13099
|
Analysing right down to primitive concepts seems beyond our powers [Leibniz]
|
|
Full Idea:
An analysis of concepts such that we can reach primitive concepts...does not seem to be within human power.
|
|
From:
Gottfried Leibniz (Introduction to a Secret Encyclopaedia [1679], C513-14), quoted by Cover,J/O'Leary-Hawthorne,J - Substance and Individuation in Leibniz
|
|
A reaction:
Leibniz is nevertheless fully committed, I think, to the existence of such primitives, and is in the grip of the rationalist dream that thoughts can become completely clear, and completely well-founded.
|
6215
|
'Contingent' means that the cause is unperceived, not that there is no cause [Hobbes]
|
|
Full Idea:
For contingent, men do not mean that which hath no cause, but that which hath not for cause any thing that we perceive, as when a traveller meets a shower, they both had sufficient causes, but they didn't cause one another, so we say it was contingent.
|
|
From:
Thomas Hobbes (Of Liberty and Necessity [1654], §95)
|
|
A reaction:
Contingent nowadays means 'might not have happened', or 'does not happen in all possible worlds'. Personally I share Hobbes' doubts about the concept of contingency, and this is quite a good account of the misunderstanding.
|