|
13076
|
Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
The scholastics treated it as a step in the right explanatory direction to analyze a relational statement of the form 'aRb' into two subject-predicate statements, attributing different relational predicates to a and to b.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
|
|
A reaction:
The only alternative seems to be Russell's view of relations as pure universals, having a life of their own, quite apart from their relata. Or you could take them as properties of space, time (and powers?), external to the relata?
|
|
13102
|
If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
If we go for the necessity-of-origins view, A and B are different if the origin of A is different from the origin of B. But one is left with the further question 'When is the origin of A distinct from the origin of B?'
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
|
|
A reaction:
There may be an answer to this, in a regress of origins that support one another, but in the end the objection is obviously good. You can't begin to refer to an 'origin' if you can't identify anything in the first place.
|
|
13103
|
Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
|
|
A reaction:
This apparently old-fashioned point appears to be conclusively correct. Modern thinkers, though, aren't comfortable with proper individuation, because they don't believe in concepts like 'essence' and 'substance' that are needed for the job.
|
|
13104
|
Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
There is a contemporary property construal of haecceities, ...and a Scotistic construal as primitive, 'colourless' thisnesses which, unlike singleton-set haecceities, are aimed to do some explanatory work.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
|
|
A reaction:
[He associates the contemporary account with David Kaplan] I suppose I would say that individuation is done by properties, but not by some single property, so I take it that I don't believe in haecceities at all. What individuates a haecceity?
|
|
13100
|
Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
|
|
A reaction:
They offer this to help Leibniz out of a mess, but I think he would be appalled. The proposal seems close to 'prime matter' in Aristotle, which never quite does the job required of it. The idea is nice, though, and should be taken seriously.
|
|
13068
|
We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
In the 'blueprint' approach to substance, we confront at least three questions: What is it for a thing to be an individual substance? What is it for a thing to be the kind of substance that it is? What is it to be that very individual substance?
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
|
|
A reaction:
My working view is that the answer to the first question is that substance is essence, that the second question is overrated and parasitic on the third, and that the third is the key question, and also reduces to essence.
|
|
13069
|
The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
There is a widespread assumption, now and in the past, that substances are essentially substances: nothing is actually a substance but possibly a non-substance.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
It seems to me that they clearly mean, in this context, that substances are 'necessarily' substances, not that they are 'essentially' substances. I would just say that substances are essences, and leave the necessity question open.
|
|
13101
|
Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
A necessity-of-origins approach cannot work to distinguish things that come into being genuinely ex nihilo, and cannot work to distinguish things sharing a single origin.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
|
|
A reaction:
Since I am deeply suspicious of essentiality or necessity of origin (and they are not, I presume, the same thing) I like these two. Twins have always bothered me with the second case (where order of birth seems irrelevant).
|
|
21971
|
Transcendental philosophy is the subject becoming the originator of unified reality [Kant]
|
|
Full Idea:
Transcendental philosophy is the act of consciousness whereby the subject becomes the originator of itself and, thereby, of the whole object of technical-practical and moral-practical reason in one system - ordering all things in God
|
|
From:
Immanuel Kant (Posthumous notes [1799], 21:78, p.245), quoted by A.W. Moore - The Evolution of Modern Metaphysics 06 App
|
|
A reaction:
This is evidently Kant's last word on the matter (c.1799), and Moore says he was drifting close to Fichte's idealism, in which reality is actually (sort of) created by our own minds. Disappointing! God's role here is unclear.
|
|
13071
|
We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
|
|
Full Idea:
The philosopher comfortable with an 'order of being' has richer resources to make sense of the 'in virtue of' relation than that provided only by causal relations between states of affairs, positing in addition other sorts of explanatory relationships.
|
|
From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
|
|
A reaction:
This might best be characterised as 'ontological dependence', and could be seen as a non-causal but fundamental explanatory relationship, and not one that has to depend on a theistic world view.
|
|
8235
|
Should a coward who ran fifty paces from a battle laugh at another who ran a hundred? [Mengzi (Mencius)]
|
|
Full Idea:
If two soldiers were fleeing from a battle, and one stopped after a hundred paces and the other stopped after a fifty paces, what would you think if the latter, as one who only ran fifty paces, were to laugh at the former who ran a hundred?
|
|
From:
Mengzi (Mencius) (The Mengzi (Mencius) [c.332 BCE], 1.A.3)
|
|
A reaction:
A nice illustration, in my view, of the universality of truths about human virtue. In no culture would this laughter be appropriate. Nevertheless, there must be degrees of dishonour. Better to flee than join in with the likely winners.
|
|
8241
|
Only put someone to death if the whole population believes it is deserved [Mengzi (Mencius)]
|
|
Full Idea:
When close attendants say a man deserves death, do not listen; when all the councillors say so, do not listen; when everyone says so, have the case investigated. If he is guilty, put him to death; he was put to death by the whole country.
|
|
From:
Mengzi (Mencius) (The Mengzi (Mencius) [c.332 BCE], 1.B.7)
|
|
A reaction:
The jury system is a gesture in this direction. Compare Idea 95. In Mencius's time, no doubt, everyone believed that capital punishment was sometimes right. Nowadays, when many people (e.g. me) reject it, the procedure won't work.
|
|
8236
|
Avoid the animals you are going to eat, as it is hard once you have got to know them [Mengzi (Mencius)]
|
|
Full Idea:
Once a gentleman has seen animals alive, he cannot bear to see them die, and once having heard their cry, he cannot bear to eat their flesh. That is why the gentleman keeps his distance from the kitchen.
|
|
From:
Mengzi (Mencius) (The Mengzi (Mencius) [c.332 BCE], 1.A.7)
|
|
A reaction:
If you applied this to a Gestapo officer and his victims, it would obviously be the epitome of wickedness. But it is complex. Compassion is expected when we encounter suffering, but we are not obliged to seek out suffering. Or are we?
|