Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'De Natura Corporis' and 'Experience First (and reply)'

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5 ideas

8. Modes of Existence / C. Powers and Dispositions / 2. Powers as Basic

12710	As well as extension, bodies contain powers [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: Over and above what can be deduced from extension, we must add and recognise in bodies certain notions or forms that are immaterial, so to speak, or independent of extension, which you can call powers [potentia], by which speed is adjusted to magnitude.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (De Natura Corporis [1678], A6.4.1980), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 3
	A reaction: He boldly asserts that the powers are 'immaterial', but is then forced to qualify it (as he often does) with 'so to speak'. The notion that bodies just have extension (occupy space) comes from Descartes, and is firmly opposed by Leibniz.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 2. Understanding

19542	It is nonsense that understanding does not involve knowledge; to understand, you must know [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: The proposition that understanding does not involve knowledge is widespread (for example, in discussions of what philosophy aims at), but hardly withstands scrutiny. If you do not know how a jet engine works, you do not understand how it works.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.24)
	A reaction: This seems a bit disingenuous. As in 'Theaetetus', knowing the million parts of a jet engine is not to understand it. More strongly - how could knowledge of an infinity of separate propositional truths amount to understanding on their own?

19543	To grasp understanding, we should be more explicit about what needs to be known [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: An essential prerequisite for useful discussion of the relation between knowledge and understanding is systematic explicitness about what is to be known or understood.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.25)
	A reaction: This is better. I say what needs to be known for understanding is the essence of the item under discussion (my PhD thesis!). Obviously understanding needs some knowledge, but I take it that epistemology should be understanding-first. That is the main aim.

11. Knowledge Aims / A. Knowledge / 7. Knowledge First

19541	Rather than knowledge, our epistemic aim may be mere true belief, or else understanding and wisdom [Dougherty/Rysiew]
	Full Idea: If we say our cognitive aim is to get knowledge, the opposing views are the naturalistic view that what matters is just true belief (or just 'getting by'), or that there are rival epistemic goods such as understanding and wisdom.
	From: Dougherty,T/Rysiew,P (Experience First (and reply) [2014], p.17)
	A reaction: [compressed summary] I'm a fan of understanding. The accumulation of propositional knowledge would relish knowing the mass of every grain of sand on a beach. If you say the propositions should be 'important', other values are invoked.

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?