8 ideas
22076 | Being is only perceptible to itself as becoming [Schelling] |
Full Idea: Being is only perceptible to itself in the state of becoming. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.403), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.90 | |
A reaction: Is the Enlightenment the era of Being, and the Romantic era that of Becoming? They like process, fluidity, even chaos. |
12732 | Some necessary truths are brute, and others derive from final causes [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: There is a difference between truths whose necessity is brute and geometric and those truths which have their source in fitness and final causes. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715.06.22/G III 645), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 6 | |
A reaction: The second one is a necessity deriving from God's wisdom. Strictly it could have been otherwise, unlike 'geometrical' necessity, which is utterly fixed. |
22074 | We must show that the whole of nature, because it is effective, is grounded in freedom [Schelling] |
Full Idea: What is required is to show that everything that is effective (nature, the world of things) is grounded in activity, life, freedom. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.351), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling | |
A reaction: I take the ancestor of this view of nature to be the monads of Leibniz, as the active principle in nature. Because this is an idealist view, it starts with the absolute freedom of the Self, and presumably sees nature in its own image. |
19438 | Our large perceptions and appetites are made up tiny unconscious fragments [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: Our great perceptions and our great appetites of which we are conscious, are composed of innumerable little perceptions and little inclinations of which we cannot be conscious. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715 §2) | |
A reaction: I think this is a wonderfully accurate report of how the mind is, in comparison with the much more simplistic views presented by most philosophers of that era. And so much understanding flows from Leibniz's account. |
22075 | Only idealism has given us the genuine concept of freedom [Schelling] |
Full Idea: Until the discovery of idealism, the genuine concept of freedom has been missing from every modern system, whether it be that of Leibniz or of Spinoza. | |
From: Friedrich Schelling (Of Human Freedom [1809], p.345), quoted by Jean-François Courtine - Schelling p.87 | |
A reaction: Spinoza denied free will, and Leibniz fudged it. Evidently more medieval theological accounts were not good enough. I presume Fichte is Schelling's hero, and he seems to see freedom as axiomatic about the Self. |
19415 | Passions reside in confused perceptions [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: The passions of monads reside in their confused perceptions. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715) | |
A reaction: He thinks perceptions come in degrees of confusion, all the way up to God, who alone has fully clear perceptions. He blames in on these confused perceptions. |
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? |
19439 | God produces possibilities, and thus ideas [Leibniz] |
Full Idea: God is the source of possibilities and consequently of ideas. | |
From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Remond de Montmort [1715], 1715 §8) | |
A reaction: A wonderfully individual conception of the nature of God. He produces the possibilities from which creation is chosen, and ideas and concepts are of everything which is non-contradictory, and thus possible. It all makes lovely sense! |