Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Letters to Remond de Montmort' and 'Protocol Sentences'

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7 ideas

10. Modality / C. Sources of Modality / 2. Necessity as Primitive
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.
13. Knowledge Criteria / B. Internal Justification / 4. Foundationalism / f. Foundationalism critique
If we are rebuilding our ship at sea, we should jettison some cargo [Boolos on Neurath]
     Full Idea: If we are sailors rebuilding our ship plank by plank on the open sea, then I know of some cargo we might want to jettison.
     From: comment on Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]) by George Boolos - Must We Believe in Set Theory? p.128
     A reaction: This may just be an assertion of Ockham's Razor, but the interest is that the Neurath image demands internal standards of economy etc, whereas reality itself seems to be a right mess.
We must always rebuild our ship on the open sea; we can't reconstruct it properly in dry-dock [Neurath]
     Full Idea: We are like sailors who must rebuild their ship out on the open sea, never able to dismantle it in a dry-dock and reconstruct it there out of the best materials.
     From: Otto Neurath (Protocol Sentences [1932]), quoted by Alex Orenstein - W.V. Quine Ch.8
     A reaction: This is the classic statement of the anti-foundationalist picture of knowledge. It is often quoted by Quine. A tricky issue. I have a lot of sympathy with Bonjour's rationalist foundationalism.
15. Nature of Minds / B. Features of Minds / 1. Consciousness / c. Parts of consciousness
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.
18. Thought / A. Modes of Thought / 3. Emotions / c. Role of emotions
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.
21. Aesthetics / C. Artistic Issues / 7. Art and Morality
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?
28. God / A. Divine Nature / 2. Divine Nature
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!