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24029
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Among the simples are the graspable negations, such as rest and instants [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
Among the simple things, we must also place their negation and deprivation, insofar as they fall under out intelligence, because the idea of nothingness, of the instant, of rest, is no less true an idea than that of existence, of duration, of motion.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 12)
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A reaction:
He sees the 'simple' things as the foundation of all knowledge, because they are self-evident. Not sure about 'no less true', since the specific nothings are parasitic on the somethings.
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13076
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Scholastics treat relations as two separate predicates of the relata [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 2.2.1)
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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?
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13102
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If you individuate things by their origin, you still have to individuate the origins themselves [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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?'
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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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.
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13103
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Numerical difference is a symmetrical notion, unlike proper individuation [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
Scholastics distinguished criteria of numerical difference from questions of individuation proper, since numerical difference is a symmetrical notion.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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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.
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13104
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Haecceity as property, or as colourless thisness, or as singleton set [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.4)
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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?
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13100
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Maybe 'substance' is more of a mass-noun than a count-noun [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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Full Idea:
We could think of 'substance' on the model of a mass noun, rather than a count noun.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.3)
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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.
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13068
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We can ask for the nature of substance, about type of substance, and about individual substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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?
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.1)
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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.
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13069
|
The general assumption is that substances cannot possibly be non-substances [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
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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.
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13101
|
Necessity-of-origin won't distinguish ex nihilo creations, or things sharing an origin [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 7.4.1)
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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).
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24020
|
We all see intuitively that we exist, where intuition is attentive, clear and distinct rational understanding [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
By intuition I mean the conception of an attentive mind, so distinct and clear that it has no doubt about what it understands, …a conception that is borne of the sole light of reason. Thus everyone can see intuitively that he exists.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 03)
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A reaction:
By 'intuition' he means self-evident certainty, whereas my concept is of a judgement of which I am reasonably confident, but without sufficient grounds for certainty. This is an early assertion of the Cogito, with a clear statement of its grounding.
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24031
|
When Socrates doubts, he know he doubts, and that truth is possible [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
If Socrates says he doubts everything, it necessarily follows that he at least understands that he doubts, and that he knows that something can be true or false: for these are notions that necessarily accompany doubt.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 12)
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A reaction:
An early commitment to the Cogito. But note that the inescapable commitment is not just to his existence, but also to his own reasoning, and his own commitment, and to the possibility of truth. Many, many things are undeniable.
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24025
|
Clear and distinct truths must be known all at once (unlike deductions) [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
We require two conditions for intuition, namely that the proposition appear clear and distinct, and then that it be understood all at once and not successively. Deduction, on the other hand, implies a certain movement of the mind.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 11)
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A reaction:
A nice distinction. Presumably with deduction you grasp each step clearly, and then the inference and conclusion, and you can then forget the previous steps because you have something secure.
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24034
|
If someone had only seen the basic colours, they could deduce the others from resemblance [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
Let there be a man who has sometimes seen the fundamental colours, and never the intermediate and mixed colours; it may be that by a sort of deduction he will represent those he has not seen, by their resemblance to the others.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 14)
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A reaction:
Thus Descartes solved Hume's shade of blue problem, by means of 'a sort of deduction' from resemblance, where Hume was paralysed by his need to actually experience it. Dogmatic empiricism is a false doctrine!
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24021
|
The method starts with clear intuitions, followed by a process of deduction [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
If the method shows clearly how we must use intuition to avoid mistaking the false for the true, and how deduction must operate to lead us to the knowledge of all things, it will be complete in my opinion.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 04)
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A reaction:
A perfect statement of his foundationalist view. It needs a clear and distinct basis, and the steps of building must be strictly logical. Of course, most of our knowledge relies on induction, rather than deduction.
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13071
|
We can go beyond mere causal explanations if we believe in an 'order of being' [Cover/O'Leary-Hawthorne]
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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.
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From:
Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J (Substance and Individuation in Leibniz [1999], 1.1.2)
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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.
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24026
|
Our four knowledge faculties are intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory [Descartes]
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Full Idea:
There are four faculties in us which we can use to know: intelligence, imagination, the senses, and memory.
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From:
René Descartes (Rules for the Direction of the Mind [1628], 12)
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A reaction:
Philosophers have to attribute faculties to the mind, even if the psychologists and neuroscientists won't accept them. We must infer the sources of our modes of understanding. He is cautious about imagination.
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