Combining Texts

All the ideas for 'fragments/reports', 'Interview with Baggini and Stangroom' and 'Letters to Thomasius'

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6 ideas

9. Objects / D. Essence of Objects / 1. Essences of Objects

13432	The essence of a circle is the equality of its radii [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: The essence of a circle consists in the equality of all lines drawn from its centre to its circumference.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669)
	A reaction: Compare Locke in Idea 13431 and Spinoza in Idea 13073 on the essence of geometrical figures. A key question is whether the essence is in the simplest definition, or in a complex and wide-ranging account, e.g. including conic sections for circles.

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?

22. Metaethics / B. Value / 2. Values / e. Death

6866	It is disturbing if we become unreal when we die, but if time is unreal, then we remain real after death [Le Poidevin]
	Full Idea: For the A-theorists called 'presentists' the past is as unreal as the future, and reality leaves us behind once we die, which is disturbing; but B-theorists, who see time as unreal, say we are just as real after our deaths as we were beforehand.
	From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174)
	A reaction: See Idea 6865 for A and B theories. I wonder if this problem is only superficially 'disturbing'. Becoming unreal may sound more drastic than becoming dead, but they both sound pretty terminal to me.

23. Ethics / F. Existentialism / 1. Existentialism

6867	Existentialism focuses on freedom and self-making, and insertion into the world [Le Poidevin]
	Full Idea: I take existentialism to be the focus on the freedom and self-making of the human being, and his or her insertion into the world.
	From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.222)
	A reaction: I take 'self-making' to be the key here. If neuroscientists somehow 'proved' that there was no free will, I don't see that making any difference to existentialism. 'Insertion' seems odd, unless it refers to growing up.

27. Natural Reality / A. Classical Physics / 1. Mechanics / a. Explaining movement

12696	Bodies are recreated in motion, and don't exist in intervening instants [Leibniz]
	Full Idea: I have demonstrated that whatever moves is continuously created and that bodies are nothing at any time between the instants in motion.
	From: Gottfried Leibniz (Letters to Thomasius [1669], 1669.04), quoted by Daniel Garber - Leibniz:Body,Substance,Monad 1
	A reaction: Leibniz is a little over-confident about what he has 'demonstrated', but I think (from this remark) that he would not have been displeased with quantum theory, and the notion of a 'quantum leap' and a 'Planck time'. A 'conatus' is a 'smallest motion'.

27. Natural Reality / D. Time / 2. Passage of Time / d. Time series

6865	A-theory says past, present, future and flow exist; B-theory says this just reports our perspective [Le Poidevin]
	Full Idea: The A-theory regards our intuitive distinction of time into past, present and future as objective, and takes seriously the idea that time flows; the B-theory says this just reflects our perspective, like the spatial distinction between here and there.
	From: Robin Le Poidevin (Interview with Baggini and Stangroom [2001], p.174)
	A reaction: The distinction comes from McTaggart. Physics seems to be built on an objective view of time, and yet Einstein makes time relative. What possible evidence could decide between the two theories?