals [Leibniz, by Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne] |
Full Idea: When Leibniz has the grounds of de re counterfactuals in mind, a counterpart picture, we have argued, is at work. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 3.2.2 | |
A reaction: If Leibniz were a 'superessentialist', then individuals would be totally worldbound (because their relations would be essential). Cover/Hawthorne argue that he is just a 'strong' essentialist, allowing possible counterparts. Quite persuasive. |
19332 | For Leibniz, divine understanding grasps every conceivable possibility [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, what is this understanding which God has? What does it contain? All possibilities in all possible combinations, that is, everything which can be conceived. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 2.III | |
A reaction: I like this, because it strikes me as essential that understanding should embrace possibilities as well as actualities. Perkins points out that the possibilities are restricted by an awareness of the limitations imposed by combination. |
5509 | Leibniz said dualism of mind and body is illusion, and there is only mind [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
Full Idea: Leibniz held that dualism of mind and body is an illusion and that both are really the same thing, and that this thing is mind. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.22 | |
A reaction: I am puzzled by this, as Leibniz is famous for the view that mind and body are parallel. See idea 5038, and also 2109 and 2596. Monads are, of course, entirely mental, and are the building blocks of reality. Clearly I (and you) must read more Leibniz. |
7568 | Leibniz is an idealist insofar as the basic components of his universe are all mental [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: To say that Leibniz is an idealist is to say that simple substances, the basic building-blocks of the universe, are all mental or at least quasi-mental in nature | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.3 | |
A reaction: This is a bit different from the Berkelian type of idealism, which says that reality consists entirely of events within thinking minds. Is a monad the thinker or the thought? |
13092 | The essence of substance is the law of its changes, as in the series of numbers [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The essence of substance consists in ...the law of the sequence of changes, as in the nature of the series in numbers. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A 6.3.326), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz 6.1.2 | |
A reaction: Thus we might say, in this spirit, that the essence of number is the successor operation, as defined by Dedekind and Peano (and perhaps their amenability to inductive proof). I like this. Metaphysicians rule - they penetrate the heart of nature. |
1875 | Dogs show reason in decisions made by elimination [Chrysippus, by Sext.Empiricus] |
Full Idea: A dog makes use of the fifth complex indemonstrable syllogism when, arriving at a spot where three ways meet, after smelling at two roads by which the quarry did not pass, he rushes off at once by the third without pausing to smell. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Sextus Empiricus - Outlines of Pyrrhonism I.69 | |
A reaction: As we might say: either A or B or C; not A; not B; therefore C. I wouldn't want to trust this observation without a lot of analysis of slow-motion photography of dogs as crossroads. Even so, it is a nice challenge to Descartes' view of animals. |
19354 | Leibniz introduced the idea of degrees of consciousness, essential for his monads [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: The designation of degrees of conscious awareness is one of Leibniz's most significant innovations, and it is fundamental to almost every aspect of his account of monads. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.I | |
A reaction: A very important development, which seems to have been ignored by philosophers for three hundred years, since they usually treat consciousness as all-or-nothing. Introspection makes degrees obvious, and I suspect sparrows are down the scale. |
20834 | Chrysippus allows evil to say it is fated, or even that it is rational and natural [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus gives vice blatant freedom to say not only that it is necessary and according to fate, but even that it occurs according to god's reason and the best nature. | |
From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1050c | |
A reaction: This is Plutarch's criticism of stoic determinism or fatalism. Zeno replied that the punishment for vice may also be fated. It seems that Chysippus did believe that punishments were too harsh, given that vices are fated [p.109]. |
20833 | A swerve in the atoms would be unnatural, like scales settling differently for no reason [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus argues against the 'swerve' of the Epicureans, on the grounds that they are doing violence to nature by positing something which is uncaused, and cites dice or scales, which can't settle differently without some cause or difference. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1045c | |
A reaction: That is, the principle of sufficient reason (or of everything having a cause) is derived from observation, not a priori understanding. Pace Leibniz. As in modern discussion, free will or the swerve only occur in our minds, and not elsewhere. |
20835 | Chrysippus is wrong to believe in non-occurring future possibilities if he is a fatalist [Plutarch on Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus's accounts of possibility and fate are in conflict. If he is right that 'everything that permits of occurring even if it is not going to occur is possible', then many things are possible which are not according to fate. | |
From: comment on Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1055e | |
A reaction: A palpable hit, I think. Plutarch refers to Chrysippus's rejection of Diodorus Cronus's Master Argument. Fatalism seems to entail that the only future possibilities are the ones that actually occur. |
7841 | We think we are free because the causes of the will are unknown; determinism is a false problem [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The will has its causes, but since we are ignorant of them, we believe ourselves independent. It is this chimera of imaginary independence which revolts us against determinism, and which brings us to believe there are difficulties where there are none. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]), quoted by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16 | |
A reaction: It seems that in his notebooks Leibniz was actually a (Spinozan) determinist. So he should have been, given his view that we live in the best of all possible worlds, and his claim that mind and brain run like two clocks. (Ideas 2114 and 2596) |
20808 | Everything is fated, either by continuous causes or by a supreme rational principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his 'On Fate') that everything happens by fate. Fate is a continuous string of causes of things which exist or a rational principle according to which the cosmos is managed. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.148 |
20837 | Fate is an eternal and fixed chain of causal events [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Fate is a sempiternal and unchangeable series and chain of things, rolling and unravelling itself through eternal sequences of cause and effect, of which it is composed and compounded. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.01 | |
A reaction: It seems that Chrysippus (called by Aulus Gellius 'the chief Stoic philosopher') had a rather grandly rhetorical prose style. |
20836 | The Lazy Argument responds to fate with 'why bother?', but the bothering is also fated [Chrysippus, by Cicero] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus responded to the Lazy Argument (that the outcome of an illness is fated, so there is no point in calling the doctor) by saying 'calling the doctor is fated just as much as recovering', which he calls 'co-fated'. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 28-30 | |
A reaction: From a pragmatic point of view, this idea also nullifies fatalism, since you can plausibly fight against your fate to your last breath. No evidence could ever be offered in support of fatalism, not even the most unlikely events. |
21679 | When we say events are fated by antecedent causes, do we mean principal or auxiliary causes? [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Some causes are perfect and principal, others auxiliary and proximate. Hence when we say that everything takes place by fate owing to antecedent causes, what we wish to be understood is not perfect and principal causes but auxiliary and proximate causes. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On Fate ('De fato') 18.41 | |
A reaction: This move is described by Cicero as enabling Chrysippus to 'escape necessity and to retain fate'. |
5971 | Destiny is only a predisposing cause, not a sufficient cause [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus considered destiny to be not a cause sufficient of itself but only a predisposing cause. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 997) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1056b | |
A reaction: This appears to be a rejection of determinism, and is the equivalent of Epicurus' introduction of the 'swerve' in atoms. They had suddenly become bothered about the free will problem in about 305 BCE. There must be other non-destiny causes? |
5510 | Leibniz has a panpsychist view that physical points are spiritual [Leibniz, by Martin/Barresi] |
Full Idea: In Leibniz's panpsychism, the so-called 'physical' points are souls or spiritual 'monads'. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by R Martin / J Barresi - Introduction to 'Personal Identity' p.23 | |
A reaction: I'm not convinced that 'panpsychism' is the right description for Leibniz's theory of monads. I take panpsychism to be either a dualist or a dual aspect (or property dualism) view. Leibniz seems to believe there is strictly one substance. |
7564 | Occasionalism give a false view of natural laws, miracles, and substances [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz's three objections to occasionalism are: it disturbs the concept of laws of nature used in physics; it introduces perpetual miracles; and it doesn't recognise activity of substances (leading to the Spinozan heresy that God is the only substance). | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.2 | |
A reaction: I wonder what would happen if, within the viewpoint of occasionalism, God suddenly packed up and abandoned his job? Presumably the world wouldn't disappear, so there would still be substances, but passive ones, in chaos. |
19372 | Concepts are ordered, and show eternal possibilities, deriving from God [Leibniz, by Arthur,R] |
Full Idea: Leibniz understood concepts as corresponding to eternal possibilities, with both concepts and their ordering having their foundation in the divine mind. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Richard T.W. Arthur - Leibniz 2 'Nominalism' | |
A reaction: It is is no longer the fashion to think of concepts as 'ordered', and yet there is a multitude of dependence relations between them. |
13467 | Leibniz was the first modern to focus on sentence-sized units (where empiricists preferred word-size) [Leibniz, by Hart,WD] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seems to be the first modern philosopher to focus on sentence-sized units that he called propositions. The Empiricists among the moderns focused on word-sized units like ideas. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by William D. Hart - The Evolution of Logic 2 | |
A reaction: Historically, the sentential logic of the Stoics has a claim to have started this one. I find my initial sympathies to be with the empiricists. |
20787 | A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: A proposition is what can be asserted or denied on its own, for example, 'It is day' or 'Dion is walking'. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.65 | |
A reaction: Note the phrase 'on its own'. If you say 'it is day and Dion is walking', that can't be denied on its own, because first the two halves must each be evaluated, so presumably that doesn't count as a stoic proposition. |
20850 | Passions are judgements; greed thinks money is honorable, and likewise drinking and lust [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in his On Passions) that the passions are judgements; for greed is a supposition that money is honorable, and similarly for drunkennes and wantonness and others. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.111 | |
A reaction: This is an endorsement of Socrates's intellectualist reading of weakness of will, as against Aristotle's assigning it to overpowering passions. |
19365 | Limited awareness leads to bad choices, and unconscious awareness makes us choose the bad [Leibniz, by Perkins] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, while the limits of our knowledge explain why we sometimes choose things we think are good but which turn out to be bad, the force of minute perceptions explains why we sometimes choose things that we know are bad. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Franklin Perkins - Leibniz: Guide for the Perplexed 4.IV | |
A reaction: To be overwhelmed by selfish greed doesn't sound like a 'minute perception'. Leibniz thinks all desires are reactions to perceptions. Observing our degrees of knowledge is an interesting response to the intellectualist view of weakness of will. |
20869 | The highest degree of morality performs all that is appropriate, omitting nothing [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: He who makes moral progress to the highest degree performs all the appropriate actions in all circumstances, and omits none. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Sophocles - Sophocles' Electra 4.39.22 | |
A reaction: Hence concerns about omission as well as commission in the practice of ethics can be seen in the light of character and virtue. The world is fully of nice people who act well, but don't do so well on omissions. Car drivers, for example. |
8110 | Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection [Leibniz, by Gardner] |
Full Idea: Leibniz identified beauty with intellectual perfection. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Sebastian Gardner - Aesthetics 1.2.1 | |
A reaction: Well he would, wouldn't he? Swots like Leibniz are inclined to value things which only they can fully appreciate. There may be intellectual subject matter in the study of a rose, but I do not believe that it is needed to appreciate the beauty. |
3044 | Stoics say that beauty and goodness are equivalent and linked [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stoics say the beautiful is the only good. Good is an equivalent term to the beautiful; since a thing is good, it is beautiful; and it is beautiful, therefore it is good. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.59 |
22450 | If moral systems can't judge other moral systems, then moral relativism is true [Williams,B, by Foot] |
Full Idea: If some societies with divergent moral systems merely confront each other, having no use for the assertion that their own systems are true and the others false except to mark the system to which they adhere, then relativism is a true theory of morality. | |
From: report of Bernard Williams (The Truth in Relativism [1974]) by Philippa Foot - Moral Relativism p.3 | |
A reaction: 'Having no use for' an assertion is not the same as the assertion being impossible. Some liberal cultures refuse to criticise others because their highest value is tolerance, even when the target culture wholly contradicts the critics' other values. |
20838 | Fate initiates general causes, but individual wills and characters dictate what we do [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: The order and reason of fate set in motion the general types and starting points of the causes, but each person's own will [or decisions] and the character of his mind govern the impulses of our thoughts and minds and our very actions. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Aulus Gellius - Noctes Atticae 7.2.11 | |
A reaction: So if you try and fail it was fate, but if you try and succeed it was you? |
7569 | Humans are moral, and capable of reward and punishment, because of memory and self-consciousness [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: For Leibniz, it is by virtue of possessing memory and self-consciousness that human minds are moral beings, capable of reward and punishment. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.4 | |
A reaction: I like this because it makes no mention of free will (though Leibniz struggled to defend free will). I would add meta-thought (the ability to ponder and evaluate our own thinking), which makes a change of mind possible. |
20813 | Human purpose is to contemplate and imitate the cosmos [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: The human being was born for the sake of contemplating and imitating the cosmos. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
A reaction: [This seems to be an idea of Chrysippus] Remind me how to imitate the cosmos. Presumably this is living according to nature, but that becomes more obscure when express like this. |
3045 | Stoics say justice is a part of nature, not just an invented principle [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stoics say that justice exists by nature, and not because of any definition or principle. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.66 | |
A reaction: cf Idea 3024. Stoics thought that nature is intrinsically rational, and therein lies its justice. 'King Lear' enacts this drama about whether nature is just. |
20774 | Only nature is available to guide action and virtue [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: What am I to take as the principle of appropriate action and raw material for virtue if I give up nature and what is according to nature? | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1069e | |
A reaction: 'Nature' is awfully vague as a guideline, even when we are told nature is rational. I can only make sense of it as 'human nature', which is more Aristotelian than stoic. 'Go with the flow' and 'lay the cards you are dealt' might capture it. |
20864 | Live in agreement, according to experience of natural events [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: The goal of life is to live in agreement, which is according to experience of the things which happen by nature. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by John Stobaeus - Anthology 2.06a | |
A reaction: Cleanthes added 'with nature' to Zeno's slogan, and Chyrisppus added this variation. At least it gives you some idea of what the consistent rational principle should be. You still have to assess which aspects of nature should influence us. |
5972 | Living happily is nothing but living virtuously [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: According to Chrysippus, living happily consists solely in living virtuously. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr139) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1060d | |
A reaction: This, along with 'live according to nature', is the essential doctrine of stoicism. This is 'eudaimonia', not the modern idea of feeling nice. Is it possible to admire another person for anything other than virtue? (Yes! Looks, brains, strength, wealth). |
1777 | Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Pleasure is not the good, because there are disgraceful pleasures, and nothing disgraceful is good. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.60 | |
A reaction: I certainly approve of the idea that not all pleasure is intrinsically good. Indeed, I think good has probably got nothing to do with pleasure. 'Disgraceful' is hardly objective though. |
5973 | Justice can be preserved if pleasure is a good, but not if it is the goal [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus thinks that, while justice could not be preserved if one should set up pleasure as the goal, it could be if one should take pleasure to be not a goal but simply a good. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 23) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1070d | |
A reaction: This is an interesting and original contribution to the ancient debate about pleasure. It shows Aristotle's moderate criticism of pleasure (e.g. Idea 84), but attempts to pinpoint where the danger is. Aristotle says it thwarts achievement of the mean. |
20845 | There are shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good, so pleasure is not a good [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus (in his On Pleasure) denies even of pleasure that it is a good; for there are also shameful pleasures, and nothing shameful is good. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.103 | |
A reaction: Socrates seems to have started this line of the thought, to argue that pleasure is not The Good. Stoics are more puritanical. Nothing counts as good if it is capable of being bad. Thus good pleasures are not good, which sounds odd. |
5967 | People need nothing except corn and water [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus praises ad nauseam the lines "For what need mortals save two things alone,/ Demeter's grain and draughts of water clear". | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1043e | |
A reaction: "Oh, reason not the need!" says King Lear. The remark shows the close affinity of stoicism and cynicism, as the famous story of Diogenes is that he threw away his drinking cup when he realised you could drink with your hands. |
5966 | All virtue is good, but not always praised (as in not lusting after someone ugly) [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Although deeds done in accordance with virtue are congenial, not all are cited as examples, such as courageously extending one's finger, or continently abstaining from a half-dead old woman, or not immediately agreeing that three is four. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 211), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1038f | |
A reaction: Presumably the point (so elegantly expressed - what a shame we have lost most of Chrysippus) is that virtue comes in degrees, even though its value is an absolute. The same has been said (by Russell and Bonjour) about self-evidence. |
20855 | Chrysippus says virtue can be lost (though Cleanthes says it is too secure for that) [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says that virtue can be lost, owing to drunkenness and excess of black bile, whereas Cleanthes says it cannot, because it consists in secure intellectual grasps, and it is worth choosing for its own sake. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.127 | |
A reaction: Succumbing to drunkenness looks like evidence that you were not truly virtuous. Mental illness is something else. On the whole I agree the Cleanthes. |
5970 | Chrysippus says nothing is blameworthy, as everything conforms with the best nature [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus has often written on the theme that there is nothing reprehensible or blameworthy in the universe since all things are accomplished in conformity with the best nature. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1051b | |
A reaction: This is Leibniz's "best of all possible worlds", but deriving the idea from the rightness of nature rather than the perfection of God. Chrysippus has a more plausible ground than Leibniz, as for him nasty things follow from conscious choice. |
20842 | Rational animals begin uncorrupted, but externals and companions are bad influences [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: The rational animal is corrupted, sometimes because of the persuasiveness of external activities and sometimes because of the influence of companions. For the starting points provided by nature are uncorrupted. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.89 | |
A reaction: If companions corrupt us, what corrupted the companions? Aren't we all in this together? And where do the 'external activities' originate? |
20856 | Justice, the law, and right reason are natural and not conventional [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says (in On the Honourable) that justice is natural and not conventional, as are the law and right reason. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.128 | |
A reaction: How does he explain variations in the law between different states? Presumably some of them have got it wrong. What is the criterion for deciding which laws are natural? |
7574 | Natural law theory is found in Aquinas, in Leibniz, and at the Nuremberg trials [Leibniz, by Jolley] |
Full Idea: Leibniz rejects Hobbes's legal positivism in favour of the older natural law theory associated with Aquinas (which says nothing can be a law unless it derives from natural justice). The older view was revived at Nuremberg, to prosecute Nazis. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Ch.7 | |
A reaction: This seems to suggest that Hobbes and co were using Ockham's Razor to eliminate morality from the law, but that the Nuremberg situation (and modern trials in The Hague) show that there is a necessity for natural law in international situations. |
1779 | We don't have obligations to animals as they aren't like us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: We have no obligations of justice to other animals, because they are dissimilar to us. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.66 | |
A reaction: "Dissimilar" begs questions. Some human beings don't seem much like me. How are we going to treat visiting aliens? |
20857 | Justice is irrelevant to animals, because they are too unlike us [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: There is no justice between us and other animals because of the dissimilarity between us and them. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.129 | |
A reaction: [from lost On Justice Bk 1] What would he make of modern revelations about bonobos and chimpanzees? If there is great dissimilarity between some peoples, does that invalidate justice between them? He also said animals exist for our use. |
20812 | Covers are for shields, and sheaths for swords; likewise, all in the cosmos is for some other thing [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Just as the cover was made for the sake of the shield, and the sheath for the sword, in the same way everything else except the cosmos was made for the sake of other things. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by M. Tullius Cicero - On the Nature of the Gods ('De natura deorum') 2.37 | |
A reaction: Chrysippus was wise to stop at the cosmos. Similarly, religious teleology had better not ask about the purpose of God. What does he think pebbles are for? Nature is the source of stoic value, so it needs to be purposeful. |
21403 | The later Stoics identified the logos with an air-fire compound, called 'pneuma' [Chrysippus, by Long] |
Full Idea: From Chrysippus onwards, the Stoics identified the logos throughout each world-cycle not with pure fire, but with a compound of fire and air, 'pneuma'. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.2 | |
A reaction: I suspect this was because breath is so vital to the human body. |
20828 | Fire is a separate element, not formed with others (as was previously believed) [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: In his theory fire is said independently to be an element, since it is not formed together with another one, whereas according to the earlier theory fire is formed with other elements. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.10.16c | |
A reaction: The point is that fire precedes the other elements, and is superior to them. |
5975 | Stoics say earth, air, fire and water are the primary elements [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: The Stoics call the four bodies - earth and water and air and fire - primary elements. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 444) by Plutarch - 72: Against Stoics on common Conceptions 1085c | |
A reaction: Elsewhere (fr 413) Chrysippus denies that they are all 'primary'. Essentially, though, he seems to be adopting the doctrine of Empedocles and Aristotle, in specific opposition to Epicurus' atomism. |
12728 | Leibniz rejected atoms, because they must be elastic, and hence have parts [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz held that there can be no atoms in nature, nothing perfectly solid and hard, since elasticity entails the existence of smaller parts that can move with respect to one another. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 5 | |
A reaction: Thus, I suppose, we discover that atoms have mercurial electron shells. Are quarks or electrons elastic? The debate about true atoms is not over, and probably never will be. Leibniz's point is a good one. |
19374 | Microscopes and the continuum suggest that matter is endlessly divisible [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Micrographers observe qualities of larger things found in smaller things. And if this proceeds to infinity - which is possible since the continuum is divisible to infinity - any atom will be an infinite species, and there will be worlds within worlds. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], A VI ii 241) | |
A reaction: [a work of the 1670s] The microscope had a huge impact on Leibniz, much more than the telescope. |
7560 | Leibniz struggled to reconcile bodies with a reality of purely soul-like entities [Jolley on Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seems never to have made up his mind completely on how to accommodate bodies within a metaphysic which recognises only soul-like entities as fully real. | |
From: comment on Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Nicholas Jolley - Leibniz Intro | |
A reaction: [The soul-like entities are his 'monads']. His choice must be to either say they are unreal, or that they are real and separate from the monads, or that they are a manifestation of the monads. His problem, not mine. |
16683 | Leibniz eventually said resistance, rather than extension, was the essence of body [Leibniz, by Pasnau] |
Full Idea: Leibniz eventually rejected extension altogether as part of the essence of body, and replaced it with resistance. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Robert Pasnau - Metaphysical Themes 1274-1671 15.5 | |
A reaction: This makes body consist of active force, rather than mere geometry. Much better. |
12725 | Leibniz wanted to explain motion and its laws by the nature of body [Leibniz, by Garber] |
Full Idea: Leibniz seeks the big picture: the nature of body as a grounding for an account of motion and its laws. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 4 | |
A reaction: Garber is contrasting this with Newton's approaches, who just pleads ignorance of the bigger picture. Essentialists must beware of inventing a bigger picture simply because they desperately want a bigger picture. |
16507 | The law within something fixes its persistence, and accords with general laws of nature [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Nothing is permanent in a substance except the law itself which determines the continuous succession of its states and accords within the individual substance with the laws of nature that govern the whole world. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], G II:263), quoted by David Wiggins - Sameness and Substance 3 epig | |
A reaction: An interesting link between the law-of-series within a substance, and the broader concept of laws outside it. |
7859 | Leibniz had an unusual commitment to the causal completeness of physics [Leibniz, by Papineau] |
Full Idea: Unlike most philosophers prior to the twentieth century, Leibniz was committed to the causal completeness of physics. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by David Papineau - Thinking about Consciousness 1.4 | |
A reaction: It has been suggested that Leibniz was actually, in private, a determinist (see Idea 7841), which would fit. Leibniz is enigmatic, but he may have proposed the closure of physics to glorify God, only to find that God was beginning to look irrelevant. |
15307 | Leibniz uses 'force' to mean both activity and potential [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: At this early period exegetical problems abound, since Leibniz uses 'force' both for actually acting forces and for potentials or powers. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690], 9.II), quoted by Harré,R./Madden,E.H. - Causal Powers 9.II.B | |
A reaction: I take Leibniz to be a key figure in the development of the Aristotelian approach, because he connected Aristotelian potential and essence with 'force' in the new physics. This is helpful in reading him correctly. |
20819 | The past and the future subsist, but only the present exists [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: When he wished to be subtle, Chrysippus wrote that the past part of time and the future part do not exist but subsist, and only the present exists. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081f | |
A reaction: [from lost On Void] I think I prefer the ontology of Idea 20818. Idea 20819 does not offer an epistemology. Is the present substantial enough to be known? The word 'subsist' is an ontological evasion (even though Russell briefly relied on it). |
20818 | The present does not exist, so our immediate experience is actually part past and part future [Chrysippus, by Plutarch] |
Full Idea: Stoics do not allow a minimal time to exist, and do not want to have a partless 'now'; so what one thinks one has grasped as present is in part future and in part past. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Plutarch - On Common Conceptions 1081c | |
A reaction: [from lost On Parts Bk3-5] I agree with the ontology here, but I take our grasp of the present to be very short-term memory of the past. I ignore special relativity. Chrysippus expressed two views about this; in the other one he was a Presentist. |
20821 | Time is continous and infinitely divisible, so there cannot be a wholly present time [Chrysippus, by Stobaeus] |
Full Idea: Chrysippus says most clearly that no time is wholly present; for since the divisibility of continuous things is infinite, time as a whole is also subject to infinite divisibility by this method of division. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by John Stobaeus - Anthology 1.08.42 | |
A reaction: But what is his reason for thinking that time is a continuous thing? There is a minimum time in quantum mechanics (the Planck Time), but do these quantum intervals overlap? Compare Idea 20819. |
3048 | Stoics say that God the creator is the perfection of all animals [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stoics say that God is an animal immortal, rational, perfect, and intellectual in his happiness, unsusceptible of any kind of evil, having a foreknowledge of the world; however, he is not the figure of a man, and is the creator of the universe. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.72 |
20773 | The origin of justice can only be in Zeus, and in nature [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: One can find no other starting point or origin for justice except the one derived from Zeus and that derived from the common nature; for everything like this must have that starting point, if we are going to say anything at all about good and bad things. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
A reaction: [in lost 'On Gods' bk 3] This appears to offer two starting points, in the mind of Zeus, and in nature, though since nature is presumed to be rational the two may run together. Is Zeus the embodiment, or the unconscious source, or the maker of decrees? |
5965 | The source of all justice is Zeus and the universal nature [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: It is not possible to discover any other beginning of justice or any source for it other than that from Zeus and from the universal nature. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE], fr 326), quoted by Plutarch - 70: Stoic Self-contradictions 1035c | |
A reaction: If the source is 'universal nature', that could agree with Plato, but if the source is Zeus, then stoicism is a religion rather than a philosophy. |
3042 | Stoics teach that law is identical with right reason, which is the will of Zeus [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stoics teach that common law is identical with that right reason which pervades everything, being the same with Zeus, who is the regulator and chief manager of all existing things. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.1.53 |
3889 | God's existence is either necessary or impossible [Leibniz, by Scruton] |
Full Idea: Leibniz said that the ontological argument does not prove God's existence, but only the God's existence is either necessary or impossible. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Roger Scruton - Modern Philosophy:introduction and survey 13.5 |
7842 | Leibniz was closer than Spinoza to atheism [Leibniz, by Stewart,M] |
Full Idea: Leibniz sailed closer to the winds of unbelief than Spinoza did. | |
From: report of Gottfried Leibniz (works [1690]) by Matthew Stewart - The Courtier and the Heretic Ch.16 | |
A reaction: This is an unusual view, but Stewart's view is that whereas Spinoza is always sincere in his writings, Leibniz is inclined to put a very conservative spin on his opinions. A key question for Leibniz is "Is God merely a monad?" |
1782 | Stoics teach that God is a unity, variously known as Mind, or Fate, or Jupiter [Chrysippus, by Diog. Laertius] |
Full Idea: Stoics teach that God is unity, and that he is called Mind, and Fate, and Jupiter, and by many names besides. | |
From: report of Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]) by Diogenes Laertius - Lives of Eminent Philosophers 07.Ze.68 |
20830 | Death can't separate soul from body, because incorporeal soul can't unite with body [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: Death is a separation of soul from body. But nothing incorporeal can be separated from a body. For neither does anything incorporeal touch a body, and the soul touches and is separated from the body. Therefore the soul is not incorporeal. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by Tertullian - The Soul as an 'Astral Body' 5.3 | |
A reaction: This is the classic interaction difficulty for substance dualist theories of mind. |
21404 | There is a rationale in terrible disasters; they are useful to the whole, and make good possible [Chrysippus] |
Full Idea: The evil which occurs in terrible disasters has a rationale [logos] peculiar to itself: for in a sense it occurs in accordance with universal reason, and is not without usefulness in relation to the whole. For without it there could be no good. | |
From: Chrysippus (fragments/reports [c.240 BCE]), quoted by A.A. Long - Hellenistic Philosophy 4.4.5 | |
A reaction: [a quotation from Chrysippus. Plutarch, Comm Not 1065b] A nice question about any terrible disaster is whether it is in some way 'useful', if we take a broader view of things. Almost everything has a good aspect, from that perspective. |