Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Perceptual experience has conceptual content' and 'Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason'

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4 ideas

7. Existence / C. Structure of Existence / 6. Fundamentals / c. Monads

5060	All substances analyse down to simple substances, which are souls, or 'monads' [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: What (in the analysis of substances) exist ultimately are simple substances - namely, souls, or, if you prefer a more general terms, 'monads', which are without parts.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §7)
	A reaction: This seems to me to be atomistic panpsychism. He is opposed to physical atomism, because infinite divisibility seems obvious, but unity is claimed to be equally obvious in the world of the mental. Does this mean bricks are made of souls? Odd.

13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / c. Empirical foundations

8875	Sense experiences must have conceptual content, since they are possible reasons for judgements [Brewer,B]
	Full Idea: Given that sense experiential states do provide reasons for empirical beliefs, they must have conceptual content, ...where a mental state with conceptual content is one where the content is of a possible judgement by the subject.
	From: Bill Brewer (Perceptual experience has conceptual content [2005], I)
	A reaction: This is, I believe, wrong. Even complex observations, like a pool of blood, only become reasons when they have been interpreted. Otherwise they are just the raw ingredients of evidence. How could an uninterpreted red patch be a 'reason'?

21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality

468	Musical performance can reveal a range of virtues [Damon of Ath.]
	Full Idea: In singing and playing the lyre, a boy will be likely to reveal not only courage and moderation, but also justice.
	From: Damon (fragments/reports [c.460 BCE], B4), quoted by (who?) - where?

26. Natural Theory / C. Causation / 3. Final causes

5059	Power rules in efficient causes, but wisdom rules in connecting them to final causes [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: In all of nature efficient causes correspond to final causes, because everything proceeds from a cause which is not only powerful, but wise; and with the rule of power through efficient causes, there is involved the rule of wisdom through final causes.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Metaphysical conseqs of principle of reason [1712], §5)
	A reaction: Nowadays this carrot-and-stick view of causation is unfashionable, but I won't rule it out. The deepest 'why?' we can ask won't just go away. This unity by a divine mind strikes me as too simple, but Leibniz is right to try to unify Aristotelian causes.